''Invisible Republic: Bob Dylan's Basement Tapes'' (1997) is a book by

music critic '' The Oxford Companion to Music'' defines music criticism as "the intellectual activity of formulating judgments on the value and degree of excellence of individual works of music, or whole groups or genres". In this sense, it is a branch of m ...

Greil Marcus Greil Marcus (né Gerstley; born June 19, 1945) is an American author, music journalist and cultural critic. He is notable for producing scholarly and literary essays that place rock music in a broader framework of culture and politics. Biogra ...

(born 1945) about the creation and cultural importance of ''

The Basement Tapes ''The Basement Tapes'' is the sixteenth album by the American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan and his second with the Band. It was released on June 26, 1975, by Columbia Records. Two-thirds of the album's 24 tracks feature Dylan on lead vocals backed ...

'', a series of recordings made by

Bob Dylan Bob Dylan (legally Robert Dylan; born Robert Allen Zimmerman, May 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter. Described as one of the greatest songwriters of all time, Dylan has been a major figure in popular culture over his nearly 70-year ...

in 1967 in collaboration with the Hawks, who would subsequently become known as

the Band The Band was a Canadian-American rock music, rock band formed in Toronto, Ontario, in 1957. It consisted of the Canadians Rick Danko (bass, guitar, vocals, fiddle), Garth Hudson (organ, keyboards, accordion, saxophone), Richard Manuel (piano, d ...

. In 2001,

Picador A ''picador'' (; pl. ''picadores'') is one of the pair of horse-mounted bullfighters in a Spanish-style bullfight that jab the bull with a lance. They perform in the ''tercio de varas'', which is the first of the three stages in a stylized bull ...

reissued the book under the title ''The Old, Weird America'', a term coined by Marcus to describe the often eerie

country A country is a distinct part of the world, such as a state, nation, or other political entity. When referring to a specific polity, the term "country" may refer to a sovereign state, state with limited recognition, constituent country, ...

blues Blues is a music genre and musical form that originated among African Americans in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues has incorporated spiritual (music), spirituals, work songs, field hollers, Ring shout, shouts, cha ...

, and

folk music Folk music is a music genre that includes #Traditional folk music, traditional folk music and the Contemporary folk music, contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be ca ...

featured on the 1952 ''

Anthology of American Folk Music ''Anthology of American Folk Music'' is a three-volume compilation album released in August 1952 by Folkways Records. The album was compiled by experimental filmmaker Harry Smith from his own personal collection of 78 rpm records. It consists ...

''. In his opinion, the sensibility of ''Anthology'' is reflected by the ''Basement Tapes'' recordings. The term has been revived via the

musical genre A music genre is a conventional category that identifies some pieces of music as belonging to a shared tradition or set of conventions. Genre is to be distinguished from musical form and musical style, although in practice these terms are sometim ...

called

New Weird America New Weird America is a 21st-century style of music that primarily draws on psychedelic and folk music of the 1960s and 1970s. Etymology The term was coined by David Keenan in the issue 234 (August 2003) of ''The Wire'', following the Brattleb ...

Content

Marcus quotes

Robbie Robertson Jaime Royal Robertson (July 5, 1943 – August 9, 2023) was a Canadian musician of Indigenous and Jewish ancestry. He was the lead guitarist for Bob Dylan's backing band in the mid-late 1960s and early-mid 1970s. Robertson was also the ...

’s memories of recording the ''Basement Tapes'': " ylanwould pull these songs out of nowhere. We didn't know if he wrote them or if he remembered them. When he sang them, you couldn't tell." Marcus called these songs "palavers with a community of ghosts." He suggests that "these ghosts were not abstractions. As native sons and daughters they were a community. And they were once gathered in a single place: on the ''Anthology of American Folk Music'', a work produced by a 29-year-old of no fixed address named Harry Smith."Marcus, p. 87 Marcus argues Dylan's basement songs were a resurrection of the spirit of ''Anthology'', originally published by

Folkways Records Folkways Records was a record label founded by Moses Asch that documented folk, world, and children's music. It was acquired by the Smithsonian Institution in 1987 and is now part of Smithsonian Folkways. History The Folkways Records & Service ...

in 1952, a collection of blues and country songs recorded in the 1920s and 1930s, which proved very influential in the folk revival of the 1950s and 1960s. ''Anthology'', initially titled ''American Folk Music'', was reissued by

Smithsonian Folkways Smithsonian Folkways is the nonprofit record label of the Smithsonian Institution. It is a part of the Smithsonian's Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, located at Capital Gallery in downtown Washington, D.C. The label was f ...

as a

box set A boxed set or (its US name) box set is a set of items (for example, a compilation of books, musical recordings, films or television programs) traditionally packaged in a box, hence 'boxed', and offered for sale as a single unit. Music Artists ...

compact disc The compact disc (CD) is a Digital media, digital optical disc data storage format co-developed by Philips and Sony to store and play digital audio recordings. It employs the Compact Disc Digital Audio (CD-DA) standard and was capable of hol ...

in the same year as the book's publication, with portions of the book excerpted as

liner notes Liner notes (also sleeve notes or album notes) are the writings found on the sleeves of LP record albums and in booklets that come inserted into the compact disc jewel case or cassette j-cards. Origin Liner notes are descended from the prog ...

. Marcus links the

First Great Awakening The First Great Awakening, sometimes Great Awakening or the Evangelical Revival, was a series of Christian revivals that swept Britain and its thirteen North American colonies in the 1730s and 1740s. The revival movement permanently affected Pro ...

, the folk music revival of the 1950s, the Civil Rights Movement and the Battle of Matewan in

West Virginia West Virginia is a mountainous U.S. state, state in the Southern United States, Southern and Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States.The United States Census Bureau, Census Bureau and the Association of American ...

with Bob Dylan's 1966 tour with the Hawks.

Notes

Books about Bob Dylan Books about rock music 1997 non-fiction books Henry Holt and Company books {{music-publication-stub