Bob Dylan is one of the most heavily bootlegged artists of all-time. So much so that his record label began a Bootleg Series in 1991. However, there is always more and maybe in time all these recordings will have an official release.
For now, I am unaware that any of these tracks are available commercially. As I am unaware of many things.
10) "Folsom Prison Blues": Out there in the world are collections of the "Basement Tapes" that include a lot more than what made it to the 1975 album. Back in 1967, Bob Dylan and the Band tried just about any song they could vaguely remember. This cover of Johnny Cash's "Folsom Prison Blues" is so enjoyably loose that you either wish Bob had tried another twenty from Cash's catalog or kept doing this one taking another shot after each take.
9) "Spuriously Seventeen Windows (The Painting By Van Gogh)": This unnamed song Bob worked on in a Denver hotel room in March 1966 allows bootleggers the chance to give it its own title. Considering what Dylan was naming songs at that time, why not?
8) "Blind Willie McTell" (full band): The piano version is on the first Bootleg Series box. It's arguably the best version of the song. However, this electric version, with Dylan bumping into the mic at the very beginning, features, uh, Dylan bumping into the mic at the very beginning!
7) "Medicine Sunday": A full version of this song was cut in Nashville as "Temporary Like Achilles" and appears on Blonde on Blonde. But this fragment, recorded around the time of Highway 61 Revisited, is far more focused, with an electric guitar that slashes and mashes. In less than two minutes, Dylan proves to be better than many bands' entire albums.
6) "I Don't Hurt Anymore": This 1954 hit for Hank Snow got a great performance out of Bob Dylan and the Band in the basement of that house in West Saugerties, NY. Dylan doesn't sing the lyrics so much as bite them off. If you drink this much, you won't hurt anymore either.
5) "Lost Highway": One has to wonder if there isn't a complete version of this Hank Williams song sitting in filmmaker D.A. Pennebaker's vaults. (Or is it on the Anniversary edition of Don't Look Back?) Only a brief snippet of young Bob chewing up this tune is shown in the film. Just the way he sings, "neither good nor BAD, just a kid like you" is enough to prove he's been touched by the X factor. Dylan can't sing? No, you can't hear!
4) "New Danville Girl": This track is pretty easy to find. It's the earlier version of "Brownsville Girl," co-written by playwright Sam Shepard, where the girl is from New Danville instead of Brownsville and other great revelations.
3) "I Can't Leave Her Behind": This song shown in the unreleased film, Eat the Document, with Dylan and Robbie Robertson playing just a snippet was covered on the soundtrack of the movie I'm Not There, with Stephen Malkmus and Lee Ranaldo doing their best to capture the song's angelic feel. We still need the original since Malkmus can't sing with the necessary emotion and we really like Dylan songs because of Dylan.
2) "She's Your Lover Now" (solo piano): The electric version appears on that Bootleg Series where it breaks down in the fourth and final verse. This solo piano version features the entire song and is sung with so many emotions swirling that it's among Bob's best performances. The part where he's tuning up his voice in the beginning is as good as the song.
1) "Idiot Wind" (alternate slow version): While there is a great slow version of this tune on The Bootleg Series, there's an even better version lurking out there where Dylan sings it slightly different and the organ does a few magical fills. For those accustomed to the harsh version on Blood On the Tracks, the slow, acoustic versions are an entirely new lesson in subtlety. Even Allen Ginsberg thinks so.