Third Man Vault Celebrates 15 Years with Bob Dylan’s 1974 Live Recordings

How has the Third Man Vault evolved over the past 15 years?

Ben Blackwell: When we started it, we had the idea of a subscription service that was the starting point. My original thought was, we’ve got hundreds of archived White Stripes and Raconteurs live recordings. Basically, every White Stripe show since 2003, every Raconteurs show ever. And I was thinking, that’s a lot of stuff, and we got a decent fan base. It’s not the Dead. It’s not Phish, but I think some people would appreciate the nuance and the differences between these live recordings. 

We started the Vault within three months of starting the label. In terms of the repertoire of what we were going to do, it had veered from exclusively live recordings. Jack [White] had said when we recorded Icky Thump, we should do a separate dedicated mono mix. That was supposed to be put out on CD available in Starbucks, but that got scuttled. It kind of just ended up shelved, and at this point, Icky Thump is only two years old, so it’s still a relatively new record and available on the regular stereo pressing. I was like, ‘We should just press Icky Thump mono.’ That set the tone. 

Also, The Dead Weather had just formed and released their first album. We had two Dead Weather cover songs that we put on a 7-inch, and then we did a t-shirt. I think it was the first Third Man t-shirt we ever did. That felt like a good statement. It’s shocking that we didn’t have any live recordings on that first package, but it followed in subsequent packages. 

We didn’t want it to be Jack’s Vault package, so we added Wanda Jackson, Margo Price, and Karen Elson, and we did The Greenhornes. So we’ve had a couple of packages that had nothing to do with Jack or the White Stripes or any of his bands.

It’s interesting because it’s hard to gauge what Vault members want. You have people who came here for Jack’s stuff. You have other people like, “Hey, I love Jack, but I don’t know if I need another White Stripes live record.” So when we switch it up from Sleep to Captain Beefheart, it feels like we’re trying to balance those two things. We still have enough fuel in the tank to go to a White Stripes live recording every month, and we could probably go for about ten years. But we realize that that’s very easy to exhaust, so we put a lot of effort into finding things that feel like they make sense to share with our subscribers.

How did this latest partnership with Bob Dylan come to be?

We’ve done a Dylan Vault package previously, Springtime in New York. I think that Columbia did the best of the Springtime in New York double LP that hit all the points that they thought were the highlights, and we filled in the rest on our triple LP. It was great working with them, considering this is sacred material. 

Jack has said in interviews that he has three fathers: his biological father, God, and Bob Dylan, so this is something that we treat with extreme reverence. But the amount of trust from Sony is a real boost of confidence. In conjunction with that Vault package, we did a standalone 7-inch of the Dylan song “Blind Willie McTell.” They had a version of that song that wasn’t on the set. They were like, ‘Yeah, we don’t think we’re gonna put it out.’

And we didn’t have “Blind Willie McTell” on the 3xLP version. That was the one thing I said to the A&R rep. I said, “I’ve sat with Jack as he’s performed that song in front of a record store with a crowd of 30 people, and I know his affinity for not only that song but his affinity for Blind Willie McTell himself.” That classic portrait of Blind Willie McTell, Jack owns the original print of that photo.

So I said, ‘I just need to be able to go back and say I did everything I could to get Blind Willie McTell on this Vault package.’ So I asked, ‘What if we just put down on a 7-inch?’

They said, ‘Yeah, we can make that work and we’ve got this unreleased version that’s not going anywhere. We can give you an exclusive.’ I remember getting off that phone call and thinking, “Wait, what happened? We got a standalone, unique Bob Dylan release. Holy shit!”

So we’re in touch with the team, and last year we did a 7-inch that had “Ball and Biscuit” with Bob Dylan that was recorded live in Detroit in 2004. In that conversation about getting approvals and the thumbs up, conversations about this 1974 tour came up. That’s how we got here.

I’ve already talked about having an overwhelming supply of live recordings and no good way to release all of them. I have to support this in every way I can because these are problems that I foresee myself having to deal with down the road. I love the idea of “Here’s everything we recorded in 1974. Have at it.” What more can you ask for as a fan that is super-serving?

How were songs selected for Bob Dylan’s The 1974 Live Recordings: The Missing Songs From Before The Flood?

I’ll be the first person to say I am not the Dylan expert. I will dip my toe into the Steve Hoffman boards and Expecting Rain and have an insane appreciation for the level of detail these fans have. These aren’t people who paid to do research. This isn’t their job. This is passion. I know that I’m not going to be the guy saying, “Yeah, this is the version of ‘Ballad of A Thin Man’ that is the best,” especially when you’ve got guys that have been listening to Before the Flood and audience bootlegs for 50 years.

I’ve only been alive for 42 years. So the construct of the track selection was to focus on tracks that weren’t on Before the Flood. That immediately eliminates tracks. Then, based on the folks on the Sony team and in Dylan’s world, what they wanted to highlight. The performances selected are from their expertise, telling us “These are the ones worth showcasing.”

I’ll be the first person to say I don’t know if the afternoon show in Chicago was the best. These guys, they’ve just dealt with it. I hope someday that my position in terms of White Stripes and Jack White archives is similarly appreciated.