Welcome back! We're rare, ready, and rarin' to go! Last weekend I acquired several discs of documentaries produced for radio by Sony Music to promote various archival releases, and I'll be posting them here. As the title says, these are hour-long documentaries, and are specifically the 59:00 versions produced for non-commerical radio, as opposed to other versions for commercial stations, which must have been edited further to leave room for ads.
Starting off, the item I was most excited to get ahold of is this 4-disc collection released to radio in 2007 to promote the compilation simply titled Dylan
. The programs are hosted by the great Patti Smith, and feature interviews with the likes of Dylan cohorts Bob Neuwirth, Suze Rotolo, Dave Van Ronk, Roger McGuinn, and others; critics and historians such as Greil Marcus, Bill Flanagan, and Anthony DeCurtis; and musicians including John Hiatt, singer-songwriter Josh Ritter, and Rage Against The Machine guitarist Tom Morello.
These four shows bear some resemblance to podcasts that were made available on iTunes around the time of that release, but those installments were shorter than the documentaries here. Each show covers a different period of Bob's career, as suggested by their individual titles: Blowin' in the Wind, Like a Rolling Stone, Shelter from the Storm, and Oh Mercy.
In this first post, I'm sharing the first two of those parts. Each disc contains one 59-minute special, broken into three segments which are divided by minute-long music breaks, as well as an episode-specific 30-second promo and another promo for the series as a whole. This latter spot is identical through all four discs, so I've only included it as part of the first disc's download.
These are my first RAR files I've posted here, as opposed to ZIPs, and I hope everyone knows what to do with 'em! If not, you'll need to web search for a program called RAR Expander. I hope y'all enjoy these, and stay tuned for the next post featuring the other two parts. Following that, we'll offer similar documentaries on Dennis Wilson, Bruce Springsteen, Willie Nelson, and more!
Links in comments; if you take one, why not leave one?
. Thanks to springsteenlyrics.com for the scans I've borrowed of the packaging -- which, it should be noted, picture the 54-minute version produced for commercial radio; the special archived here is the 59-minute one made available to non-commerical stations, which consists of one track of the entire special, divided into segments with music breaks, followed by two promos for the program. Perhaps I'll substitute a scan of the appropriate cover when I have time. 
