In the beginning

Welcome

Words and Numbers by The Band

Bootleg recording

Starting with a bit of background, A Tree With Roots comes from Dylan and The Band's summer recording sessions in the basement of the Big Pink, which The Band was renting for the summer. Originally, their intent was to shoot further scenes for the recently finished documentary Eat the Document, but their views soon moved to music. When the sessions were over, sometime in October 1967, Dylan and The Band had recorded well over one hundred tracks, many of which were traditional ballads or folk tunes. This is generally considered Dylan's most productive songwriting period, with many of the tracks composing the "Basement Tapes" being written by him. These recordings formed the basis of the album by Dylan and The Band, The Basement Tapes, released on Columbia Records in June 1975.

The Big Pink House

During his world tour of 1965–66, Dylan was backed by a five-member rock group, the Hawks, who would subsequently become famous as the Band. After Dylan was injured in a motorcycle accident in July 1966, the Hawks' members gravitated to the vicinity of Dylan's home in the Woodstock area to collaborate with him on music and film projects. While Dylan was concealed from the public's gaze during an extended period of convalescence in 1967, they recorded more than 100 tracks together, comprising original compositions, contemporary covers and traditional material.

The music was really not originally intended for general release, the recordings, made on a consumer-quality Ampex quarter-track machine with two microphones set up for "dual mono", made a virtue of their flaws; with their asides, laughter and unselfconscious looseness, they defined the authenticity of the lo-fi experience. As a historical matter, in the years between the production and the official release, the popularity of these particular recordings also created the first market for pop bootleg records, which as a listening experience came to include seemingly every scrap of certain rock artists' off-the-cuff and unreleased work, including home recordings.