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Bob Dylan’s coffeehouse-era Bootleg Series is already out: The Bootleg Series Vol. 18: Through The Open Window, 1956–1963 was released on October 31, 2025. Columbia Records and Legacy Recordings assembled recordings tracing Dylan’s path from Minnesota to Greenwich Village, ending with the complete recording of his October 26, 1963 Carnegie Hall concert.
What Through The Open Window documents
Rather than presenting only polished studio work, the collection draws on Columbia outtakes and recordings made in clubs, informal gatherings, friends’ apartments, and musicians’ hangouts. Its span, 1956–1963, follows Dylan’s emergence and artistic development from his Minnesota years into the early-1960s Greenwich Village scene.
The set closes with the complete Carnegie Hall concert recorded on October 26, 1963, according to the official Bob Dylan announcement. The release presents that performance as its chronological culmination, not as a standalone later concert collection.
Which editions are available?
| Edition | Contents | Best understood as |
|---|---|---|
| 8CD deluxe | 139 tracks, including 48 never-before-released performances and 38 super-rare cuts; hardcover book, more than 100 rare photographs, and a 125-page liner-notes essay by author and historian Sean Wilentz. | The full collection and its accompanying historical materials. |
| 2CD highlight edition | 42 selected tracks. | A shorter selection from the larger program. |
| 4LP highlight edition | 42 selected tracks. | The same stated track count as the 2CD highlights, in an LP edition. |
These track counts and format details come from the 2025 announcements by The Official Bob Dylan Site and Sony Music Canada. The announcements establish the editions’ contents, but not current prices, stock, or a universally preferable format. The official materials also identify “Rocks and Gravel” as a preview track.
#1 Best Overall
How to read the collection’s historical framing
Wilentz describes the set as “just a fragment” of that time and those places. He says it aims to connect past and present as an account of “an artist becoming himself—or in Dylan’s case, his first of many artistic selves.” That is the historian’s framing in the release notes, rather than an independent critical verdict.
The official announcement calls the collection “a unique account of Dylan’s early years”; that phrase is promotional language. The more concrete case for the set is its juxtaposition of studio outtakes with recordings from performance and social settings, capped by the Carnegie Hall concert.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Is this the same as the 2026 Rolling Thunder release?
No. The coffeehouse-era set is Bootleg Series Vol. 18, released in 2025. A separate archival release, The Rolling Thunder Revue: The 1976 Live Recordings, was announced for November 6, 2026. It covers the second leg of Dylan’s 1976 tour and is not identified in the announcement as a Bootleg Series volume.
The 2026 announcement describes a 39-CD set with 381 tracks in total, 371 of them never previously released, as well as a separate 3LP edition of the complete May 16, 1976 Fort Worth show. Those details concern the later Rolling Thunder release, not Through The Open Window; see the official announcement.
Quick Recap
Rank #4
- Bob Dylan Limited Deluxe Edition
- The Basement Tapes Complete
- The Bootleg Series Vol 11
Rank #3
- Bob Dylan- Travelin' Thru: The Bootleg Series Vol 15
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