Before the Flood (album)

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Before the Flood is a live album by Bob Dylan and the Band, released on June 20, 1974. It documents their 1974 American tour and runs 92 minutes and 26 seconds. The album was released by Asylum Records in the United States and Island Records in the United Kingdom, and was produced by Bob Dylan and the Band.

Recording for the album took place during several concerts in early 1974. Most of the material comes from three Los Angeles Forum performances on February 13 and 14, with one track, “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door,” taken from a New York show at Madison Square Garden on January 30. Ten planned sessions across New York, Seattle, Oakland, and Los Angeles were originally intended, but the final record mainly uses the Los Angeles performances.

The album’s title is thought to derive from the novel Farn Mabul by Sholem Asch, reflecting Dylan’s connection to Moses Asch, founder of Folkways Records. Before the Flood followed the studio album Planet Waves, recorded before the tour. The closing track, “Wedding Song,” includes the line “We can’t regain what went down in the flood.” The tour’s setlists did not heavily populate the album, and none of the songs are represented in full as they appeared live during the tour. After the release, Dylan signed with Columbia Records for his next studio album, Blood on the Tracks, while the Band continued with Capitol Records. The album has been reissued by Columbia, and a 2009 remastered edition was released by Legacy Recordings/Columbia.

In terms of reception, contemporary critics were mixed to positive. Robert Christgau praised the record in Creem, calling it intense and powerful, while Rolling Stone offered a more mixed assessment of the arrangements. The album ranked highly in year-end polls, and has since been described by critics as epochal or one of the best live albums of its era, though Dylan later said he viewed the tour as overblown. Some modern critics consider it a worthy but not essential entry in Dylan’s catalog compared with other live releases.

Track details: All songs are written by Bob Dylan except where noted. Sides one and four feature Dylan backed by the Band; side two and tracks four through six on side three are performed by the Band; tracks one through three on side three are Dylan solo. “Blowin’ in the Wind” is a splice of two different performances.