Maggie's Farm

"never intended for release practice Basement Tapes from the garage at Big Pink outside Woodstock"

Here's how I think they were released.

In 1968 I was living in London and hanging out with rock groups and their staff such as the Who, Stones, etc.

Just before I went back to the US, I was at some recording studio and a tech there had a set of tapes that were, indeed, the Basement Tapes.

I asked for a got a dub of these tapes (two boxes, 8 inch reels, yellow cover).

I took these with me back to New York in the winter of 68 and then made my way back to my old stomping grounds in Berkeley.

One of my pals around the campus then was Griel Marcus, a guy who was just starting to make a name for himself. I took the tapes over to his house and we got stoned and listened to them. Griel borrowed them for a dub. I think he wrote about them and passed the tapes on.

And then it just grew.

Might have come through some other vector, but that's the one I know about.