Invisible Republic
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Invisible Republic, fully entitled Invisible Republic Bob Dylan's Basement Tapes by author Greil Marcus, is a treatise on the creation and cultural importance of The Basement Tapes, a series of recordings by Bob Dylan made during 1967 in collaboration with musicians who would subsequently be known as The Band. Published by Henry Holt, New York in 1997, ISBN 0-8050-5842-7. Subsequently re-published and re-titled as The Old, Weird America by same publisher in 2001.
The new title significantly derives from the name of one of the chapters in the book devoted to analysis of the Anthology of American Folk Music compiled by Harry Smith, reissued by Smithsonian Folkways on compact disc in the same year as the initial publication, with portions of the chapter excerpted in the new liner notes. Much of Marcus' thesis regarding the Basement Tapes involves linkage to this work, Dylan and company resurrecting the spirit of the Anthology recordings from the late 1920s and early 1930s of songs already at least decades old at the time. Linkages also include the First Great Awakening, the folk music revival of the 1950s, Dylan's 1966 tour with the same backing musicians, the Civil Rights Movement, and the history of coal strikes in West Virginia.
