What’s old is new on Dylan’s ‘No Direction’

For the first few seconds, it sounds like a tape that could be found in the attic of any former teenager who owned an acoustic guitar.

A voice mutters “OK, start,” and a few simple chords follow, immersed in a bed of hiss and slight distortion. And then the words arrive – “Well, I got troubles, troubles on my mind” – delivered in a hesitant, yet familiar, hush.

But this isn’t just any teenager with a guitar. It’s Bob Dylan, on the new double CD “No Direction Home: The Soundtrack,” which opens with a 90-second folk/blues number recorded in 1959. It’s believed to be Dylan’s earliest recorded original piece of music.

And it’s just the first of 26 previously unreleased tracks found on the compilation, which landed in stores Tuesday.

It serves as both the soundtrack for Martin Scorsese’s hotly anticipated Dylan documentary (airing on PBS Sept. 26 and 27 and arriving on DVD Sept. 20) and the seventh volume of Dylan’s ongoing “Bootleg Series.”

What’s most amazing about “No Direction Home” is that Dylan and Columbia Records have allowed some of this material – which includes alternate takes and live cuts, sometimes in radically different arrangements – to remain unheard for so long.

Dylan’s vaults first opened 30 years ago when he issued “The Basement Tapes,” selections from his 1967 recording sessions with the Band. The pioneering boxed set “Biograph” followed a decade later (the career overview interspersed rare cuts with his best-known material).

Another box, the first “Bootleg Series” offering, debuted in 1991 with three discs devoted exclusively to unreleased Dylan. Three more volumes of the “Bootleg Series” have been issued, each documenting a key live era from his career (Dylan at the Philharmonic in 1964, going electric in front of startled Brits two years later and enlisting an all-star cast for his Rolling Thunder Revue from 1975).

One might think the A-list material is running out. But that’s not the case at all.

“No Direction Home” focuses on Dylan’s fruitful first years as a performer, starting with the aforementioned home recording and winding its way through his days in Minneapolis and his early recording sessions in New York and Nashville.

It ends with his ferocious live tear through “Like a Rolling Stone,” Dylan’s response to the infamous howl of “Judas” from an audience member horrified by the presence of an electric guitar. (That track is one of only two on the collection that’s also available elsewhere.)

The package features some gems, like a 1960 live recording of the folk standard “Wagoner’s Lad” (dubbed “Rambler, Gambler” here) and a pair of 1961 tracks recorded live in Minneapolis by Tony Glover. They’ve long been known in underground circles from the “Minneapolis Hotel Tapes” but are presented here in the best-ever sound quality.

Other highlights include the first complete studio take of “Mr. Tambourine Man” (the live Newport Folk Festival version from 1964 is a focal point of the documentary) and some eye-opening selections from the recording sessions for “Highway 61 Revisited” (“Tombstone Blues,” “Desolation Row”) and “Blonde on Blonde” (“Visions of Johanna” and a slowed-down “Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat”).

The “No Direction Home” soundtrack and the impending documentary are just part of a flood of new Dylan products.

Starbucks is exclusively carrying the 10-track “Bob Dylan: Live at the Gaslight 1962” (coffee haters will have to wait 18 months until it’s available from traditional retailers), and Simon & Schuster has “The Bob Dylan Scrapbook: 1956-1966” due in stores Oct. 1.

Also, keep an eye out for the September issue of the British music magazine Mojo. Its editors asked dozens of musicians – from Paul McCartney and Robert Plant to Bono and Beck – to vote on their favorite Dylan songs.

The fascinating results – and other features, like a rare 2004 interview with Dylan reprinted from the Los Angeles Times – fill 30 pages of the issue. It comes with a free, cover-mounted CD of Dylan cover versions.