Dylan Brews Up Starbucks Deal

Bob Dylan must have a weak spot for coffeehouses.

The folk-rock icon, who got his start plying tunes in Greenwich Village cafes, has become the latest artist to sign a deal with Starbucks for exclusive distribution rights to his new album--which, coincidentally, features some of those same songs he introduced to the boho, espresso-sipping crowds back in the day.

Bob Dylan: Live at the Gaslight 1962 collects songs recorded at Gotham's famed Gaslight Cafe, including early versions of the classics "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall" and "Don't Think Twice, It's Alright," and goes on sale Aug. 30 at Starbucks' 4,600 outlets in the U.S. and Canada for $13.95. The coffee giant will have exclusive rights to the Dylan disc for 18 months before the disc is available at regular retailers--the longest such window that Starbucks has secured yet.

Some Dylan faithful might raise their eyebrows at the former counterculture champion striking a deal with an entity like Starbucks--then again, Dylan's credibility took a hit when he sold a song last year for a Victoria's Secret lingerie commercial and again recently when he agreed to play Amazon.com's 10th anniversary party with fellow Starbucks fave Norah Jones on July 16.

But the move is certain to anger some traditional music sellers, who are already struggling to survive in an age when many music fans prefer to buy music from online outlets like Amazon.com, get direct digital downloads from sites like Apple's iTunes.com or just swap pirated music via file-sharing sites like Grokster and Morpheus.

Earlier this month, HMV pulled Alanis Morissette's albums from its stores in Canada in retaliation for the "Ironic" singer's decision to make her latest disc, an acoustic edition of Jagged Little Pill, exclusively available at Starbucks outlets for the first six weeks of its release.

But for certain artists like Dylan and Morissette, the Seattle-based coffee giant offers a demographically desirable alternative to selling discs via traditional music channels. The caffeine-enabling chain proved it had what it takes to move a substantial amount of CDs when it became the largest single seller of Ray Charles' multiplatinum, Grammy-winning Genius Loves Company; Starbucks accounted for 775,000 copies, or 26 percent, of the disc's total sales last year. In April, Starbucks' Hear Music label teamed up with Warners' Lava Records to launch a new all-female group called Antigone Rising.

Starbucks selectively chooses releases it thinks will gel with its well-heeled customers, then seeks to strike exclusive, sometimes cobranded, deals with record companies to offer customers something unique.

Things don't always go swimmingly, however. In May, the chain failed to lock up a deal to sell Bruce Springsteen's new Devils & Dust--reportedly because the Boss didn't want to slap the Starbucks mermaid logo on his album cover.

Even though the new Dylan disc won't be available outside Starbucks for the next year and a half, fans can still get their fix without having to deal with a green-aproned barrista.

Columbia Records announced Tuesday that No Direction Home: The Soundtrack, the seventh installment in Dylan's Bootleg Series, will be available in regular record stores on Aug. 30. The two-disc set of rare and unreleased material from 1961-66 will also serve as the soundtrack to Martin Scorsese's PBS documentary on Dylan, No Direction Home. The two-part bio will air in late September.