Background: Late winter/early spring 1964, following the release of The Times They are A-Changin’ in January, are busy months for Dylan. He introduces the stunning Chimes of Freedom at a Denver concert in February. His relationship with Suze Rotolo comes to an end in March (said to be documented in Ballad in Plain D). With a friend he drives cross- country. During the summer (after recording the tracks that will comprise this album) he writes the poems that will be published under the title “Some Other Kind of Songs” as liner notes to this album. In July he is billed as a major performer at the Newport Folk Festival where he introduces several songs that will appear on this album as well as Mr. Tambourine Man. These performances—including a duet of With God on Our Side with Joan Baez do not meet with the adoring acceptance of previous Newport appearances. (The following year his short set at this event will incite Dylan’s ousting by the folk community.)
The Recording: The history of this recording is, no doubt, a contributing factor to the legend regarding brief amount of time Dylan spends in the studio compared to other performers. The entire album, along with several songs that are not released at the time, was recorded during a single, 3 hour session according to CBS records. With Tom Wilson once again at the helm (and visible in one of the photos in the 2003 re-release’s booklet), two songs (To Ramona and All I Really Want to Do) were recorded in one take. Standouts in my 2007 playback are Spanish Harlem Incident, Chimes of Freedom, To Ramona, My Back Pages, and I Don’t Believe You (She Acts Like We Never Have Met). (As with the previous albums, I think that the overexposure to All I Really Want to Do and It Ain’t Me Babe over the years takes away what would have been their original impact to the 1964 listener. Overall, I was conscious of the less-than-perfect renditions of many of the tracks, particularly the slurring of words and lackluster guitar accompaniments. On the other hand, his guitar has a lively calypso feel on I Don’t Believe You (She Acts Like We Never Have Met). There is no additional instrumental support on any of these tracks, but Dylan does play piano rather than guitar on Black Crow Blues (probably my least favorite track). Ballad in Plain D is heart-wrenching and foreshadows his future use of song to explore the pain of love gone wrong that reaches its epitome in Blood on the Tracks more than a decade hence.
Conclusion: My perception of this album is that Dylan had written a slew of new songs and Columbia was anxious to get them on vinyl. He and Tom Wilson spent a few hours recording them without being overly critical, knowing that Dylan’s fans were not expecting Andy Williams or Johnny Mathis. There are, of course, great songs here that he’s still playing today, but they, for the most part, remain unpolished in this recording. (Dylan has said that many of these early recordings were really meant as demos.) One never knows what choices are made in the name of marketing by large corporations such as Columbia Records. With that said, it’s still a thrill to hear some of these songs, especially My Back Pages, in their original form—his young, innocent sound in contradiction to the wisdom of his words.
The Recording: The history of this recording is, no doubt, a contributing factor to the legend regarding brief amount of time Dylan spends in the studio compared to other performers. The entire album, along with several songs that are not released at the time, was recorded during a single, 3 hour session according to CBS records. With Tom Wilson once again at the helm (and visible in one of the photos in the 2003 re-release’s booklet), two songs (To Ramona and All I Really Want to Do) were recorded in one take. Standouts in my 2007 playback are Spanish Harlem Incident, Chimes of Freedom, To Ramona, My Back Pages, and I Don’t Believe You (She Acts Like We Never Have Met). (As with the previous albums, I think that the overexposure to All I Really Want to Do and It Ain’t Me Babe over the years takes away what would have been their original impact to the 1964 listener. Overall, I was conscious of the less-than-perfect renditions of many of the tracks, particularly the slurring of words and lackluster guitar accompaniments. On the other hand, his guitar has a lively calypso feel on I Don’t Believe You (She Acts Like We Never Have Met). There is no additional instrumental support on any of these tracks, but Dylan does play piano rather than guitar on Black Crow Blues (probably my least favorite track). Ballad in Plain D is heart-wrenching and foreshadows his future use of song to explore the pain of love gone wrong that reaches its epitome in Blood on the Tracks more than a decade hence.
Conclusion: My perception of this album is that Dylan had written a slew of new songs and Columbia was anxious to get them on vinyl. He and Tom Wilson spent a few hours recording them without being overly critical, knowing that Dylan’s fans were not expecting Andy Williams or Johnny Mathis. There are, of course, great songs here that he’s still playing today, but they, for the most part, remain unpolished in this recording. (Dylan has said that many of these early recordings were really meant as demos.) One never knows what choices are made in the name of marketing by large corporations such as Columbia Records. With that said, it’s still a thrill to hear some of these songs, especially My Back Pages, in their original form—his young, innocent sound in contradiction to the wisdom of his words.
