Bob Dylan demos, early mono albums on the way

Columbia Records is wrapping up a trove of early Bob Dylan recordings that will surface in time for the holidays, among them 47 early demo recordings by the fabled singer-songwriter that previously had never been officially released. The other major component of the two-pronged release slated for Oct. 19 is  “Bob Dylan – The Original Mono Recordings,” consisting of the monaural mixes of his first eight studio albums, from “Bob Dylan” through 1967’s “John Wesley Harding.”

Recordings known as “The Witmark Demos,” recorded from 1962-64 for Dylan’s first two music publishers, will make up Volume 9 in the ongoing “Bootleg Series” of archival releases.  They feature Dylan alone playing guitar and harmonica, and some piano, on such watershed songs as “Blowin’ in the Wind,” “The Times They Are A-Changin’,” “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right” and “Mr. Tambourine Man” as well as 15 numbers that never subsequently surfaced on his studio albums, including “Ballad for a Friend,” “Long Ago, Far Away” and “The Ballad of Emmett Till."

The mono box set, akin to “The Beatles in Mono” released last year, is being issued because those early albums were originally intended by Dylan to be released in that format, which was the dominant medium at a time when stereo recording was still young. Critic and author Greil Marcus writes the essay accompanying the box set, which also includes “The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan,” “The Times They Are A-Changin’," “Another Side of Bob Dylan,” “Bringing It All Back Home,” “Highway 61 Revisited” and “Blonde on Blonde.”

-- Randy Lewis

Album cover credit: Columbia Records

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Comments

[Laszlo Jakabfi]

Dylan's Tomorrow Is a Long Time was covered by Elvis in 1966, doing a great job of this gloomy song.

[Big Dude]

" It's all right Ma'...I'm only bleedin'...

[Mike]

I have to laugh at the "the way the albums were intended to be heard". Does anyone think Dylan actually cares about this kind of stuff? He would leave the studio as soon as he was done recording.

I don't think this will be as big a deal as The Beatles Mono Box because

1.) As mentioned above, I doubt Dylan was too involved with the mixing process the way The Beatles were with their mono mixes.

2.) The Beatles were much more musically interesting than Dylan. Not a knock on Dylan, he's my favorite but he's more about the words.

3.) Dylan's stereo mixes aren't bad at all. The Beatles had a lot of very frustrating stereo mixes with hard panning. The only one of these Dylan albums that doesn't sound good on the current stereo CD is John Wesley Harding. Though some may have mixing preferences, the rest of the stereo albums all sound good which cannot be said for a lot of The Beatles' stereo mixes. At least Dylan's voice is centered on all the stereo mixes.

I like seeing releases geared towards the hardcore fan, and this one is. I just wish these were available separately too. The only one I would get is John Wesley Harding. Then maybe if I had money to burn, I'd check out Highway 61 and Blonde On Blonde.