All covers have corner bends and slight spine splits. Discs inside are undamaged.
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TAS Super LP List! Special Merit: InformalNumbered, Limited Edition of Only 3000 Copies!
Original Monaural 180g 45rpm 2LP Pressed at RTI!
Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums of All Time - Rated 337/500!
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Stripped-Back, Unobtrusive 1967 Album a Mellow Return to Dylan's Roots and Harbinger of Country Rock. Hear the Musical Cousin to Dylan and The Band's The Basement Tapes in Extraordinary Fidelity: Transparent 45rpm Edition Mastered on Mobile Fidelity's World-Renowned Mastering System. Includes Original Version of "All Along the Watchtower."
Leave it to Bob Dylan to follow three of the most pioneering electric-based albums in history by again deviating from the norm and straying from expectation. Hinting at a return to his folk roots and firmly pointing toward the field that became country rock, John Wesley Harding breathes with relief and freshness, the sound of an artist re-engaging with the past, forging a future, and stepping into new realms after recovering from an accident and unimaginable pressure.
Mastered on Mobile FidelityÂ’s world-renowned mastering system and pressed at RTI, this restored 45RPM analog version presents the 1967 album with the finite details and impressionistic tones. Immediately notable for the slimmed-down instrumentation, brisk flow, and simple approach, the record continues to endure via a rustic, era-defying naturalism tied to the organic sounds and warm production swathing DylanÂ’s acoustic guitar, mellow voice, breezy harmonica, and minor accompaniments. All of these traits translate with incredible realism and lifelike air on this reissue, which also brings out the low end of Charlie McCoyÂ’s bass with a previously unheard supple character. Wider grooves mean more information reaches your ears.
Recorded around the same time as the sessions that yielded The Basement Tapes, John Wesley Harding came together after just three studio sessions and approximately 12 hours of time. While many specifics are shrouded in mystery, a majority of songs are tied to Biblical figures, ominous matters, and morality themes. Making not just a clear sonic break from his most recent efforts, but a songwriting transformation as well, Dylan embraces a strict economy of scale, dropping beat-poetry techniques in favor of stanzas that waste no words and progress narratives at every turn. ItÂ’s as if the Bard is saying that truth is spoken here. Few, if any artists, have captured the American myth and its population of immigrants, drifters, and outlaws with such convincing scope and parabolic sagacity.
Combined with the lyrical evolution and unabashed move towards country conventions, Dylan manages to turn popular music on its side, forging a subdued hybrid style no other peers had yet attempted. Arriving during a period of intense experimentalism and psychedelia, John Wesley Harding functions as a sigh of relief, a piano- and pedal steel-flavored set steeped in requisite simplicity in an environment that was increasingly marked by chaos and madness.
Climbing to number two on the Billboard charts and quickly tallying one million in sales, the pared-down work resonated with a public ensnared by its many charms. Then, of course, there’s the utter brilliance of every one of the songs here, each seemingly occupying a timeless space that suggests they could’ve been made in 1967, 1937, or 2007. With “All Along the Watchtower,” Dylan landed upon a tune that would soon become one of the most-covered and revered tracks in history. And yet it isn’t even a standout on an album on which every note just belongs.
"Razor-sharp in its presentation of clean-sounding drums, taut bass, a tamed (i.e., less shrill) harmonica, and Dylan's rich, understated vocals, MoFi's remastered JWH brings things clearly into focus for an album that will always serve as a model for those who believe less is more." - Jeff Wilson, The Absolute Sound, May/June 2017, Music 5/5, Sonics 4/5
Features:
• Numbered, Limited Edition of Only 3000 Copies
• 45rpm Speed Edition
• Double LP
• Production & Mastering by Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab
• Specially Plated & Pressed on 180 grams of High Definition Vinyl
• Special Static Free - Dust Free Inner Sleeve
• Heavy Duty Protective Packaging
• Pressed at RTI
• Mono
• Gatefold Jacket
Selections:
Side 1:
1. John Wesley Harding
2. As I Went Out One Morning
3. I Dreamed I Saw St. Augustine
Side 2:
1. All Along the Watchtower
2. The Ballad Of Frankie Lee And Judas Priest
3. Drifter's Escape
Side 3:
1. Dear Landlord
2. I Am A Lonesome Hobo
3. I Pity The Poor Immigrant
Side 4:
1. The Wicked Messenger
2. Down Along The Cove
3. I'll Be Your Baby Tonight
