The Original Mono Recordings
Encyclopedia
The Original Mono Recordings is a box set compilation album
of recordings by Bob Dylan
, released in October 2010 on Legacy Recordings
, catalogue 88697761042. It consists of Dylan's first eight studio albums in mono
on nine compact discs, the album Blonde on Blonde
being issued on two discs in its original vinyl format
. It does not include the singles collection
Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits
released during the same time span. It does include a 56-page booklet with photographs, discographical
information, and an essay by Greil Marcus
. It peaked at #152 on the Billboard 200
.
, and transistor radios during the 1960s. Stereo
playback systems had been available since the late 1950s, but the equipment and the albums mixed to play on them were expensive, and the music industry continued to manufacture mono albums and singles through the decade. Monophonic as a format would not be discontinued in both the United States
and the United Kingdom
until approximately 1969. As stated in the liner notes by Marcus,
Moreover, the mixing of the album in mono was the chief priority of Dylan and his producers. Stereo was almost an afterthought. Producer Steve Berkowitz, who supervised the reissue of the The Original Mono Recordings was told by Bob Johnston
about the mixing of Blonde on Blonde: "We mixed that mono probably for three or four days, then I said, 'Oh shit, man, we gotta do stereo.' So me and a coupla guys put our hands on the board, we mixed that son of a bitch in about four hours!... So my point is, it took a long time to do the mono, and then it was, 'Oh, yeah, we gotta do stereo'."
A similar box set
compiling LP mono records by The Beatles
had been released in 2009 to respectable sales results, awarded a platinum record by the RIAA. This may have been impetus for Sony
to issue this set.
Most of the albums were mastered from the original, first-generation master tapes. Only two albums were not: The Times They Are A-Changin'
and Highway 61 Revisited
. The original master tape for the former could not be found so a new master was mixed from the original three-track tape, using the original vinyl pressing as a guide. Highway 61 Revisited
was mastered from a second-generation overseas copy of the mono mix.
The genuine mono mix for John Wesley Harding
was presumably released only in the U.S., whereas the original mono LP issued in the U.K. was apparently a fold-down of the stereo master. For The Original Mono Recordings box set, the producers used the genuine mono mix issued in the U.S.
Initial purchase of the box allowed for free download of the non-album single "Positively Fourth Street" in mono, as well as the entire set in MP3
. "Positively Fourth Street" was also included on the simultaneously released single-disc collection, The Best of the Original Mono Recordings.
The original recordings were produced by John Hammond
, Tom Wilson, and Bob Johnston
.
Compilation album
A compilation album is an album featuring tracks from one or more performers, often culled from a variety of sources The tracks are usually collected according to a common characteristic, such as popularity, genre, source or subject matter...
of recordings by Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...
, released in October 2010 on Legacy Recordings
Legacy Recordings
Legacy Recordings is Sony Music Entertainment's catalog division. It was founded in 1990 by CBS Records under the leadership of Jerry Shulman, Richard Bauer, Gary Pacheco and Amy Herot to handle reissues of recordings from the vast catalogues of Columbia Records, Epic Records and associated...
, catalogue 88697761042. It consists of Dylan's first eight studio albums in mono
Monophonic
Monophonic may refer to:* Monaural, a sound recording with only one channel* Monophony, musical texture that consists of a single melodic line* Monophonic , a synthesizer capable of sounding only one voice, or note, at a time...
on nine compact discs, the album Blonde on Blonde
Blonde on Blonde
Blonde on Blonde is American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan's seventh studio album, released in May or June 1966 on Columbia Records and produced by Bob Johnston. Recording sessions commenced in New York in October 1965, with a plethora of backing musicians, including members of Dylan's live backing...
being issued on two discs in its original vinyl format
LP album
The LP, or long-playing microgroove record, is a format for phonograph records, an analog sound storage medium. Introduced by Columbia Records in 1948, it was soon adopted as a new standard by the entire record industry...
. It does not include the singles collection
Single (music)
In music, a single or record single is a type of release, typically a recording of fewer tracks than an LP or a CD. This can be released for sale to the public in a variety of different formats. In most cases, the single is a song that is released separately from an album, but it can still appear...
Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits
Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits
Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits is the eighth album released by Bob Dylan on Columbia Records, original catalogue number KCS 9643. It contains every Top 40 single Dylan enjoyed through 1967. It peaked at #10 on the pop album chart in the United States, and went to #3 on the album chart in the United...
released during the same time span. It does include a 56-page booklet with photographs, discographical
Discography
Discography is the study and listing of the details concerning sound recordings, often by specified artists or within identified musical genres...
information, and an essay by Greil Marcus
Greil Marcus
Greil Marcus is an American author, music journalist and cultural critic. He is notable for producing scholarly and literary essays that place rock music in a much broader framework of culture and politics than is customary in pop music journalism.-Life and career:Marcus was born in San Francisco...
. It peaked at #152 on the Billboard 200
Billboard 200
The Billboard 200 is a ranking of the 200 highest-selling music albums and EPs in the United States, published weekly by Billboard magazine. It is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists...
.
Content
Mono was the playback medium for most record players, car radiosCar audio
Car audio/video , auto radio, mobile audio, 12-volt and other terms are used to describe the sound or video system fitted in an automobile. While 12-volt audio and video systems are also used, marketed, or manufactured for marine, aviation, and buses, this article focuses on cars as the most common...
, and transistor radios during the 1960s. Stereo
STEREO
STEREO is a solar observation mission. Two nearly identical spacecraft were launched into orbits that cause them to respectively pull farther ahead of and fall gradually behind the Earth...
playback systems had been available since the late 1950s, but the equipment and the albums mixed to play on them were expensive, and the music industry continued to manufacture mono albums and singles through the decade. Monophonic as a format would not be discontinued in both the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
until approximately 1969. As stated in the liner notes by Marcus,
Moreover, the mixing of the album in mono was the chief priority of Dylan and his producers. Stereo was almost an afterthought. Producer Steve Berkowitz, who supervised the reissue of the The Original Mono Recordings was told by Bob Johnston
Bob Johnston
Donald William Robert 'Bob' Johnston is a noted American record producer, best known for his work with Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, Leonard Cohen, Willie Nelson and many Nashville recording artists, as well as Simon and Garfunkel.-Early days:Johnston was born into a professional musical family...
about the mixing of Blonde on Blonde: "We mixed that mono probably for three or four days, then I said, 'Oh shit, man, we gotta do stereo.' So me and a coupla guys put our hands on the board, we mixed that son of a bitch in about four hours!... So my point is, it took a long time to do the mono, and then it was, 'Oh, yeah, we gotta do stereo'."
A similar box set
The Beatles in Mono
The Beatles in Mono is a box set compilation comprising the remastered monophonic recordings by The Beatles. The set was released on 9 September 2009, the same day the remastered stereo recordings and companion The Beatles Stereo Box Set were also released, along with The Beatles: Rock Band videogame...
compiling LP mono records by The Beatles
The Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...
had been released in 2009 to respectable sales results, awarded a platinum record by the RIAA. This may have been impetus for Sony
Sony Music Entertainment
Sony Music Entertainment ' is the second-largest global recorded music company of the "big four" record companies and is controlled by Sony Corporation of America, the United States subsidiary of Japan's Sony Corporation....
to issue this set.
Most of the albums were mastered from the original, first-generation master tapes. Only two albums were not: The Times They Are A-Changin'
The Times They Are a-Changin'
The Times They Are a-Changin opens with the title track, one of Dylan's most famous songs. Dylan's friend, Tony Glover, recalls visiting Dylan's apartment in September 1963, where he saw a number of song manuscripts and poems lying on a table. "The Times They Are a-Changin'" had yet to be recorded,...
and Highway 61 Revisited
Highway 61 Revisited
Highway 61 Revisited is the sixth studio album by singer-songwriter Bob Dylan. It was released in August 1965 by Columbia Records. On his previous album, Bringing It All Back Home, Dylan devoted Side One of the album to songs accompanied by an electric rock band, and Side Two to solo acoustic numbers...
. The original master tape for the former could not be found so a new master was mixed from the original three-track tape, using the original vinyl pressing as a guide. Highway 61 Revisited
Highway 61 Revisited
Highway 61 Revisited is the sixth studio album by singer-songwriter Bob Dylan. It was released in August 1965 by Columbia Records. On his previous album, Bringing It All Back Home, Dylan devoted Side One of the album to songs accompanied by an electric rock band, and Side Two to solo acoustic numbers...
was mastered from a second-generation overseas copy of the mono mix.
The genuine mono mix for John Wesley Harding
John Wesley Harding
John Wesley Harding may refer to:* John Wesley Harding , a 1967 Bob Dylan album* John Wesley Harding , the title track of this album* John Wesley Harding , English singer...
was presumably released only in the U.S., whereas the original mono LP issued in the U.K. was apparently a fold-down of the stereo master. For The Original Mono Recordings box set, the producers used the genuine mono mix issued in the U.S.
Initial purchase of the box allowed for free download of the non-album single "Positively Fourth Street" in mono, as well as the entire set in MP3
MP3
MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III, more commonly referred to as MP3, is a patented digital audio encoding format using a form of lossy data compression...
. "Positively Fourth Street" was also included on the simultaneously released single-disc collection, The Best of the Original Mono Recordings.
The original recordings were produced by John Hammond
John H. Hammond
John Henry Hammond II was an American record producer, musician and music critic from the 1930s to the early 1980s...
, Tom Wilson, and Bob Johnston
Bob Johnston
Donald William Robert 'Bob' Johnston is a noted American record producer, best known for his work with Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, Leonard Cohen, Willie Nelson and many Nashville recording artists, as well as Simon and Garfunkel.-Early days:Johnston was born into a professional musical family...
.
Album listing
See individual album pages for track listings.- Bob DylanBob Dylan (album)Bob Dylan is the debut album by the American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, released in March 1962 on Columbia Records. It features two original compositions, the rest being old folk standards, and was produced by Columbia's legendary talent scout John H...
originally released March 19, 1962 - The Freewheelin' Bob DylanThe Freewheelin' Bob DylanThe Freewheelin' Bob Dylan is the second studio album by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, released in May 1963 by Columbia Records. Whereas his debut album Bob Dylan had contained only two original songs, Freewheelin initiated the process of writing contemporary words to traditional melodies....
originally released May 27, 1963 - The Times They Are a-Changin'The Times They Are a-Changin'The Times They Are a-Changin opens with the title track, one of Dylan's most famous songs. Dylan's friend, Tony Glover, recalls visiting Dylan's apartment in September 1963, where he saw a number of song manuscripts and poems lying on a table. "The Times They Are a-Changin'" had yet to be recorded,...
originally released January 13, 1964 - Another Side of Bob DylanAnother Side of Bob DylanAnother Side of Bob Dylan is the fourth studio album by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan. It was released August 8, 1964 by Columbia Records....
originally released August 10, 1964 - Bringing It All Back HomeBringing It All Back HomeBringing It All Back Home is singer-songwriter Bob Dylan's fifth studio album, released in March 1965 by Columbia Records. The album is divided into an electric and an acoustic side. On side one of the original LP, Dylan is backed by an electric rock and roll band - a move that further alienated...
originally released March 27, 1965 - Highway 61 RevisitedHighway 61 RevisitedHighway 61 Revisited is the sixth studio album by singer-songwriter Bob Dylan. It was released in August 1965 by Columbia Records. On his previous album, Bringing It All Back Home, Dylan devoted Side One of the album to songs accompanied by an electric rock band, and Side Two to solo acoustic numbers...
originally released August 30, 1965 - Blonde on BlondeBlonde on BlondeBlonde on Blonde is American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan's seventh studio album, released in May or June 1966 on Columbia Records and produced by Bob Johnston. Recording sessions commenced in New York in October 1965, with a plethora of backing musicians, including members of Dylan's live backing...
originally released May 16, 1966 - John Wesley HardingJohn Wesley Harding (album)John Wesley Harding is singer-songwriter Bob Dylan's eighth studio album, released by Columbia Records in December 1967.Produced by Bob Johnston, the album marked Dylan's return to acoustic music and traditional roots, after three albums of electric rock music...
originally released December 17, 1967
Collective personnel
- Bob DylanBob DylanBob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...
– vocals, guitars, harmonicaHarmonicaThe harmonica, also called harp, French harp, blues harp, and mouth organ, is a free reed wind instrument used primarily in blues and American folk music, jazz, country, and rock and roll. It is played by blowing air into it or drawing air out by placing lips over individual holes or multiple holes...
, pianoPianoThe piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...
, police carPolice carA police car is a ground vehicle used by police, to assist with their duties in patrolling and responding to incidents. Typical uses of a police car include transportation for officers to reach the scene of an incident quickly, to transport criminal suspects, or to patrol an area, while providing a... - Mike BloomfieldMike BloomfieldMichael Bernard "Mike" Bloomfield was an American musician, guitarist, and composer, born in Chicago, Illinois, who became one of the first popular music superstars of the 1960s to earn his reputation almost entirely on his instrumental prowess, since he rarely sang before 1969–70...
, Herb Collins, Al Gorgoni, Jerry KennedyJerry KennedyJerry Glenn Kennedy is an American record producer, songwriter and guitar player.-Early years:Kennedy was born in Shreveport, Louisiana. As a child, he recalls "beating on broomsticks and other things" as his initial forays into music-making...
, Bruce LanghorneBruce LanghorneBruce Langhorne is an American folk musician. He was active in the Greenwich Village folk scene in the 1960s, primarily as a session guitarist for folk albums and performances...
, Wayne Moss, Kenneth RankinKenny RankinKenny Rankin was an American pop and jazz singer and songwriter, originally from the Washington Heights neighborhood of New York City, New York.-Biography:...
, Robbie RobertsonRobbie RobertsonRobbie Robertson, OC; is a Canadian singer-songwriter, and guitarist. He is best known for his membership as the guitarist and primary songwriter within The Band. He was ranked 59th in Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time...
– guitars - Charlie McCoyCharlie McCoyCharles "Charlie" Ray McCoy is an American musician noted for his harmonica playing. In his career, McCoy has backed several notable musicians including Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, Tom Astor, Elvis Presley and Ween. He has also recorded thirty-seven studio albums, including fourteen for Monument Records...
– guitars, bassBass guitarThe bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....
, bass harmonica, trumpetTrumpetThe trumpet is the musical instrument with the highest register in the brass family. Trumpets are among the oldest musical instruments, dating back to at least 1500 BCE. They are played by blowing air through closed lips, producing a "buzzing" sound which starts a standing wave vibration in the air... - Joe SouthJoe SouthJoe South is a multi-talented American singer-songwriter and guitarist.-Career:...
– guitars, bass - Bill Aikins, Al KooperAl KooperAl Kooper is an American songwriter, record producer and musician, known for organizing Blood, Sweat & Tears , providing studio support for Bob Dylan when he went electric in 1965, and also bringing together guitarists Mike Bloomfield and Stephen Stills to...
– organOrgan (music)The organ , is a keyboard instrument of one or more divisions, each played with its own keyboard operated either with the hands or with the feet. The organ is a relatively old musical instrument in the Western musical tradition, dating from the time of Ctesibius of Alexandria who is credited with...
, piano - Paul GriffinPaul Griffin (musician)Paul Griffin was an American session musician and pianist, who recorded with hundreds of artists from the late 1950s to the 1990s...
, Frank Owens, Hargus "Pig" Robbins, Richard WellstoodDick WellstoodRichard MacQueen "Dick" Wellstood was an American jazz pianist...
– piano - Harvey BrooksHarvey BrooksHarvey Brooks is an American bassist. He has played in many styles of music...
, Lee GaskinLeonard GaskinLeonard Gaskin was an American jazz bassist born in New York City.Gaskin played on the early bebop scene at Minton's and Monroe's in New York in the early 1940s...
, Will LeeWill Lee (bassist)Will Lee aka William Franklin Lee IV is an American musician and bassist, best known for his work on the CBS television program The Late Show with David Letterman as part of the CBS Orchestra....
, Joseph Macho Jr.Orpheus (band)Orpheus is a rock band from Worcester, Massachusetts that enjoyed popularity in the 1960s and early 1970s.In recent years there has been a resurgence of interest in the avant garde band. Original members included guitarist/vocalists Bruce Arnold and Jack McKennes, bass guitarist Eric "The Snake"...
, Russ SavakusRuss SavakusRuss Savakus is an American session bass player , violinist and singer. Savakus has recorded with numerous artists in and around the 1960s folk and folk-rock movement in New York...
, Henry Strzelecki – bass - Kenny ButtreyKenny ButtreyAaron Kenneth Buttrey was an American drummer and arranger. According to CMT, he was "one of the most influential session musicians in Nashville history"....
, Bobby GreggBobby GreggRobert J. Gregg is a musician who has performed as a drummer and has also been a record producer. As a drum soloist and band leader he recorded one album and several singles, including one Top 40 single in the United States...
, Herbie LovelleHerbie LovelleHerbie or Herb Lovelle was a versatile American drummer, who played Jazz, R & B, rock and folk. He was also a studio musician and an actor.Lovelle's uncle was drummer Arthur Herbert...
– drumsDrum kitA drum kit is a collection of drums, cymbals and often other percussion instruments, such as cowbells, wood blocks, triangles, chimes, or tambourines, arranged for convenient playing by a single person .... - Pete DrakePete DrakePete Drake , born Roddis Franklin Drake, was a major Nashville, Tennessee-based record producer and pedal steel guitar player....
– pedal steel guitarPedal steel guitarThe pedal steel guitar is a type of electric guitar that uses a metal bar to "fret" or shorten the length of the strings, rather than fingers on strings as with a conventional guitar. Unlike other types of steel guitar, it also uses pedals and knee levers to affect the pitch, hence the name "pedal"... - Wayne Butler – trumpet