TOP 1967 ORIG BOB DYLAN JOHN WESLEY HARDING Sinister

$

30

CLEAN 1967 STEREO FIRST PRESSING                                         

360 SOUND COLUMBIA COLLECTIBLE                                          

                                                                            Bob Dylan

             John Wesley Harding

              USA - Columbia Records 360 Sound - CS 2804 stereo
                                              

NEAR MINT original 1967 collectible on the famously collectible 360 Sound Columbia label of the sixties in TOP Minty condition...hard to find the 43 year old album THIS clean ...

Everyone has their own favourite lesser known Dylan album, this is ours.
And a lot better than the very good but flagrantly overrated "Blood On The Tracks".

THEE nighttime Dylan listening LP, it seems cheerfully innocous at first but there is a definite sinister and fatalistic tone just stirring beneath the surface.

For almost the whole duration, the subjects, characters and stories are unremittingly cryptic, dark, bare and have a strange quiet creepiness to them.
The stories are all about Hoboes, Immigrants, Loners, Monks, Gamblers, Murderers, Evil Women, Prisoners, Outlaws and Bandits. See an emerging theme here?

For starters, theres no choruses anywhere, on the whole album.
It's another record with a Dylan cadence that would never be used again, sounds like a mixture of Freewhelin' talking blues with hints of his rural croon, but all done very subtly and quietly.
The sonics too, are superficially pleasant backround but have that strong sense of unease about them. The strange pitter-patter drumming here may actually the most prominent sound, with Dylans guitar being the counter-rhythm, glued together with a nearly inaudible bass. Theres something almost subliminal in the it's simplicity coupled with the weird drums.
Oh, and almost forgot, it contains Bobs best harmonica playing he's ever done. Not something that usually comes to mind when Dylans mentioned but here all the playing is gorgeous, spare and never exists just to fill out the song. The opening Harmonica solo for "As I Went Out One Morning" is stunningly beautiful, with no hyperbole or bullsh*t. The track itself is very haunting with it's strange cryptic story and lovely melody.

After three enormously popular and rocking Electric works, Dylan goes back to-basics in big way. At the time, 1967, the year psychedelic excess was at it's giddy extreme, this record must have sounded impossibly out-of-touch, Dylan really didn't (Doesn't) give a hoot.
It's the most subtly unsettling album to that point heard.  It's also a grower, being the most cryptic and sparse albums Dylan ever recorded as well one of the most personaly revealing with "Another Side Of".

John Wesley Harding

As I Went Out One Morning

I Dreamed I Saw St. Augustine

All Along the Watchtower

The Ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest

Drifter's Escape

B:   

Dear Landlord

I Am a Lonesome Hobo

I Pity the Poor Immigrant

The Wicked Messenger

Down Along the Cove

I'll Be Your Baby Tonight

CONDITION: The cover is strong and solid on both sides and all eams, M- having no bends and no writing, top levels...

The vinyl is highly shiny with nothing that would cause audio disturbance, "EX" (excellent) to M- and overall very collectible with no up-grade necessary. Potentially an album we would keep in our own collection.

      A cool addition to anyone's music library!

SEE: SELLERS OTher items for similar cool sounds for "head" people...

EFFICIENT/CAREFUL GRADING

All imperfections are noted both cover & record