BOB DYLAN & DEF LEPPARD Original Mono Recordings & Vol 2 Vinyl Box Sets

	£		301
	$		398

This box collects Bob Dylan’s first eight 12-inch LPs, his albums from Bob Dylan in 1962 to John Wesley Harding in 1968, as most people heard them, as they were expected to be heard, and as most often they were meant to be heard: in mono. --- Greil Marcus, taken from the liner notes of Bob Dylan: The Original Mono Recordings

Bob Dylan’s first 8 studio albums pressed at RTI on the highest quality 180-gram audiophile vinyl. Also included are reproductions of the original LP artwork, including inner sleeve art and original inserts, all in heavyweight, wrapped jackets. Also includes beautiful 12x12” book with new liner notes, rare photos, memorabilia and more!

Bob Dylan

The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan

The Time They Are A-Changin'

Another Side Of Bob Dylan

Bringing It All Back Home

Highway 61 Revisited

Blonde On Blonde

John Wesley Harding

Who on earth would be interested in a set collecting the mono mixes of Bob Dylan’s first eight albums?

Well, as the success of The Beatles’ similar venture The Beatles in Mono demonstrates, quite a lot of people. And with good reason. Dylan – like the Fab Four and all of their contemporaries – didn't start treating stereo mixes as anything other than a sop to an elite part of the record buying market until the end of the 1960s. Mono mixes were supervised and approved by the artist, stereo mixes done as an afterthought by third parties. The albums Bob Dylan (1962) through John Wesley Harding (1967), then, are being presented here in the way the artist intended you to hear them. As Dylan’s mono albums were deleted unusually quickly, this is the first opportunity to experience such ‘director’s cuts’ for four decades.

It’s the early, acoustic albums that benefit most: stereo versions brutally divided up the elements of voice, guitar and harmonica on the debut, The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, The Times They Are a-Changin’ and Another Side of Bob Dylan. As for the electric material, Blonde on Blonde’s epic Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands sounds significantly sweeter and more focused in mono, while Bringing It All Back Home sounds bolder and punchier throughout, with the excellence of the bass-playing on It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue particularly brought into focus. However, surprisingly it is not all one-way traffic, as illustrated by Like a Rolling Stone, which here sounds dismayingly sterile compared to the powerful stereo mix that has become far more familiar down the years. Meanwhile, the mono mixes on Stone’s parent album Highway 61 Revisited are sometimes shorter by half a minute – not a good thing when we’re talking about one of history’s all-time classics. John Wesley Harding sounds sharper and harder, but it’s noticeable how much less eerie is the monaural The Wicked Messenger.

The set is beautifully packaged, a handsome slipcase housing a lavish booklet and CDs in card facsimiles of the original album sleeves, with detail accurate enough to incorporate the original rough texture of the Times jacket and the trashy, advert-adorned inner bag of the debut. This will all presumably be some compensation for those purist audiophiles shocked to discover that mixing and matching between stereo and mono releases will be necessary to obtain the best listening experience.

Disc: 1

You're No Good

Talkin New York

In My Time Of Dyin

Man Of Constant Sorrow

Fixin To Die

Pretty Peggy-O

Highway 51

Gospel Plow

Baby, Let Me Follow You Down

House Of The Risin Sun

Freight Train Blues

Song To Woody

See That My Grave Is Kept Clean

Disc: 2

Blowin In The Wind

Girl From The North Country

Masters Of War

Down The Highway

Bob Dylan s Blues

A Hard Rain s A-Gonna Fall

Don t Think Twice, It s All Right

Bob Dylan s Dream

Oxford Town

Talkin World War III Blues

Corrina, Corrina

Honey, Just Allow Me One More Chance

I Shall Be Free

Disc: 3

The Times They Are A-Changin

Ballad Of Hollis Brown

With God On Our Side

One Too Many Mornings

North Country Blues

Only A Pawn In Their Game

Boots Of Spanish Leather

When The Ship Comes In

The Lonesome Death Of Hattie Carroll

Restless Farewell

Disc: 4

All I Really Want To Do

Black Crow Blues

Spanish Harlem Incident

Chimes Of Freedom

I Shall Be Free No. 10

To Ramona

Motorpsycho Nitemare

My Back Pages

I Don t Believe You

Ballad In Plain D

It Ain t Me Babe

Disc: 5

Subterranean Homesick Blues

She Belongs To Me

Maggie s Farm

Love Minus Zero / No Limit

Outlaw Blues

On The Road Again

Bob Dylan s 115th Dream

Mr. Tambourine Man

Gates Of Eden

It s Alright Ma (I m Only Bleeding)

It s All Over Now, Baby Blue

Disc: 6

Like A Rolling Stone

Tombstone Blues

It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry

From A Buick 6

Ballad Of A Thin Man

Queen Jane Approximately

Highway 61 Revisited

Just Like Tom Thumb s Blues

Desolation Row

Disc: 7

Rainy Day Women #12 & 35

Pledging My Time

Visions Of Johanna

One Of Us Must Know (Sooner Or Later)

I Want You

Stuck Inside Of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again

Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat

Just Like A Woman

Disc: 8

Most Likely You Go Your Way And I'll Go Mine

Temporary Like Achilles

Absolutely Sweet Marie

4th Time Around

Obviously 5 Believers

Sad Eyed Lady Of The Lowlands

Disc: 9

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

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

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