Another Side Of Bob Dylan features a number of other sides, actually. It’s obvious right off the bat that this is a lighter-hearted album than its predecessor, with Dylan barely managing to keep a straight face throughout “All I Really Want To Do”. (He finally loses it at the tail end of the last verse, but gathers himself up and lets it fly on the chorus.) The album features some strong guitar work, most noticeably on “I Don’t Believe You” where Dylan tosses out everything from “Walk Right In”-style bass runs to a punched-out chord accompaniment on the final chorus that sounds like a Stax horn section.
But the most interesting revelation on Another Side (and a great example of where the monaural mix shines) is Dylan’s recording debut as a piano player on “Black Crow Blues”. Regardless of what the stereo presentation was ever meant to do, the song actually has more depth in mono: you have better perspective; you actually feel like Dylan is singing across the top of the piano at you; the thumping foot is down below somewhere; and when he catches the occasional chug on the harmonica, you get a sense that he’s trying not to overblow in relation to the piano. It’s a never-before-heard Dylan moment and he’s working hard at it. Another side indeed.
Dylan proclaims that “you don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows” in “Subterranean Homesick Blues”, the raucous romp that ushers in Bringing It All back Home. It’s just as true that you don’t need stereo to tell you where the music is coming from on the album’s 11 cuts, whether it be on the full-band numbers or the solo Dylan performances.
“It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue” is a unique hybrid, with Dylan accompanied solely by bassist William Lee III. The single-channel presentation gives life to “Baby Blue” – Lee’s bass weaves with Dylan’s acoustic guitar in a way that stereo wouldn’t allow. There’s no funny business here – the only reason why Lee’s bass seems louder at times is because he lays into the strings harder.
The mono payoff on Highway 61 Revisited is so immediate it’s almost scary. In fact, it is scary – that opening crack of Bobby Gregg’s snare drum is right there in mono. Not over there or over there: it’s right there, up front and dead-center. As an attention-getter, Dylan couldn’t have fired off a louder cannon; as a warning shot, it doesn’t allow much time to get prepared for what’s to come.
A heartbeat later, Al Kooper’s miles-deep organ rolls right over top of you, followed by Dylan’s opening salvo, “Once upon a time …” And when Mike Bloomfield pushes to the front to be heard between verses, the mono setting truly makes it seem as if he’s bending deeper over his Telecaster (legend has it he brought it to the session case-less, covered in snow) to get the extra wallop, rather than it just being brought up by an engineer’s hand.
Highway 61 Revisited as a whole revels as a mono album; but that opening crack says it all. It’s the sound of many things being broken wide open forever.
If you thought Blonde On Blonde sounded thickly-textured at times in stereo, wait until you hear it in mono. No matter what the historians say, it’s hard to believe that any of this music could’ve been recorded at any other hours than between midnight and 4:00. For the Original Mono Recordings box set, Blonde On Blonde is broken into two discs, just as the original release was a double album. From the opening slurry madness of “Rainy Day Women #12 & 35” to the dense layers of “Sad Eyed Lady Of The Lowlands”, Blonde On Blonde is loaded with singalongs, anthems, and the kind of songs that people apply to the best and worst times in their lives.
“One Of Us Must Know (Sooner Or Later)” is simply full of sound – and full of emotion – as a mono mix. This is as close as Dylan gets to a full-blown apology, and backing up his words are swells of organ, thumping piano, rolls of bass and drum thunder, with snarling, barking guitar. As the song builds to its crescendo (and Dylan unloads his final bit of pathos on the last chorus), it seems that there couldn’t possibly be enough room left in the room for one more bit of sound (not in terms of volume, but in sheer weight) – but then Dylan lets loose with a blast of harmonica that says what his words couldn’t. It’s a moment of majestic ache.
Closing out The Original Mono Recordings is John Wesley Harding, Dylan’s “comeback” of sorts after his infamous motorcycle accident in the summer of ’66. The sound is much more stripped-down – not a total return to Dylan’s roots, however, as he was backed by drums and bass throughout the album (along with Pete Drake’s steel guitar on the final two cuts).
Dylan’s harmonica takes the place of some of the orchestration used on the albums that preceded John Wesley Harding – and it does a fine job of it. There is a delicacy and preciseness to Dylan’s harp work on this album that he doesn’t often employ. Again, the monaural setting is perfect for the natural dynamics of the neck-racked harmonica against the strummed guitar. Witness “I Pity The Poor Hobo”: with just enough of a bass rumble and acoustic guitar to set the mood, Dylan’s harmonica jumps in hand-in-hand with the drums – beginning the story-telling even before the first verse gets underway. Whereas Dylan’s harp colorings are often laid on with wide brush strokes, “Poor Hobo” is full of single-reed bends and wails, resorting to fuller tones only at the very end in a moment of resolution.
Fan or not, you cannot deny the importance of Bob Dylan’s music. And if you never heard these early albums in their originally-intended mono form, you’d never know what you were missing. But once you do …
Bob Dylan – The Original Mono Recordings is the audio equivalent of a true master painter’s work on the original canvas rather than as a color-manipulated print. This stuff is the real thing.
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