Bob Dylan – Honky Mids and Veiled Vocals

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Reviews and Commentaries for the Music of Bob Dylan

This commentary is from many years ago.

We played a bunch of these this week and only a very small handful of sides had enough magic to be considered Hot Stampers.

The typical pressing loses its steam in (at least) one of two ways:

  • honky mids, and
  • veiled vocals.

The copies with the honk can be nearly unlistenable when Dylan starts blowing his harmonica, and the copies with veiled vocals and no real immediacy bored us to tears. 

This copy has the magic on side two. The sound is full-bodied, natural, and rich with excellent presence and real depth to the soundfield.

It’s also SUPER open and spacious with lots of ambience and clearly audible transients on the acoustic guitar. The clarity is off the charts, and the sound is wonderfully natural throughout.

Side one is clean, clear and transparent with correct tonal balance. The vocals have a touch of honk to them and the presence is nowhere near as amazing as on the flipside. We rated side one A – A+. It’s musical and enjoyable but not superb like side two.

TRACK LISTING

Side One

All I Really Want to Do 
Black Crow Blues 
Spanish Harlem Incident
Chimes of Freedom 
I Shall Be Free No. 10 
To Ramona

Side Two

Motorpsycho Nitemare 
My Back Pages 
I Don’t Believe You 
Ballad in Plain D 
It Ain’t Me Babe

AMG 5-Star Review

Another Side of Bob Dylan is a more varied record and it’s more successful, too, since it captures Dylan expanding his music, turning in imaginative, poetic performances on love songs and protest tunes alike.

This has an equal number of classics to its predecessor, actually, with “All I Really Want to Do,” “Chimes of Freedom,” “My Back Pages,” “I Don’t’ Believe You,” and “It Ain’t Me Babe” standing among his standards, but the key to the record’s success is the album tracks, which are graceful, poetic, and layered.

Both the lyrics and music have gotten deeper and Dylan’s trying more things — this, in its construction and attitude, is hardly strictly folk, as it encompasses far more than that. The result is one of his very best records, a lovely intimate affair.