- New Morning is back on the site for only the second time in three years, here with a Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) side two mated to a solid Double Plus (A++) side one
- “If Not For You” was the big hit on this one, and we guarantee you have never heard it sound better than it does on this very copy
- During our shootout we were reminded how surprisingly enjoyable this album is – it fits in nicely between Dylan’s country era and his later 70s works such as Blood On The Tracks
- He’s also singing in his familiar Bob Dylan “nasally” voice, not the country croon he developed for Nashville Skyline
- 4 1/2 stars: “… the overall quality is quite high, and many of the songs explore idiosyncratic routes Dylan had previously left untouched… Such offbeat songs make New Morning a charming, endearing record.”
There are some great songs here like “If Not For You” and “The Man In Me,” and when you find a copy that cuts through the murk and veil of the typical pressing it’s a lot of fun. Big Lebowski fans will be happy to hear “The Man In Me” on side two, one of Dylan’s under-appreciated gems.
What The Best Sides Of New Morning Have To Offer Is Not Hard To Hear
- The biggest, most immediate staging in the largest acoustic space
- The most Tubey Magic, without which you have almost nothing. CDs give you clean and clear. Only the best vintage vinyl pressings offer the kind of Tubey Magic that was on the tapes in 1970
- Tight, note-like, rich, full-bodied bass, with the correct amount of weight down low
- Natural tonality in the midrange — with all the instruments having the correct timbre
- Transparency and resolution, critical to hearing into the three-dimensional studio space
No doubt there’s more but we hope that should do for now. Playing the record is the only way to hear all of the qualities we discuss above, and playing the best pressings against a pile of other copies under rigorously controlled conditions is the only way to find a pressing that sounds as good as this one does.
The average copy of this album tends to be veiled and murky with bloated bass. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you how mediocre the average 70s Columbia Red Label pressings of Dylan’s albums tend to be.
Size and Space
One of the qualities that we don’t talk about on the site nearly enough is the SIZE of the record’s presentation. Some copies of the album just sound small — they don’t extend all the way to the outside edges of the speakers, and they don’t seem to take up all the space from the floor to the ceiling. In addition, the sound can often be recessed, with a lack of presence and immediacy in the center.
Other copies — my notes for these copies often read “BIG and BOLD” — create a huge soundfield, with the music positively jumping out of the speakers. They’re not brighter, they’re not more aggressive, they’re not hyped-up in any way, they’re just bigger and clearer.
One further point needs to be made: most of the time these very special pressings just plain rock harder. When you hear a copy do what this copy can, it’s an entirely different — and dare I say unforgettable — listening experience.
What We’re Listening For On New Morning
- Energy for starters. What could be more important than the life of the music?
- Then: presence and immediacy. The vocals aren’t “back there” somewhere, lost in the mix. They’re front and center where any recording engineer worth his salt would put them.
- The Big Sound comes next — wall to wall, lots of depth, huge space, three-dimensionality, all that sort of thing.
- Then transient information — fast, clear, sharp attacks, not the smear and thickness so common to these LPs.
- Tight punchy bass — which ties in with good transient information, also the issue of frequency extension further down.
- Next: transparency — the quality that allows you to hear deep into the soundfield, showing you the space and air around all the instruments.
- Extend the top and bottom and voila, you have The Real Thing — an honest to goodness Hot Stamper.
Side One
If Not for You
Day of the Locusts
Time Passes Slowly
Went to See the Gypsy
Winterlude
If Dogs Run Free
Side Two
New Morning
Sign on the Window
One More Weekend
The Man in Me
Three Angels
Father of Night
AMG Review
New Morning expands on the laid-back country-rock of John Wesley Harding and Nashville Skyline by adding a more pronounced rock & roll edge. While there are only a couple of genuine classics on the record (“If Not for You,” “One More Weekend”), the overall quality is quite high, and many of the songs explore idiosyncratic routes Dylan had previously left untouched, whether it’s the jazzy experiments of “Sign on the Window” and “Winterlude,” the rambling spoken word piece “If Dogs Run Free” or the Elvis parable “Went to See the Gypsy.”
Such offbeat songs make New Morning a charming, endearing record.