Variant chronology
1964 - US mono first pressing, red two-eye 'Guaranteed High Fidelity' label (Columbia CL 2193)
1964 - US stereo first pressing, red two-eye '360 Sound' label, Pitman-plant etch (Columbia CS 8993)
1964 - US stereo white-label demonstration promo (Columbia CS 8993)
1964-67 - US stereo repress, red two-eye '360 Sound' label (Columbia CS 8993)
c. 1970-1976 - US stereo reissue, red all-round 'Columbia' perimeter-text label (no '360 Sound' band), KCS 8993 promotional stamp on back cover <- this copy
1965 - Japan pressing with obi
modern reissue (year not established) - Legacy/Sony 180-gram vinyl reissue
The Album
Recorded in a single marathon overnight session in June 1964, this was Bob Dylan's fourth album and the one in which he turned away from the topical protest songs that had made his name toward frankly personal, surreal and romantic writing. Gone are the finger-pointing anthems of the previous record; in their place are confessional break-up songs, stream-of-consciousness humor, and the extended meditation on youth and certainty that is its centerpiece. The album was made with just Dylan, his acoustic guitar, piano and harmonica, no band, a stripped-down sound that threw the words into sharp relief. Critics and fellow songwriters immediately recognized a leap in ambition and craft, and several of its songs were quickly covered by other artists and became hits in their own right, carrying Dylan's new style to a far wider audience than his own records reached. The record marked the moment Dylan's peers in the folk world began to see him moving beyond protest music into a more literary, interior mode of songwriting that would shape the folk-rock explosion the following year. It remains regarded as a pivotal hinge point in his 1960s work, the record that bridges the finger-pointing Dylan of his earlier albums and the electric, imagistic Dylan who followed.
The Label
The side labels on this copy carry a red field with the word COLUMBIA repeated in yellow all the way around the rim, each repetition flanked by a small logo box, with STEREO printed in plain black type at the lower left and no '360 SOUND' banner anywhere on the label. That all-perimeter COLUMBIA treatment is the label design the company phased in on reissues from the 1970s onward, replacing the earlier red label that carried just two logo boxes at the 9 and 3 o'clock positions flanking a '360 SOUND' band around the word STEREO. The catalogue number printed on the label itself reads JC 8993, while the back cover's promotional box instead shows KCS 8993 - the K-prefix is the mark Columbia added to continuously-available back-catalogue titles rather than evidence of a 1964 release. Together these place this copy as a later repressing run of the stereo edition, not the original 1964 issue.
Fidelity
The stereo master used on this copy is the same XSM 77044/77045 mastering lineage carried on the original 1964 stereo release, recut for a later pressing generation rather than freshly remastered. Collectors generally rate the original Pitman-pressed two-eye stereo pressing as the most desirable-sounding vintage cut of this title, with this later repressing sitting below it in the fidelity hierarchy though still playing from the same lacquer family. Specialist audiophile remasters were not made of this title in the heyday reissue series, so the modern 180-gram Legacy vinyl edition is the main alternative for a quiet, in-print pressing, ranking alongside rather than above the best original stereo copies for tonal character.
Documenting collections
I do this work for other people’s collections too — documenting a
collection record by record, researching individual pressings, and preparing
collections for sale or for insurance. If you have a collection you would like
documented, or a record you want identified properly, get in touch:
email
This record’s page: https://vinylcurator.net/albums/bob-dylan-another-side-of-bob-dylan/
