Thank you for buying this record. What follows is its documentation: the pressing identified, the matrix / runout transcribed by hand from the dead wax, and the condition as assessed before it was listed. It is yours to keep with the record.

— Paul, Vinyl Curator

Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits Volume II

1971 · Columbia PG 31120 · Stereo · US · 2xLP, gatefold · 33 1/3 RPM

Pressing details

Label	Columbia
Catalogue number	PG 31120
Year	1971
Mono / Stereo	Stereo
Country	US
Format	2xLP, gatefold
Speed	33 1/3 RPM
Genre	Rock/Folk Rock - Singer-Songwriter
Producer	John H. Hammond, Tom Wilson, Bob Johnston, Leon Russell
Composer	Bob Dylan
Musicians	Bob Dylan (vocals, guitar, harmonica, piano); on "Watching the River Flow" and "When I Paint My Masterpiece": Leon Russell (piano/bass), Carl Radle (bass), Jim Keltner (drums), Jesse Ed Davis (guitar); on "I Shall Be Released," "You Ain't Goin' Nowhere" and "Down in the Flood": Happy Traum (bass, banjo, second guitar, vocal harmony); remaining tracks drawn from earlier Dylan studio albums with their original session personnel

Matrix / Runout

Side A:  AL-31121-1B 2T P O
Side B:  BL-31121-1AE 1T P O
Side C:  AL-31122-1AA 1T P 0 □
Side D:  BL-31122-1C 2 SXT D14 P

Condition

Cover: VG+
Vinyl: NM-

Variant chronology

1971 - US Columbia red/orange stock label, gatefold stereo 2LP, no address printed on label  <- this copy
1976 - Japan CBS/Sony pressing with obi (40AP 282/283)

This Pressing

1971 US Columbia stereo gatefold 2LP pressing - red Columbia stock label, matrix prefixes matching the catalogue number for both discs.

The Album

Compiled by Dylan himself at the close of 1971, this double set gathered the hits and key album tracks of the preceding decade alongside a handful of previously unreleased recordings made especially for the collection. The newest material came from two short sessions: in March 1971, Dylan cut "Watching the River Flow" and "When I Paint My Masterpiece" at a New York studio with Leon Russell producing and a crack session band, giving the set a loose, bluesy jolt of new material; that September, fresh from performing at the Concert for Bangladesh, he returned to older songs with folk musician Happy Traum, re-recording "I Shall Be Released," "You Ain't Goin' Nowhere" and "Down in the Flood." The cover photograph, taken at the Bangladesh concert, situates the album at a moment when Dylan's public profile was rising again after the quieter, more domestic records of the late 1960s. Sequenced to move chronologically from the folk protest era through his mid-1960s electric breakthroughs to the country-tinged turn of the New Morning period, the set functioned as both a hits package and a career overview for an audience catching up with an artist who had deliberately receded from view. It was received warmly as a generous, well-chosen round-up and reached the upper reaches of the album charts on both sides of the Atlantic, cementing several of its selections - especially the newly unveiled tracks - as enduring parts of the Dylan canon.

Tracklist

Side 1

1. Watching The River Flow
2. Don't Think Twice, It's All Right
3. Lay Lady Lay
4. Stuck Inside Of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again

Side 2

1. I'll Be Your Baby Tonight
2. All I Really Want To Do
3. My Back Pages
4. Maggie's Farm
5. Tonight I'll Be Staying Here With You

Side 3

1. She Belongs To Me
2. All Along The Watchtower
3. The Mighty Quinn (Quinn, The Eskimo)
4. Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues
5. A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall

Side 4

1. If Not For You
2. It's All Over Now, Baby Blue
3. Tomorrow Is A Long Time
4. When I Paint My Masterpiece
5. I Shall Be Released
6. You Ain't Goin' Nowhere
7. Down In The Flood

The Label

The labels on this copy are the reddish-orange Columbia design with the stacked eye-in-box logo repeated around the rim, black title type, and no street address or rim slogan printed anywhere on the face; the only imprint data is the Marcas Reg./Printed in U.S.A. line at the foot of the label. This plain, address-free red Columbia label was the standard US stock design used across the early-1970s catalogue, consistent with the catalogue's original 1971 issue window for this title. Which specific design-table slot - an earlier versus a later stamping within that window - this exact label corresponds to is not established from the label alone. The side-specific matrix prefixes stamped under the catalogue number (AL 31121/BL 31121 for disc one, AL 31122/BL 31122 for disc two) tie the labels to the correct sides and discs for this pressing.

Fidelity

This is a standard-issue early-1970s Columbia pressing drawing on the same mastered sources used for the catalogue's domestic stereo release, rather than an audiophile remaster or specialist reissue cut. Collectors generally regard the contemporaneous US Columbia pressings of this title as solid, unfussy transfers without the thinness sometimes heard on later reissues, though the compilation's source material spans many different original sessions and masters, so fidelity varies somewhat by track. No audiophile remastering series (Mobile Fidelity, Analogue Productions, Classic Records, Music Matters or similar) exists for this specific title, so this pressing sits within the ordinary run of domestic Columbia copies rather than against a premium reissue tier.

Notes

This is the original-era US stereo release, catalogue PG 31120 (disc one C 31121, disc two C 31122), issued in a gatefold jacket. The labels are the plain reddish-orange Columbia design with no printed address, matching the early-1970s Columbia stock label used for this catalogue window. The runout prefixes for all four sides correspond to the sides' own matrix numbers (AL 31121/BL 31121, AL 31122/BL 31122), confirming the discs belong together as issued, though the specific stamper suffixes on this copy differ from the stamper suffixes recorded for the matched catalogue listing, pointing to a different stamper run within the same basic edition rather than a different edition altogether.

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