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

Hard Rain

1976 · CBS/Sony 25AP 290 · Stereo · Japan · LP, Album, with obi · 33 1/3 RPM

Pressing details

Label	CBS/Sony
Catalogue number	25AP 290
Year	1976
Mono / Stereo	Stereo
Country	Japan
Format	LP, Album, with obi
Speed	33 1/3 RPM
Genre	Rock - Singer-Songwriter / Live
Producer	Don DeVito, Bob Dylan
Performer / Orchestra	The Rolling Thunder Revue band (uncredited as such on the labels, credited by name on the jacket)
Musicians	Mick Ronson (guitar), T-Bone Burnette (guitar, piano), Steven Soles (guitar, backing vocals), David Mansfield (guitar, mandolin, violin), Rob Stoner (bass, backing vocals), Howard Wyeth (drums, piano), Gary Burke (drums), Scarlet Rivera (violin/strings)

Matrix / Runout

Side A:  25AP-290A1 1 B 14 t
Side B:  25AP-290B1 1 A 8 9

Condition

Cover: NM
Vinyl: EX+

Variant chronology

1976 - Japan CBS/Sony 25AP 290, flat grey-green/orange label, striped red/white cover obi  <- this copy
1976 - Japan CBS/Sony 25AP 290, white-label promo
1976 - Japan CBS/Sony 25AP 290, blue boxed obi variant - no documented sale found
1977 - Japan CBS/Sony 25AP 290, wider obi (stereo) - no documented sale found
1976 - US Columbia PC 34349

This Pressing

1976 Japanese pressing (stereo) - flat grey-green/orange CBS/Sony Tokyo labels with the title's original plain striped cover obi, placing this copy as the earliest standard Japanese pressing of this catalogue number rather than the later blue-boxed-obi or wider-obi reprints.

The Album

Hard Rain documents the second, harder-edged leg of Bob Dylan's 1975-76 Rolling Thunder Revue, drawing its performances from shows in Fort Collins, Colorado and Fort Worth, Texas in the spring of 1976, timed to coincide with an NBC television special of the same name. By this point the Revue's loose, theatrical first-leg atmosphere had given way to a tighter, more abrasive touring band built around guitarist Mick Ronson, bassist Rob Stoner and violinist Scarlet Rivera, and the album captures Dylan reworking his own catalogue - from the mid-1960s protest and folk-rock of 'Maggie's Farm' and 'One Too Many Mornings' to the then-recent Blood on the Tracks material 'Idiot Wind' and 'You're A Big Girl Now' - in radically rearranged, often ragged live readings. The record arrived at a transitional moment in Dylan's career, following the critical triumph of Blood on the Tracks and Desire and preceding a long fallow period, and it stands as the rawest, least polished of his official 1970s live documents. Critics at the time were divided, finding the performances compelling in their intensity but the sound and singing rough compared to the studio originals; over time it has come to be valued less as a definitive live album and more as a visceral snapshot of Dylan's mid-70s touring persona at its most combative.

Tracklist

Side 1

1. Maggie's Farm - B. Dylan
2. One Too Many Mornings - B. Dylan
3. Stuck Inside Of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again - B. Dylan
4. Oh, Sister - B. Dylan - J. Levy
5. Lay, Lady, Lay - B. Dylan

Side 2

1. Shelter From The Storm
2. You're A Big Girl Now
3. I Threw It All Away
4. Idiot Wind - B. Dylan

The Label

Both sides carry a flat grey-green/orange label with a single orange 'eye-in-box' CBS/Sony logo at nine o'clock and the TOKYO JAPAN rim credit, dated (P) 1976 CBS Inc. - the house design CBS/Sony used for this catalogue series from its first Japanese pressing. The label carries no deep groove. The jacket's striped red/white obi with Japanese track listing and discography is the plain obi used on the title's initial Japanese issue, distinct from the later blue-boxed obi and from the wider stereo obi that appears on a 1977 reprint of the same catalogue number. Together the flat standard label and the plain striped obi place this copy on the earliest Japanese pressing line for this catalogue number.

Fidelity

This is a Japanese CBS/Sony pressing of the original 1976 stereo mixes, mastered and cut for the Japanese market rather than an audiophile remaster. Japanese CBS/Sony pressings of this era are generally well regarded by collectors for quiet surfaces and solid cutting quality relative to many contemporary Western pressings, though Hard Rain itself is a live recording with inherently rougher source sound than Dylan's studio albums. It sits above cheaper later Western reissues in surface quality but below no audiophile reissue of this specific title, as none is noted for this release.

Notes

25AP 290 stereo - a 1976 Japanese CBS/Sony pressing. The labels carry the standard grey-green/orange CBS/Sony Tokyo Japan design dated (P) 1976 CBS Inc., consistent with the title's original Japanese release window rather than the 1977 wider-obi reissue of the same catalogue number. The runout etchings carry additional stamper/mother digits beyond the plain catalogue-number etching seen on some reference copies, indicating a specific Japanese stamper pairing for this copy. The obi survives with the jacket, which supports and completes the pressing as issued.

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