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

John Wesley Harding

1968 · Columbia CS 9604 · Stereo · US · LP · 33 1/3 RPM

Pressing details

Label	Columbia
Catalogue number	CS 9604
Year	1968
Mono / Stereo	Stereo
Country	US
Format	LP
Speed	33 1/3 RPM
Genre	Rock/Folk Rock
Producer	Bob Johnston
Musicians	Bob Dylan (vocal, guitar, harmonica, piano), Charles McCoy (bass), Kenny Buttrey (drums), Pete Drake (steel guitar on "I'll Be Your Baby Tonight" and "Down Along the Cove")

Matrix / Runout

Side A:  XSM-135311-1B 1 0 B 1 NW
Side B:  XSM-135312-1B 0 A22  NW 1 S

Condition

Cover: NM-
Vinyl: NM

Variant chronology

1968 - red label, 360 Sound Stereo, two-eye logo, 'STEREO' lettered beneath CS 9604, thicker right-slanting side-1 matrix typeface (first stereo label variant)
1968 (later red-label run) - red label, 360 Sound Stereo, two-eye logo, standard typeface, no 'STEREO' lettered under CS 9604  <- this copy
Later Columbia grey/orange label reissues and the Mobile Fidelity mono box set - separate audiophile market, see dealer new pricing

This Pressing

Red-label Columbia 360 Sound stereo pressing from the Terre Haute plant; the plain typeface and absent 'STEREO' sub-line under the catalogue number place it a later typesetting within that red-label stereo run rather than the earliest stereo label.

The Album

Recorded in Nashville in late 1967 after a motorcycle accident had pulled Bob Dylan out of public view for over a year, this album arrived as a stark reversal of the electric, surrealist rock of his preceding records: spare, largely acoustic arrangements built around guitar, bass, drums and occasional steel guitar frame a set of allegorical, almost biblical story-songs. The songs draw on parable, Western outlaw myth and scripture, trading the dense wordplay of his mid-1960s work for compressed, deceptively simple narratives about judgment, wandering and salvation. It marked Dylan's return to recording after the accident and to Columbia's Nashville sessions that would also shape his next few albums, signaling a broader turn toward country-inflected songwriting that influenced the late-1960s shift away from psychedelia across rock and folk. Songs from the set, especially its guitarist-haunted closing parable of a watchtower, were quickly covered by other artists and became durable parts of the Dylan canon. Critics at the time and since have read the record as a deliberate, quietly radical retreat from rock excess, and it is regarded as a pivotal hinge between Dylan's mid-1960s electric trilogy and his subsequent country period. Its understated tone and modest instrumentation stood apart from the era's maximalist rock productions and helped cement Dylan's reputation as an artist defined as much by restraint and reinvention as by innovation.

Tracklist

Side 1

1. John Wesley Harding
2. As I Went Out One Morning
3. I Dreamed I Saw St. Augustine
4. All Along the Watchtower
5. The Ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest
6. Drifter's Escape

Side 2

1. Dear Landlord
2. I Am a Lonesome Hobo
3. I Pity the Poor Immigrant
4. The Wicked Messenger
5. Down Along the Cove
6. I'll Be Your Baby Tonight

The Label

The side labels are red Columbia stock with the white '360 SOUND' arc and arrows at the bottom, the two-eye Columbia logo at 3 and 9 o'clock, and 'CS 9604' printed at left of the spindle with no accompanying 'STEREO' lettering beneath it; the Side 1 matrix number at right of the spindle is set in a plain, upright typeface rather than a heavier right-slanting one. Columbia used this red '360 Sound' design on its stereo LPs from the label's introduction through the early 1970s before moving to the grey/orange design, so the design places the pressing within that broad era; the absence of the 'STEREO' sub-line and the plain, upright numeral style on the catalogue number mark a later typesetting and printing within that red-label stereo run rather than the earliest one. The label is flat, with no deep groove.

Fidelity

The album was engineered in Nashville and mastered onto the standard Columbia 360 Sound stereo cut used across this label era; collectors generally regard the mono mix of this title as the more carefully balanced original folded-down master, with the stereo cut seen as competent but secondary for critical listening. Terre Haute pressings of this era are considered solid but unexceptional in surface quality compared with Columbia's other plants. Among later reissues, an audiophile mono box edition is the most highly regarded fidelity upgrade for this title; this ordinary stereo copy sits below that tier and below the best early stereo label pressings, though it offers a faithful and listenable period cut of the album.

Notes

This is a US stereo Columbia pressing on the red '360 Sound' label with the two-eye logo, manufactured at the Terre Haute plant. The runout on this copy carries different stamper suffixes than the two label-text variants recorded for the first-stereo-pressing label design, and the label itself lacks the 'STEREO' wording beneath the catalogue number and the heavier, slanted Side 1 numeral style associated with that earliest variant. Together these point to a later stamper/printing generation within the red-label stereo era rather than the very first stereo pressing, though the broad red-label design keeps the record within the late-1960s to early-1970s production window.

Documenting collections

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