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

Nashville Skyline

1969 · Columbia KCS 9825 · Stereo · US · LP · 33 1/3 RPM

Pressing details

Label	Columbia
Catalogue number	KCS 9825
Year	1969
Mono / Stereo	Stereo
Country	US
Format	LP
Speed	33 1/3 RPM
Genre	Country / Country Rock
Producer	Bob Johnston
Musicians	Bob Dylan (vocals, guitar), Kenny Buttrey (drums), Charlie McCoy (bass, harmonica), Pete Drake (steel guitar), Norman Blake (guitar), Charlie Daniels (guitar, bass), Bob Wilson (organ, piano); guest artist Johnny Cash (vocals on "Girl From the North Country")

Matrix / Runout

Side A:  XSM139756-1H T
Side B:  XSM-139757-1A 2 T 0

Condition

Cover: VG+
Vinyl: NM-/NN-

Variant chronology

1969 - US Columbia red label, twin-logo '360 Sound' stereo issue  <- this copy
1971 - US Columbia reissue (JC-prefixed label)
2010s - 180-gram Legacy/Columbia reissue

This Pressing

Original-era US stereo pressing (1969) - Columbia red '360 Sound' label, stamped/etched runout codes matching an early stamper state for both sides.

The Album

Recorded in Nashville in the wake of Dylan's motorcycle-accident retreat and his increasingly rustic, song-craft-focused turn with The Band, this record found him singing in a warmer, lower register and leaning fully into the country idiom he had only hinted at before. Cut quickly with Nashville session veterans, the album pairs spare, direct love songs with instrumental and novelty pieces, closing a trilogy of post-accident reinvention that began with the stripped-down basement recordings and the plainspoken writing of the album that preceded it. The duet with Johnny Cash that opens the record cemented a long mutual admiration between the two artists and signaled, to a rock audience still processing his electric years, that Dylan now stood at the crossroads of rock and country music. Its brevity and lack of overt protest or surrealism stunned some critics while delighting others, and it is now seen as a pivotal moment in the country-rock movement, opening the door for a wave of rock artists to record in Nashville and draw on its musicians and sound. The album's warmth and simplicity marked one of the most unexpected stylistic pivots of Dylan's career, and tracks from it remain among his most covered and best-loved love songs.

Tracklist

Side 1

1. Girl From The North Country (with Johnny Cash)
2. Nashville Skyline Rag
3. To Be Alone With You
4. I Threw It All Away
5. Peggy Day

Side 2

1. Lay Lady Lay
2. One More Night
3. Tell Me That It Isn't True
4. Country Pie
5. Tonight I'll Be Staying Here With You

The Label

The labels are red, with a Columbia box logo at either side of the rim and a 'STEREO'/'360 SOUND' arc text running around the bottom edge; the catalogue number KCS 9825 sits at left and the side/track listing at right. The labels show no deep groove ring. This red '360 Sound' twin-logo design is the stereo Columbia style used across the label's late-1960s catalogue, with printed credits set in a plain sans-serif upper-case face typical of Columbia's contemporary stock; the pressing plant is not identified on the label. That design places the copy within the late-1960s/early-1970s stereo Columbia era as an original-era US stereo pressing, without a further printed marker fixing it to one specific first-state printing within that window.

Fidelity

The album was cut from the original Nashville session master tapes for Columbia's contemporary stereo pressing chain, with no indication of a later remix or remaster on this copy's labels or runout. Collectors generally rate the original-era Columbia pressings of this title as sonically direct and uncomplicated, prizing them mainly for historical authenticity rather than audiophile spectacle, since the recording itself is intentionally spare. Later audiophile and 180-gram reissues have since appeared and are valued for quieter vinyl, but the early Columbia stereo pressings such as this one remain the reference point collectors compare those reissues against.

Notes

This is a 1969 US Columbia stereo pressing of Nashville Skyline on the red '360 Sound' label. The side 1 runout carries the base lacquer code with an added stamped letter, and side 2 the matching lacquer code with additional stamped digits, both consistent with an early-stamper state of the title's original release rather than a later reissue. No deep groove or additional dating marks are visible on the labels themselves, so the pressing is placed as an original-era stereo copy rather than tied to a single specific stamper generation.

Documenting collections

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