Bob Dylan

Rough And Rowdy Ways

2020  ·  Columbia C-250652  ·  Stereo  ·  US  ·  2xLP, gatefold · 33 1/3 RPM

Pressing details

LabelColumbia
Catalogue numberC-250652
Year2020
Mono / StereoStereo
CountryUS
Format2xLP, gatefold
Speed33 1/3 RPM
GenreRock/Folk - Singer-Songwriter
ProducerJack Frost
MusiciansBob Dylan (vocals, harmonica, piano), Tony Garnier (bass), Charlie Sexton (guitar), Bob Britt (guitar), Donnie Herron (pedal steel, violin, mandolin), Matt Chamberlain (drums); guest musicians on select tracks include Benmont Tench (organ), Fiona Apple (background vocals), Blake Mills (guitar)

Matrix / Runout

Side A:  AL19439780991 11 US JN-H STERLING
Side B:  BL19439780991 US JN-H STERLING
Side C:  CL19439780991 US JN-H STERLING
Side D:  DL19439780991 11 US JN-H STERLING

Condition

Cover
NM
Vinyl
NM

Variant chronology

2020 - US black vinyl 180g, stereo, Columbia C-250652  <- this copy
2020 - US gold vinyl, indie-store exclusive
2020 - worldwide/UK olive vinyl, limited edition (often sealed)
2020 - Europe yellow vinyl, limited 180g
2020 - Europe black vinyl 180g (Sony Music pressing)
2020 - Japan Sony Records Int'l edition (SICP 6341~2) - no documented sale found
2020 - Canada pressing - no documented sale found

This Pressing

2020 US stereo pressing (Columbia C-250652), Sterling-mastered runout, standard black-vinyl 180g edition - not a limited colored-vinyl variant, and a later issue than none on this catalogue number since all are 2020.

The Album

Rough And Rowdy Ways arrived in 2020 as Bob Dylan's first album of original songs in eight years, following 2012's Tempest and a trio of standards albums that had occupied the intervening decade. Dylan wrote and recorded the record quietly with his longtime touring band, and its release was framed by the surprise arrival of the seventeen-minute "Murder Most Foul" months ahead of the LP, a sprawling meditation on the Kennedy assassination woven through decades of American music and myth. The album as a whole ranges across mortality, history, love and self-invention, with Dylan's late-period voice - weathered, conversational, allusive - carrying songs that draw on blues, Tin Pan Alley, and his own back catalogue of imagery. Arriving in the first year of a global pandemic, the record was widely heard as a summation from an artist in his late seventies surveying a lifetime of American culture, and it was met with some of the most enthusiastic reviews of his later career, many critics ranking it among his finest late work. It extended Dylan's decades-long status as the central songwriter of American popular music and reaffirmed his standing as a Nobel laureate still producing vital, ambitious work deep into his eighth decade.

Tracklist

Side 1

1. I Contain Multitudes
2. False Prophet
3. My Own Version of You

Side 2

1. I've Made Up My Mind to Give Myself to You
2. Black Rider
3. Goodbye Jimmy Reed

Side 3

1. Mother of Muses
2. Crossing the Rubicon
3. Key West (Philosopher Pirate)

Side 4

1. Murder Most Foul

The Label

The labels carry the cream-and-black retro Columbia design used on Columbia's current catalogue and new-release vinyl, with a repeating COLUMBIA rim band, a walking-eye device (two eye devices flanking the spindle on side 2), and COLUMBIA STEREO / AUDIO LONG PLAYING SONIC printed around the circumference; the copyright line reads "© & ℗ 2020 Columbia Records, a Division of Sony Music Entertainment." This is a flat label with no deep groove. The 2020 copyright line fixes this as a 2020-or-later pressing. The runout on each side reads the catalogue number followed by "US JN-H STERLING"; no overstamp letter, pressing-plant logo, or stamped matrix number is recorded on any side, so the copy is identified here as a Sterling-mastered US stereo pressing of this catalogue number without a confirmed plant stamp.

Fidelity

The album was cut by Sterling Sound (engineer code JN-H visible in the runout) and pressed on 180g vinyl by MPO in France for US distribution, a combination collectors generally regard as solid, clean modern mastering and a quiet, well-centered pressing. It is not part of any audiophile reissue series (no Analogue Productions, Mobile Fidelity or similar cut exists for this title), so this standard stereo pressing sits at the top of the album's available vinyl fidelity options alongside the other colored-vinyl variants cut from the same Sterling lacquers.

Notes

This is the standard 2020 US stereo release on 180g vinyl, pressed by MPO with lacquers cut at Sterling Sound, issued in a gatefold jacket with printed inner sleeves and a download card. The labels' 2020 copyright line fixes this as a 2020-or-later pressing regardless of the retro label artwork used. The runout etchings read AL/BL/CL/DL19439780991 with JN-H Sterling mastering code on all four sides, consistent with the catalogue number printed on the spine, sleeves and labels.