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

Together Through Life

2009 · Columbia C 743893 (88697 43893 1) · Stereo · US · 2xLP + CD, 180g · 33 1/3 RPM

Pressing details

Label	Columbia
Catalogue number	C 743893 (88697 43893 1)
Year	2009
Mono / Stereo	Stereo
Country	US
Format	2xLP + CD, 180g
Speed	33 1/3 RPM
Genre	Rock - Blues Rock/Americana
Producer	Jack Frost
Musicians	Bob Dylan (guitar, keyboards, vocals), Mike Campbell (guitar, mandolin), David Hidalgo (accordion, guitar), Donnie Herron (steel guitar, banjo, mandolin, trumpet), Tony Garnier (bass), George Receli (drums)

Matrix / Runout

Side A:  8869-7-43893-1A RJ STERLING 1 ○ 11
Side B:  8869-7-43893-1B RJ STERLING 1 ○ 11
Side C:  8869-7-43893-1C RJ STERLING 1 ○
Side D:  8869-7-43893-1D RJ STERLING 2 ○ 11

Condition

Cover: NM
Vinyl: NM

Variant chronology

2009 - US Columbia C-743893, 180g 2LP + CD, non-gatefold sleeve  <- this copy
2010s-2020s - Legacy Recordings reissue (ALEG 84019 / LEGLP98401 / LDD984019), currently in print

This Pressing

2009 US Columbia first pressing (stereo, 180g) - standard Columbia/Legacy retro label, Sterling Sound lacquer cut with pressing-plant and cutter marks in the runout, United Record Pressing manufacture.

The Album

Together Through Life arrived in 2009 as Bob Dylan's thirty-third studio album, a loose, road-worn set written largely in collaboration with Grateful Dead lyricist Robert Hunter after Dylan was asked to contribute a song to a French film and found himself with a batch of new material. The record leans hard into accordion-soaked border music and Chicago blues, driven by David Hidalgo's conjunto accordion and Mike Campbell's guitar work alongside Dylan's touring band. Coming after the acclaimed Time Out of Mind, Love and Theft, and Modern Times, it extended the late-career renaissance that re-established Dylan as a vital recording artist rather than a nostalgia act. Its rawer, more conversational lyrics and loping, bar-band arrangements marked a shift from the tighter productions of its immediate predecessors. The album debuted at number one in both the US and UK, making Dylan, in his late sixties, one of the oldest living artists to top the charts, and it was received by critics as a warm, unpretentious entry in his late catalog - less a grand statement than a comfortable, blues-drenched detour.

Tracklist

Side 1

1. Beyond Here Lies Nothin'
2. Life Is Hard
3. My Wife's Home Town

Side 2

1. If You Ever Go to Houston
2. Forgetful Heart

Side 3

1. Jolene
2. This Dream of You
3. Shake Shake Mama

Side 4

1. I Feel a Change Comin' On
2. It's All Good

The Label

All four labels show the same blue-and-white/silver retro "Columbia Record" house design used on Sony/Legacy vinyl of this era: a circular Columbia logo at twelve o'clock, the arc legend COLUMBIA RECORD / COLUMBIA GRAPHOPHONE COMPANY running the rim, the catalogue number and matrix string beside the spindle, and speed/channel noted at the right. This is the contemporary design Columbia/Legacy used across its vinyl reissue and new-release program rather than any vintage-era label, and it is common to every copy of this catalogue number regardless of territory. The runouts carry a pressing-plant ring mark and, on side B only, an additional star-shaped lacquer mark alongside the cutting-house initials - both etched symbols that place manufacture and lacquer cutting with the facilities the companies credits for this release, not with any alternate or later cut. The barcode on the jacket (a mark that postdates 1980) is consistent with this being the record's own 2009 release rather than an older object; it places the copy among the catalogue number's first-issue 2009 pressings, not a prior design.

Fidelity

The album was mastered for vinyl from a Sterling Sound lacquer cut (RJ initials in the runout), pressed at the Nashville plant credited for Columbia's contemporary vinyl program on 180-gram stock. Collectors on the forums regard this as a solid, full-bodied cut typical of Sterling's late-2000s analog mastering chain for Columbia/Legacy reissues and new releases, without the compression complaints that dog some loudness-war-era CDs of the same period. As the only vinyl edition of this title (aside from later repressed copies drawn from the same mastering under new catalogue numbers), this pressing sits at the top of the format's fidelity hierarchy for the album - there being no audiophile remaster (no Analogue Productions, Mobile Fidelity, or Classic Records edition) to outrank it.

Notes

This is the original 2009 US Columbia release of Together Through Life on 180-gram vinyl with bonus CD, pressed in stereo with labels in the Columbia/Legacy retro house design used across the contemporary catalogue. The runouts carry the RJ Sterling Sound cutting initials together with a pressing-plant ring mark on every side and an additional star-shaped cutting mark on side B only, consistent with the manufacturing credits for this release. These etched marks tie the pressing to the facilities credited for the 2009 program rather than any alternate cut, and the side-B-only star indicates a second engineer touched that lacquer. Hype-sticker shrink copies of this release are common and do not change the pressing itself.

Documenting collections

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