John Wesley Harding
Dylan's sparse, folk-return album after his rock period.
John Wesley Harding, Bob Dylan’s eighth studio album, came out on December 27, 1967, via Columbia Records. Produced by Bob Johnston, it saw Dylan shift back to semi-acoustic, folk-based songwriting after three rock albums with abstract lyrics. Critics praised it, sales were strong, and the RIAA certified it gold within three months of release.
Quick Facts
- Artist
- Bob Dylan
- Released
- 27 December 1967
- Recorded
- October–November 1967
- Studio
- Columbia Studio A (Nashville, Tennessee)
- Genre
- Folk rock
- country rock
- roots rock
- Label
- Columbia
Facts from the source article.
Track listing
Side one
| No. | Title | Length |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | John Wesley Harding | 2:58 |
| 2 | As I Went Out One Morning | 2:49 |
| 3 | I Dreamed I Saw St. Augustine | 3:53 |
| 4 | All Along the Watchtower | 2:31 |
| 5 | The Ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest | 5:35 |
| 6 | Drifter's Escape | 2:52 |
| Total length | 20:38 | |
Side two
| No. | Title | Length |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Dear Landlord | 3:16 |
| 2 | I Am a Lonesome Hobo | 3:19 |
| 3 | I Pity the Poor Immigrant | 4:12 |
| 4 | The Wicked Messenger | 2:02 |
| 5 | Down Along the Cove | 2:23 |
| 6 | I'll Be Your Baby Tonight | 2:34 |
Track listing from the source article.
Recording sessions
Dylan began work on John Wesley Harding in the fall of 1967, eighteen months after completing Blonde on Blonde. He had spent considerable time recording informal basement sessions with the Band in West Saugerties, New York, stockpiling many new compositions. He submitted nearly all of those for copyright but chose not to include any in this studio release; instead, he used a different set of songs. It is not known when these songs were written, and none have appeared in the dozens of basement recordings that have since surfaced. Robbie Robertson recalled that Dylan went to Nashville on a whim and, with just a few musicians, put the songs on tape. The sessions took place in autumn 1967, requiring less than twelve hours over three studio stints. The instrumentation was sparse: drummer Kenneth A. Buttrey and bassist Charlie McCoy formed the rhythm section, while Dylan handled harmonica, guitar, piano, and vocals. Dylan later said he did not intentionally aim for a mellow sound and would have liked more steel guitar and piano. The first session on October 17 at Columbia's Studio A lasted three hours, producing master takes of "I Dreamed I Saw St. Augustine", "Drifter's Escape", and "The Ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest". On November 6, Dylan recorded master takes for "All Along the Watchtower", "John Wesley Harding", "As I Went Out One Morning", "I Pity the Poor Immigrant", and "I Am a Lonesome Hobo". A final session on November 29 completed the remaining work.
Packaging
The album is named after Texas outlaw John Wesley Hardin, whose name Dylan misspelled. Singer Wesley Stace, who used the stage name John Wesley Harding, noted in a New York Times editorial that no one knows why Dylan misspelled the name and that, to his knowledge, no one has ever asked. The cover photograph shows a squinting Dylan flanked by Luxman and Purna Das, two Bengali Bauls brought to Woodstock by Dylan's manager Albert Grossman, with local stonemason Charlie Joy behind Dylan. After release, rumors circulated that the faces of the Beatles were hidden in the tree knots on the cover. Photographer John Berg acknowledged their presence to Rolling Stone in 1968 but was reluctant to discuss it. In a 1995 interview, Berg clarified that the resemblance was unintentional and that he was unaware of it until after the album's release, when a Rolling Stone caller pointed it out. The sleeve also features liner notes written by Dylan, telling a story of three kings and three characters that incorporates details from the album's songs.
Release dates
Figuring out exactly when John Wesley Harding first hit stores is a messy business. The liner notes for Dylan’s mono box set peg the release at December 17, 1967. But a New York Times piece from December 23 of that year, written by Al Aronowitz, claimed the album would drop within the next two weeks. Early CD pressings from the 1980s and 1990s carry a 1968 copyright. Billboard’s January 20 issue noted the LP had been in shops for less than a week and had already moved over 250,000 copies. Michael Gray’s Dylan encyclopedia also points to a January 1968 release. Across the Atlantic, Melody Maker reviewed the album in its February 3, 1968 issue and announced a British release for February 23. It first appeared on the UK charts on March 2 at number 25, then spent 13 consecutive weeks at number 1. The album got a remastered Hybrid SACD reissue on September 16, 2003, as one of 15 Dylan titles, and was re-released again as part of The Original Mono Recordings on October 10, 2010.
Legacy
Dylan asked Columbia to release the album with no publicity or hype, and he refused Clive Davis's suggestion to pull a single, preferring to maintain a low-key profile. In a year dominated by psychedelia, the agrarian-themed John Wesley Harding was seen as reactionary. Critic Jon Landau wrote in Crawdaddy! that for such an album to be released alongside Sgt. Pepper, Their Satanic Majesties Request, and After Bathing at Baxter's, someone must have had great confidence in what they were doing, and that Dylan seemed to feel no need to respond to predominant pop trends. The album's critical stature has continued to grow; Clinton Heylin wrote in 2000 that it remains one of Dylan's most enduring albums, constructed self-consciously as an album-as-an-album, and that Dylan managed in less than six weeks to produce his most perfectly executed official collection. The album was remastered and re-released in 2003 using SACD technology. Although legend holds that Dylan recorded John Wesley Harding after finishing The Basement Tapes sessions, several biographers and discographers have argued that the final reel of basement recordings actually postdates the first John Wesley Harding session. Regardless, the Band did accompany Dylan for at least one performance after the album: following Woody Guthrie's death, Dylan performed at a memorial show on January 20, 1968 at Carnegie Hall, backed by the Band (billed as the Crackers), playing three songs in his first public performance in twenty months.
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