BOB DYLAN Bob Dylan (Original Master Recording 2016 limited edition Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab Mono 13-track double album 2-LP mastered by Krieg Wunderlich on the Gain 2 Ultra Analog System specially plated and pressed on 180-gram High-Definition Vinyl at 45RPM. Bob Dylans self-titled 1962 debut is as understated of an entrance as any significant musician has ever made. Heavyweight gatefold picture sleeve with original album art individually gold-foil numbered and limited to just 3000 copies still sealed inside its perforated loose bag. Recommended) Track Listing: UNDERSTATED DEBUT LAUNCHED IMMEASURABLY INFLUENTIAL CAREER: CLEAREST CONNECTION TO DYLANS PURIST FOLK ROOTS 1/4 / 15 IPS analog mono master to DSD 256 to analog console to lathe Made when mono was still king Bob Dylans self-titled 1962 debut is as understated of an entrance as any significant musician as ever made. Already well-versed in American roots music Dylan simultaneously pays homage to tradition and extends it by putting his own stamp on classic material that metaphorically functions as the soil of our contemporary songs and styles. Free of ego and performed with masterful conviction Bob Dylan ranks with the debut efforts of similar artistic giants Elvis Presley and the Rolling Stones. Side One Youre No Good Talkin New York In My Time of Dyin Man of Constant Sorrow Side Two Fixin to Die Pretty Peggy-O Highway 51 Side Three Gospel Plow Baby Let Me Follow You Down House of the Risin Sun Side Four Freight Train Blues Song to Woody See That My Grave Is Kept Clean Mastered from the original master tapes pressed at RTI and limited to 3 000 copies Mobile Fidelitys restored 180g mono 45RPM 2LP version brings the contents of this seminal release as closest as theyve ever come to master tape-quality in the original mono configuration. Transparent to the source the simple sounds of Dylans voice acoustic guitar and harmonica take on lifelike perspective and directness – the husk and bark to which Robert Shelton referred in his now-legendary New York Times review of a Dylan appearance at Gerdes Folk City. MoFi has made possible an inexpensive time-traveling trip back to the Greenwich Village coffeehouses and folk clubs in which Dylan cut his teeth albeit in much better fidelity and without any annoying background chatter. Wider grooves mean more information reaches your ears. As the preferred mix at the time of the recording the mono version presents Dylan as he and his producers originally intended. Since the separation of the stereo versions isnt as sharp the mono edition places Dylans vocals in the heart of the musical action and as one with the accompaniment. It paints listeners an incredibly accurate portrait of the attention-getting concrete mass of sound that features no artificial panning and straight-ahead immersion into the music. This is how almost everyone first heard this timeless album – making the mono mix all the more historically valuable and truthful. Much has been made of the commercial indifference that greeted the album upon its low-key release. Yet focusing on sales figures and the reaction of a public not yet hip to Dylans name or music is to miss the forest for the trees. Distinguished from the eras other folk efforts by way of the determination brazenness and lived-through-this worldliness Dylan approaches the material and sings the songs Dylan lays the groundwork for the path hed soon trailblaze and everyone else would follow. By nodding to Woody Guthrie at the same time he completely re-imagines a sobering tune such as Blind Lemon Jeffersons See That My Grave Is Kept Clean Dylan straddles the past and future. He also displays with challenging authority and savant-like expertise the ability to handle weighty topics such as death sorrow and lamentation with the vaudeville flair bluesy mannerisms and poignant command of an artist three times his age. As Dylan scholar and pop-culture critic Greil Marcus observed in 2010 Everybody knew Joan Baez and the Kingston Trio; if you knew Bob Dylan you knew something other people didnt something that soon enough everybody had to know. Within a year an album could put an adjective in front of the singers name as if it were already common coin. It all starts here.