Blimey, 'on this day' makes the 17th Jan an extraordinary day for Dylan fans! Anyone would think he was a numerologist or something? Maybe just coincidence but his most popular album along with one of his most reviled were issued upon this date! 

(Well if not reviled quite certainly contentious. That these were separated by a year is staggering by anyone's standards IMHO)

On this day in music history: January 17, 1975 - “Blood On The Tracks”, the fifteenth studio album by Bob Dylan is released. Produced by Bob Dylan, it is recorded at A&R Recording Studios in New York City from and Sound 80 in Minneapolis, MN from September 16 - 19, and December 27 - 30, 1974. The album marks his return to Columbia Records after briefly departing for the Asylum label. Many of the albums’ songs deal with the disintegration of Dylan’s nine year marriage to Sara Lownds, though he publicly denies this. Again, recording quickly, Dylan changes his mind about certain songs, he returns to the studio in late December and re-record several songs originally cut during the sessions in New York. It is a major critical and commercial success upon its release, and is regarded by many as the best album of his 70’s era output. “Tracks” is also supported by the now legendary “Rolling Thunder Revue” Tour. First remastered and reissued as a hybrid SACD in 2003, “Tracks” is also reissued as a 180 gram vinyl LP by Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab in 2013. “Blood On The Tracks” spends two weeks at number one on the Billboard Top 200, and is certified 2x Platinum in the US by the RIAA.

Perhaps the most obviously popular Dylan album of all time and frequently on the top of everyone's list. I am no different and this album along with the legendary bootleg or ROIO of 'Blood on The Tapes' are documents of an extraordinary period of poetic output for His Bobness. Storytelling at it's Dylanesque best! 

On this day in music history: January 17, 1974 - “Planet Waves”, the fourteenth studio album by Bob Dylan is released. Produced by Rob Fraboni, it is recorded at Village Recorders in Los Angeles, CA on November 5, 6 & 9, 1973. Following a period when he writes and records the soundtrack for the Sam Peckinpah film “Pat Garrett & Billy Kid” (in which he also stars), Dylan’s prolific output slows to a trickle as his contract with Columbia is due to expire at the end of 1973. Having fulfilled his commitment to his former label, he fields offers from other labels who are eager to sign him. Asylum Records chief David Geffen quickly signs him, and Dylan quickly gets back to work. The album (his first true studio album since “New Morning” nearly four years earlier) is recorded in just three days backed by The Band, who he hasn’t recorded with since 1967. The set includes a number of songs that go on to be covered by numerous artists including “On A Night Like This”, “Forever Young” and “Going, Going, Gone”. In spite of more than a decade of highly influential and best selling albums, “Planet Waves” becomes Dylan’s first chart topping album in the US on February 19, 1974. First released on CD in 1988, it is remastered and reissued in 2003 as a hybrid SACD. It is reissued as a standard redbook CD in 2004 after the SACD is discontinued. Long out of print on vinyl, it is remastered and reissued as 180 gram LP by Simply Vinyl in 2002. It is reissued again as a limited edition numbered 180 gram vinyl LP and hybrid SACD by Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab in 2015. “Planet Waves” spends four weeks at number one on the Billboard Top 200, and is certified Platinum in the US by the RIAA.

Planet Waves was important to me for containing one of my favourite songs that always reminds me of my dear brother Steve. I had a personal wish for 'Forever Young' to be played at his funeral but as a result we were in no fit state to coordinate such a thing. I think of him anyway whenever I hear it and the two versions here on PW suit several differing moods . . . "may you climb a ladder to the stars" . . . . . . surprisingly religious song for me as it mentions God but hey . . . . . .the sentiments are there, in grief we make no such judgements and are open to all sorts of odd notions!