This . . . . . . . of course

On this day in music history: March 22, 1965 - “Bringing It All Back Home”, the fifth album by Bob Dylan is released. Produced by Tom Wilson, it is recorded at Columbia Recording Studios in New York City from January 13-15, 1965. Recorded just four months after the release of his previous album “Another Side Of Bob Dylan”, the prolific musician shifts musical direction yet again. Moving away from the acoustic based protest songs that have established him as a leader of the folk music movement, Dylan cuts half of the new album with a band using electric guitars and bass for the first time. The very act of a folk musician using electric instruments is considered a highly controversial act, with many of his peers having a bias against rock & roll. Dylan’s lyrics also begin to change dramatically, becoming more personal and adopting an abstract “stream of consciousness” prose in many of them. This is most evident on the albums classic single “Subterranean Homesick Blues” (#39 Pop), drawing inspiration from disparate sources including beat poet Jack Kerouac, folk musicians Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger, and rock & roll pioneer Chuck Berry. The song becomes Bob Dylan’s first chart single in the US, and one of his best known compositions. The album contains a number of other classics including “Maggie’s Farm”, which Dylan performs to a hostile crowd at the Newport Folk Festival, jeering him for feeling that he has betrayed his core folk music audience by going electric. “Gates Of Eden”, “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue” and “It’s Alright Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)” also become among Dylan’s best known, widely covered songs. Also on the second side of the album is his recording of “Mr. Tambourine Man”, originally cut during the “Another Side” sessions, but the first version is left unreleased. Bob re-records it again on the final day of recording for “Bringing It All Back Home on January 15, 1965. Only five days later, The Byrds record their electric version of "Mr. Tambourine Man” in Los Angeles with producer Terry Melcher. Their version hits number one on the pop singles chart late June of 1965. Once released, “Bringing It All Back Home” becomes Bob Dylan’s most successful release to date, topping the UK album chart and his first top ten album in the US. First released on CD in the late 80’s, it is remastered and reissued in 2003, as a hybrid SACD, featuring the original stereo mix, and a newly remixed 5.1 surround mix. Reissue label Sundazed Records reissues the original mono mix as a 180 gram vinyl LP in 2001, making it available for the first time since going out of print in the late 60’s. Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab also reissues the title as a double vinyl set, mastered at 45 RPM in 2012, followed by a hybrid SACD featuring only the stereo mix in 2013. “Bringing It All Back Home” peaks at number six on the Billboard Top 200, and is certified Platinum in the US by the RIAA.

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