Bob Dylan 1963 Original Freewheelin' Album w/Four Deleted Tracks In Super-Rare Stereo....

Description

Bob Dylan 1963 Original Freewheelin' Album w/Four Deleted Tracks In Super-Rare Stereo. Heritage Auctions is proud to present for auction an original stereo pressing of Bob Dylan's legendary second album, The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, that lists the common songs on the jacket but plays the music and lists on the labels the four rare, deleted tracks that all Dylan fans know and love: "Rocks and Gravel," "Let Me Die in My Footsteps," "Gamblin' Willie's Dead Man's Hand" and "Talkin' John Birch Blues."

ERRATA: Our catalog for this auction mistakenly asserts that the two record labels list the common, not rare, songs. But indeed, even better... as you can see in our pictures, the "360 Sound Stereo" labels do list the four rare tracks, adding a tremendous punch to this already-rare gem.

This is it... the breathtakingly rare record that everybody wants but almost nobody has. Pressed only once and only in the hundreds in early 1963, it is stunningly rare and has been called the rarest and most sought-after record by a major artist. And although Heritage has offered up the mono version once in a blue moon, this is the very first stereo copy we've ever been able to offer. The top collectors in the hobby tell us this is one of only three stereo's known to still exist.

Only this first pressing of the Freewheelin' contained the controversial song "Talkin' John Birch Society Blues," which CBS -TV decided to keep Bob from performing on The Ed Sullivan Show that spring. CBS Inc. followed suit by keeping it off this unknown folksinger's second album, which already had been fully approved and for which the Columbia Records presses had started rolling in Los Angeles. For reasons unknown because Dylan never addresses this type of subject in interviews, three additional tracks were yanked off the release, and four new songs were substituted for those four deleted tracks. Thus, you have what we'll call the "rare" and "common" tracks for purposes of describing this Freewheelin'.

The four deleted tracks sometimes had slightly alternate names, just adding to the mystery surrounding the entire ordeal. They were also sprinkled evenly across the entire LP. They are:

On Side One:

"Rocks and Gravel" aka (also known as) "Solid Road"

"Let Me Die in My Footsteps"

And on Side Two:

"Gamblin' Willie's Dead Man's Hand" aka "Ramblin' Gamblin' Willie"

"Talkin' John Birch Blues" aka "Talkin' John Birch Society Blues" aka "Talkin' John Birch Paranoid Blues" aka "Talkin' John Birch"

One can just imagine the confusion at the Columbia Records pressing plant on Robertson Blvd. in Los Angeles in early 1963 when orders came down to switch out the masters on both sides of the LP. Most factory workers, including those at record plants, go entirely by matrix and catalog numbers... not the names of musicians, albums or songs. Take it from me - I used to work in a CBS Records LP manufacturing plant.

So when the orders from New York came into Los Angeles the scrap the masters, jackets, labels and metal parts for CL-1986 and CS-8786 (the mono and stereo Freewheelin' catalog numbers), most of the components with the rare songs were destroyed or thrown away. But not all of them were, and thus were born instant, amazing collector's items in extremely tiny numbers.

The biggest boneheaded move by Columbia was when the label actually pressed, sealed, boxed up and shipped out to stores the Freewheelin' album in spring 1963 with the common songs on the front & back of the jacket as well as both red record labels... BUT the rare songs in the grooves. Crucially, some old metal 'stampers' with the rare songs had accidentally survived the purge, and so a first pressing of Freewheelin's in L.A. went out playing, indeed, "John Birch Society Blues" et al. when the needle was dropped on the vinyl. That fact makes the nature of the stereo copy we're offering here all the more ridiculously rare... you just never, ever see a Freewheelin' with the rare labels and music like this. Put the jacket aside and hold just the black disc in your hands, and you're holding a 100% first-state Freewheelin'.

One thing that was seemingly never made was an original Freewheelin' with the four deleted tracks found everywhere: on the jacket front, on the jacket back, on the record labels, and in the grooves. It just never got that far, or else they were truly 100% destroyed. I was lucky enough to talk with and quiz producer John Hammond about this in a phone call in the 1970's, but he was way too "big picture" to remember the fine details that collectors are so hungry to know.

We keep mentioning Los Angeles, but that plant distributed Columbia albums to the whole western United States, so it's not known just how far away this erroneous pressing was shipped. California is a certainty, but... Phoenix, Seattle even Denver maybe?

There are barely any original Freewheelin's known, and since most of them show the common songs on the labels, this little game developed in the early 1970's. Record collectors for decades have tried to find this rare disc at garage sales, flea markets and used-record stores. The easiest method is just by looking at the widths of the songs on the black vinyl. On side one of the super-rare original Freewheelin', "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall," the longest track on the LP and therefore the obvious fattest band, plays in the third spot. On the common Freewheelin', it's in the last spot. So ever since the 1970's when all this became known, collectors have pulled used Freewheelin's out of their sleeves and hoped & prayed to find a thin band at the end of side one, instead of the wide "Hard Rain." Alas, it virtually never happens. At least Californians have a prayer; you can imagine the negative odds outside of America's west coast. (But people do move, along with their collections.)

The super-knowledgeable can also look at the matrix numbers pressed into the run-out groove on either side. On this stereo rarity, the matrix number found on Side One is XSM-58719-1A, and on Side Two it's XSM-58720-1A. On all pressings after that, with the common songs, it's always "-2A." So that "1" is the big magic number.

In today's lexicon this was all "a hot mess" indeed, but the challenge of working through it is one of the big, fun parts of serious Dylan collecting and indeed the almost-impossible chase for an original Freewheelin'. You can traverse the planet and meet with the biggest Bob Dylan collectors worldwide, and almost none of them will have this record. Trust me; I've done just that.

Pete Howard
Consignment Director, Entertainment & Music
COA from Heritage Auctions

More Information: We've never seen an American jacket front with the four rare songs (just on promo timing strips). In Canada, they naively put the rare tracks on the jacket front (but nowhere else), which would have become an amazing collector's item if the mistake had been corrected immediately; instead, Canada blissfully kept it in print that way for years (even with careless titles, like "Hard Rain Gonna Fall"). So most Bobcats have to settle for that Canadian jacket as their "rare Freewheelin'," although it's still extremely cool.

We've also seen an image of the Freewheelin's back cover as it was originally going to come out, discussing the rare tracks along with all the other songs; it was printed in a European Dylan fanzine a long time ago. But a picture of an American rare Freewheelin' front cover? Never, ever. It was either never printed, or was completely destroyed when the order came down. OR.. there's still one lurking in the closet of an old Columbia Records executive somewhere...

Condition details: The sleeve is in VG 5 condition with several spots of wrinkling, blue ink pen writing on the front and back cover, corner wear, and some tearing on the seam in the upper right corner. Disc is in VG 5 condition with several minor scratches and pen ink on the red labels. Plays very well.