March 8: Bob Dylan 9th recording session for Blonde On Blonde in 1966

blonde on blonde

The closest I ever got to the sound I hear in my mind was on individual bands in the Blonde on Blonde album. It’s that thin, that wild mercury sound. It’s metallic and bright gold, with whatever that conjures up. That’s my particular sound.
~Bob Dylan (to Ron Rosenbaum – Nov 1977)

Well I cut it in between. I was touring and I was doing it whenever I got a chance to get into the studio. So it was in the works for a while. I could only do maybe two or three songs at a time.
~Bob Dylan (to Jan Wenner – Nov 1969)

Bob-Dylan 1966

Columbia Music Row Studios
Nashville, Tennessee
8 March 1966

Produced by Bob Johnston

Songs:

  1. Absolutely Sweet Marie*
    (recorded  1-4 am)
    Despite its obvious pop sensibility and compulsive melody (so compulsive it served Steve Harley for his own number-one single, “Come Up and See Me (Make Me Smile)”), Dylan duly left the song behind in Nashville, refraining from playing it live for some twenty-two years.
    ~Clinton Heylin (Revolution in the air)

    and spotify:
  2. Just Like A Woman
    (recorded 2-6 pm)
  3. Pledging My Time
    (recorded 6-9 pm)
    …nigh-perfect Blonde on Blonde performance of ‘Pledging My Time’, the melody, the gulping movement of the melodic phrases and Dylan’s mysteriously ominous line ‘Somebody got lucky, but it was an accident’
    ~Michael Gray (BD Encyclopedia)
    Spotify:
  4. Just Like A Woman**
    (recorded 9-12 pm)
    No, no. I knew a lot of those people but I also know a lot of lesbians. They’re not going to ask me to join a lot of campaigns just because I wrote Just Like A Woman
    ~Bob Dylan (to Philip Fleishman, Feb 1978)



    Spotify:

* the musicians assembled at 9:30 a.m. on March 7, but didn’t begin working until after midnight…. hence it was recorded on March 8.

** it is unkown if #2 or #4 were chosen as master take.

bob dylan blonde on blonde photshoot

Musicians:

  • Bob Dylan (guitar, harmonica, vocal)
  • Charlie McCoy (guitar)
  • Robbie Robertson (guitar)
  • Wayne Moss (guitar)
  • Joe South (guitar, bass)
  • Al Kooper (organ)
  • Hargus “Pig” Robbins (piano)
  • Henry Strzelecki (bass)
  • Kenneth Buttrey (drums)

-Egil

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