Maps of Music

New Morning (1970)

Where the lyrics of New Morning take you, and where it was really made.

New Morning was released just four months after the criticized Self Portrait, yet much of it was already finished before that record came out.

Key places

Columbia Studio Building, New York (1970)

Recording site Record Plant Studios — Dylan's sessions for New Morning began at Columbia's studios in this building on May 1, 1970. The point is at city-center level, so it does not mark the exact building. Google Maps · Apple Maps

How to get there: See the map for directions.

Album story

Overview

• New Morning: the eleventh studio album by Bob Dylan
• Released October 21, 1970 on Columbia Records
• Came only four months after the controversial Self Portrait
• Much of the album was already complete when Self Portrait was officially released
• The album's most commercially successful song is “If Not for You”

Background

• Dylan's familiar nasal singing voice returned here, the first full album with it since John Wesley Harding in 1967
• Dylan attempted “Went to See the Gypsy”, “Time Passes Slowly” and “If Not for You” during the March sessions for Self Portrait, and later re-recorded them for New Morning
• In spring 1970 Dylan became involved with Archibald MacLeish's play Scratch; “New Morning” and “Father of Night” were written for it
• A conflict with the producer over “Father of Night” led Dylan to leave the production and withdraw his songs
• Dylan and manager Albert Grossman formally dissolved their business relationship on July 17, 1970

Recording

• Sessions began May 1, 1970 at the Columbia Studio Building at 49 East 52nd Street in New York
• The first session was held in Studio B; later sessions moved to Studio E in the same building
• Dylan recorded most of the album over five straight days ending June 5
• Bob Johnston was still credited with production, while Al Kooper was credited as co-producer
• Kooper's orchestral overdubs for “Sign on the Window” and “New Morning” were left out of the final mix
• A final session on August 12 re-recorded “If Not for You” and “Time Passes Slowly” and recorded “Day of the Locusts”

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Tracklist

Sources: musicbrainz.org

Artist

Formation

• Born Robert Allen Zimmerman on May 24, 1941, in Duluth, Minnesota; raised in Hibbing, Minnesota.
• Moved to New York City in January 1961 to pursue a music career.
• Signed to Columbia Records after playing harmonica on Carolyn Hester's album; debut album Bob Dylan released in 1962.

Members

• Solo artist; backed over the years by bands including the Hawks/the Band, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, and his touring band led by bassist Tony Garnier.

Career

• Breakthrough with The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan (1963); protest songs such as "Blowin' in the Wind" became anthems for the civil rights and antiwar movements.
• Went electric with Bringing It All Back Home and Highway 61 Revisited (1965) and Blonde on Blonde (1966), provoking controversy among folk fans.
• Motorcycle accident in 1966 led to nearly eight years without touring; Basement Tapes recorded with the Band.
• Converted to Christianity in the late 1970s and released gospel albums; won Album of the Year Grammy for Time Out of Mind (1997).
• Has toured since 1988 on the Never Ending Tour; won an Academy Award and ten Grammy Awards; awarded the 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature.

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Reception

At release

• Rolling Stone's Ralph J. Gleason welcomed the release with a headline and called the album beautiful
• Rolling Stone's Ed Ward called it a superb album and suggested it was one of Dylan's best, perhaps his best
• Ward praised “Went to See the Gypsy” and “Sign on the Window” as masterpieces
• Stereo Review's Noel Coppage called it Dylan's best LP and, for practical purposes, an album without a flaw
• Coppage named “Time Passes Slowly” the best song Dylan ever wrote
• The Guardian's Geoffrey Cannon saw the album as a departure from Dylan's earlier albums and highlighted his piano playing
• NME's Richard Green said the record fell short of the expectations set by Dylan's past work and that much of it was standard pop
• High Fidelity's Morgan Ames said Dylan was no longer a force in the way he once was, and that the album was not one he would revisit
• Village Voice critic Robert Christgau named it the seventh best album of 1970

Reappraisal

• Biographer Howard Sounes wrote that some listeners found the album self-satisfied and a sign of commercialism
• Rough Guides' Nigel Williamson called it a fine album but more of a false dawn
• Music critic Tim Riley praised “Sign on the Window” for accepting middle-age sentiment without irony

Records

• Reached No. 7 in the United States and quickly went gold
• Reached No. 1 in the UK, Dylan's sixth and last UK number 1 album until Together Through Life in 2009
• “If Not for You” was the album's most commercially successful song and a 1971 international hit for Olivia Newton-John

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Trivia

• “If Not for You” was also recorded for George Harrison's All Things Must Pass, released a few months after this album.
• Olivia Newton-John had an international hit with “If Not for You” in 1971.
• “Day of the Locusts” was written after Dylan received an honorary degree from Princeton University in June 1970.
• “Father of Night” runs 1 minute 32 seconds, the shortest of Dylan's songs from a studio album.
• “Winterlude” was featured in The Comic Strip's 1998 special “Four Men in a Car”.
• “The Man in Me” was featured in several scenes of the 1998 Coen Brothers film The Big Lebowski.

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

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