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Original 1974 Columbia Records test pressing of Bob Dylan’s Blood on the Tracks, housed in its plain white sleeve on which Dylan has carefully hand-lettered the album title and its complete running order in felt tip. In full: “Blood on the Tracks. Side 1: Tangled Up in Blue / Simple Twist of Fate / Youre a Big Girl Now / Idiot Wind / Youre Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go. Side 2: Meet Me in the Morning / Lily, Rosemary + the Jack of Hearts / If You See Her, Say Hello / Shelter from the Storm / Buckets of Rain.” The sequence matches the album as released in January 1975. The test pressing bears Columbia Record Productions “Santa Maria Test Pressing” labels, which are annotated by Dylan on either side as “Side 1” and “Side 2.” Its run-out matrix numbers, “P AL 33235-1A” and “P BL 33235-1A,” are those documented for the withdrawn test pressing of the album’s original New York sessions. The sleeve is in very good to fine condition, with light stains and spotting, edgewear, and a partial separation along the bottom seam. The record is in fine condition, with light scratches and scuffs. Consigned directly by Ellen Ziffren, known to Dylan in 1974 as Ellen Bernstein, who received the record from Dylan.
In 1974, Ellen Bernstein was the 24-year-old director of West Coast A&R for Columbia Records in San Francisco, with a roster of artist relationships that included Santana, Boz Scaggs, Shel Silverstein, Dr. Hook, and Roger McGuinn. She met Dylan early that year at a party promoter Bill Graham threw for him in Sausalito. The two talked and played backgammon, and Dylan invited her to his Oakland Coliseum show that night. That spring she visited his Minnesota farm, where she watched him compose and revise the songs that became Blood on the Tracks. In September she was in the studio when he recorded them at A&R Studios in New York. ‘He had a vision of what this was going to be,’ she recalls. ‘He just went in and performed his vision, and it was amazing to watch and see.’ By her account, her own life found its way onto the record: Dylan worked her hometown of Ashtabula, Ohio, into ‘You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go,’ along with the Queen Anne’s lace she had named for him on a walk the day before.
A small number of advance test pressings of the original New York version circulated in late 1974. On December 27 and 30, Dylan returned to the studio in Minneapolis and re-recorded five songs: ‘Tangled Up in Blue,’ ‘You’re a Big Girl Now,’ ‘Idiot Wind,’ ‘Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts,’ and ‘If You See Her, Say Hello.’ Released on January 20, 1975, Blood on the Tracks combined these five Minneapolis performances with five recordings from the September New York sessions. The earlier test pressings preserve the album’s original all-New York configuration.
This lot brings together three exceptional qualities: the scarce test-pressing format, the legendary Blood on the Tracks title, and Dylan’s remarkably neat, deliberate handwriting. He carefully sets out the album title and all ten songs in evenly spaced block capitals, underlining the title and both side headings. Dylan handwriting of this clarity and extent is extraordinarily rare, and here it presents the complete running order of what many consider his greatest album.
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