New Morning
| Bob Dylan
New Morning
New Morning is the 11th studio album by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, released on October 19, 1970 by Columbia Records. Coming only four months after the controversial Self Portrait, the more concise and immediate New Morning received a much warmer reception from fans and critics. Most welcome was the return of Dylan's familiar, nasal singing voice. While he has a slightly nasal tone to his voice on "Alberta #1" from Self Portrait, this was the first full album with his familiar voice since John Wesley Harding in 1967, when he began singing with a country croon. In retrospect, the album has come to be viewed as one of the artist's lesser successes, especially following the release of Blood on the Tracks in 1975, often seen as a fuller return-to-form.- Wikipedia
Critic Reviews
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Rolling Stone
November 26, 1970. It seems almost superfluous to say that this is one of the best albums of the year, one of Dylan’s best albums, perhaps his best. In good conscience, all I can really say is get it yourself and prepare to boogie.
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Ultimate Classic Rock
October 21, 2015. New Morning ambles in unassumingly with the countryish moves of "If Not for You," putting to bed any questions of Dylan's ability to still create great music.
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All Music
New Morning expands on the laid-back country-rock of John Wesley Harding and Nashville Skyline by adding a more pronounced rock & roll edge.
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Off The Tracks
March 20, 2017. New Morning was positively reviewed at the time – but then it seemed to just disappear. It might seem to suffer from having nothing truly iconic – no huge performances, no weighty songs but that’s what I like about it. It’s Dylan having fun, sending up his image and being incredibly earnest.
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The Vinyl District
March 14, 2016. . . . . But–and I suppose this is the bottom line for me–I find New Morning interesting in so far as Dylan sounds engaged. In its minor key way it’s an ambitious album, a maddeningly audacious one even. It’s the sound of a man getting out of his big brass bed and getting down to the brass tacks of wrestling with the genie of his immense talent.
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Pop Matters
June 25, 2009. Regardless of how one approaches it, New Morning is a rather underrated entry in Dylan's discography. One that rightfully takes a backseat to the more obvious classics yet collects quite a few unpolished gems under its wing.
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Countdown Kid
June 15, 2013. The media painted it as an artistic comeback for Bob Dylan from the poorly-received Self Portrait, but in fact 1970’s New Morning was formulated at roughly the same time (and released just four months after) its infamous predecessor. As a matter of fact, the album has its own quirks and peculiarities that make it a bit of an outlier in the Dylan catalog, albeit an enjoyable one.
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itunes Apple Music
Released four months after the controversial Self Portrait, this 1970 album represents a return to a Bob Dylan that audiences had grown comfortable with. Patched together from several recording sessions, the album’s a testament to Dylan’s artistry that even with no consistent producer or backing band he can weave a coherent, touching vision.
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LobotoRADIO
Coming only four months after the controversial Self Portrait, the more concise and immediate New Morning won a much warmer reception from fans and critics. Most welcome was the return of Dylan's familiar, nasal singing voice.
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Untold Dylan
May 23, 2015. It is often suggested that the underlying meaning of New Morning is “Hello, here I am again”. New Morning is laid back, in a similar way to John Wesley Harding, but with a bit of rock and roll.
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MoFi
Sublime 1970 Album among loosest, jovial of Dylan's career. Yes, New Morning may lack the iconic status of some of Dylan's better-known records. Yet the underdog stature makes repeat listens all the more rewarding.
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The Current
New Morning is aptly named: it’s an easy Sunday listen, a welcome balm after the strange detours of Self Portrait and the genre exercise of Nashville Skyline. Not that New Morning is without its genre exercises, but somehow the record’s eclectic songs — some of them originally written for a theatrical collaboration with poet Archibald MacLeish that Dylan ended up leaving over creative differences — hold together as a coherent set, thanks to Dylan editing more tightly than he had with the sprawling Self Portrait.
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Wilson & Alroy's Record Reviews
This is one weird record. It starts off with another simple, pretty country tune that would have fit on Nashville Skyline ("If Not For You"), then heads for new territory: a couple of great, spare new songs ("Day Of The Locusts," "Time Passes Slowly"), a really weak love song ("Winterlude"), a couple of lame attempts at beat poetry ("If Dogs Run Free" featuring Maeretha Stewart doing some wild scat singing, "Three Angels") and a religious number presaging his later "born again" work ("Father Of Night"). (DBW)
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Robert Christgau
In case you were wondering how definitive that self-portrait was, here comes its mirror image four months later. Call it love on the rebound. This time he's writing the pop (and folk) genre experiments himself, and thus saying more about true romance than is the pop (or folk) norm.
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Starling Rinet
Strange little record. There are no classics here, and you get the feeling Dylan intended it that way; at first listen this is incredibly underwhelming, as all of the songs feel trivial and slight - and while, yes, they are mostly trivial and slight, they are all mostly enjoyable in a laid-back, supremely unambitious style. Dylan has never sounded warmer or more upbeat; with the exception of the odd dark chant "Father Night," that closes this weird record on a weirder note, emotionally all of the songs can be described as positive.
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Don Ignacio
This is—for the lack of a better term—a normal record. It consists entirely of original material in which Dylan sings consistently interesting lyrics with his soul-piercing Mr. Wheezebags vocals. He was still coming off his songwriting peak in the mid-'60s, which you'll find evident in this album since all of its songs are well-written and make enjoyable listens.
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Thought On Tracks
May 24, 2012. Sure, the album marked the return of Dylan’s nasal voice, but the songs’ structures are closer to pop than folk or even rock. While New Morning may not merit consideration among Dylan’s best albums, it nevertheless showcases the range of an artist once pigeonholed as a folk singer
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The Daily Beast
May 24, 2016. Released four months after Self Portrait but recorded before it, New Morning was, indeed, a new morning for Dylan. Critics hailed the blissed-out songwriting and the return of Dylan’s wry howl. The tumultuous sessions, which included appearances from George Harrison, also produced one of Dylan’s most lasting love songs, “If Not for You,” a sentimental treat that gleams with joy.
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Vinyl Me Please
November 16, 2016. New Morning was one of the first Dylan albums saddled with the “Best since X album!” reviews, as critics turned off by his country experiments and his willful self myth-destruction on Self Portrait found a lot to love in Dylan’s slight return to folk rock on New Morning.
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Glenn Stanton
July 30, 2015. Dylan has a small handful of albums that are very distinct from everything else, regarding the songs and manner in which he performs them. His picture on the cover of New Morning tells you this is different, as it presents a different kind of Dylan. New Morning is simple – his voice and some backing musicians. Each song is beautiful and a winner, one of those works where it is hard to pick a favorite tune.
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