Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits is a 1967 compilation album of songs by the American singer-songwriterBob Dylan. Released on March 27, 1967, byColumbia Records, it was a stopgap between Dylan's studio albumsBlonde on Blonde andJohn Wesley Harding, during which time he had retreated from the public eye to recover from amotorcycle accident.
It was Dylan's first compilation, containing everyTop 40 single Dylan had up to 1967, plus additional album tracks which had become popular singles as recorded by other artists. It peaked atNo. 10 on thepop album chart in the United States, and went toNo. 3 on the album chart in the United Kingdom. Certified five timesplatinum by theRIAA, it is his best-selling album in the U.S.[1]
Greatest Hits presented Dylan's first appearance on record after his praisedBlonde on Blonde double-LP of May1966 andhis motorcycle accident of that summer. With no activity by Dylan since the end of his recent world tour, and no new recordings on the immediate horizon (the sessions that would in part be released in June 1975 asThe Basement Tapes were still months away), Columbia wanted new product to continue to capitalize on Dylan's commercial appeal, so releasedBob Dylan's Greatest Hits, the label's first Dylan compilation.
Greatest Hits serves as Dylan'sde facto singles collection for the 1960s. With the exception of "The Times They Are a-Changin'", "It Ain't Me Babe", and "Mr. Tambourine Man", all tracks on this album were released as45 rpm singles in the United States during that decade. Several of the non-single tracks had been hitcover versions for other groups; in 1963 "Blowin' in the Wind" became a No. 2 hit single forPeter, Paul and Mary, and in 1965 Dylan's original recording made it to No. 9 as a single release in the United Kingdom.
In summer 1965,The Byrds had a No. 1 hit with a truncated rock and roll version of "Mr. Tambourine Man", andthe Turtles took afolk-rock version of "It Ain't Me Babe" to No. 8. "Just Like a Woman" had also been a No. 10 UK hit forManfred Mann. The remaining six tracks all made theBillboardTop 40 in 1965 and 1966. "Positively 4th Street" was the only single of the collection not released on a long-playing album, having been recorded during the sessions forHighway 61 Revisited. Despite charting in both the US and UK, the 1965 standalone single "Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window?" was not included in the compilation.
When this album was remastered for its compact disc 1999 issue, a slightly longer alternative mix of "Positively 4th Street" was substituted for the original single version. In 2003, this album was released along with Dylan's two other greatest hits compilations in one four-disc boxed set, asGreatest Hits Volumes I–III.
An audiophile version of the album was released in August 2012, mastered bySteve Hoffman for the Audio Fidelity label as a 24-kt gold-plated CD. This disc is a limited edition of 5,000 individually numbered copies.[2] Like the 1999 remaster, this CD contains a longer version of "Positively 4th Street."
The cover photograph used on the cover ofBob Dylan's Greatest Hits was taken byRowland Scherman at Dylan's November 28, 1965, concert in Washington, D.C. Bob Cato was the designer of the album cover, which won the 1967Grammy award for "Best Album Cover, Photography". The original album package also includedMilton Glaser's now-familiar "psychedelic" poster depicting Dylan.[6] A similar image taken at theConcert for Bangladesh in 1971 was selected forBob Dylan's Greatest Hits Vol. II, a compilation Dylan had much more control over.[citation needed]John Berg, senior art director at Columbia Records, recognized that a backlit image such as Scherman's would work because of Dylan's distinctive profile and hairstyle.[citation needed] It was his design, as well as Scherman's photo, that won the Grammy.[7]
All tracks are written by Bob Dylan. Chart positions are fromBillboardHot 100. In most cases the LP featured album versions in place of singles if such were not identical to the single mixes.
The UK release of the album was issued with no apostrophe in the title and its last two words in a secondary colour, suggesting a short-titled "Greatest Hits" marketing intention. Its front cover comprised a studio photo of Dylan holding a book of Renaissance paintings, and the album itself had a slightly different track listing. "Positively 4th Street" was omitted, but "She Belongs to Me", "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue", and "One of Us Must Know (Sooner or Later)" were added.[8]
Released asBob Dylan's Greatest Hits, cover-subtitled "Nobody sings Dylan like Dylan" and with a front cover studio photo of Dylan that differed from the UK one, this version was compiled in 1966. Only half of its 12 songs were also on the U.S. release, and songs fromBlonde on Blonde were omitted altogether.
In the UK and Europe, the album was quickly followed up byBob Dylan's Greatest Hits 2 in 1967, which repeated the fourBlonde on Blonde songs from the first UKGreatest Hits album and added three more (including "Absolutely Sweet Marie"), as well as five further pre-1966 album songs (including "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues", "Gates of Eden" and "Chimes of Freedom").[9] This album was different from the later 1971 album that was calledBob Dylan's Greatest Hits Vol. II in the US and calledMore Bob Dylan Greatest Hits in the UK.
* Sales figures based on certification alone. ^ Shipments figures based on certification alone. ‡ Sales+streaming figures based on certification alone.
^Sheffield, Rob (2004). "Bob Dylan". In Brackett, Nathan; Hoard, Christian (eds.).The New Rolling Stone Album Guide. New York: Fireside. p. 262.ISBN0-7432-0169-8.
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