Reception
| Professional ratings | |
|---|---|
| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic | |
| Entertainment Weekly | B+ |
| Rolling Stone | |
| Sputnikmusic | |
As Another Side of Bob Dylan was prepared for release, Dylan premiered his new songs at the Newport Folk Festival in July 1964. The festival also marked Dylan's first meeting with country legend Johnny Cash; Dylan was already an admirer of Cash's music, and vice versa. The two spent a night jamming together in Joan Baez's room at the Viking Motor Inn. According to Cash, "we were so happy to meet each other that we were jumping on the beds like kids." The next day, Cash would perform Dylan's "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right" as part of his set, telling the audience that "we've been doing it on our shows all over the country, trying to tell the folks about Bob, that we think he's the best songwriter of the age since Pete Seeger...Sure do."
Though the audience at Newport seemed to enjoy Dylan's new material, the folk press did not. Irwin Silber of Sing Out and David Horowitz criticized Dylan's direction and accused Dylan of succumbing to the pressures/temptations of fame. In an open letter to Dylan published in the November issue of Sing Out, Silber wrote "your new songs seem to be all inner-directed now, inner-probing, self-conscious" and, based on what he saw at Newport, "that some of the paraphernalia of fame getting in your way." Horowitz called the songs an "unqualified failure of taste and self-critical awareness."
The album was a step back commercially, failing to make the Top 40, indicating that record consumers may have had a problem as well.
Dylan would soon defend his work, writing that "the songs are insanely honest, not meanin t twist any heads an written only for the reason that i myself me alone wanted and needed t write them." (sic)
Dylan would concede in 1978 that the album title was not to his liking. "I thought it was just too corny," he said, "I just felt trouble coming when they titled it that." However, it's worth noting that the original manuscripts to the album make two references to the eventual album title: an early draft of "I Shall Be Free No. 10" has the line "You're on another side" while the only line occupying one final page says "there is no other side of bob dylan."
Read more about this topic: Another Side Of Bob Dylan
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