New Morning

New Morning is singer-songwriter Bob Dylan’s 11th studio album, released by Columbia Records in October 1970.

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 more familiar, nasally singing voice. However, on Alberta #1 (Self Portrait), he has a slight nasal tone in his voice, but this was his first full album with his familiar voice since John Wesley Harding in 1967 (he had taken on an affected country croon since then). 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.

It reached #7 in the U.S., quickly going gold, and gave Bob Dylan his 6th UK #1 album. The album’s most successful song from a commercial perspective is probably “If Not For You,” which was covered by George Harrison, who had played guitar on a version of the song not released until 1991’s Bootleg Series Volume 2, and was also an international hit for Olivia Newton-John in 1971. Bryan Ferry also included the song on Dylanesque.