A 1962 acetate of a rare electric version of Bob Dylan’s ‘Corrina, Corrina,’ issued only as the B-Side of his debut single.

This 8” MPHC acetate was cut at the offices of Warner Bros. Music Publishing in New York City.  Dylan’s songs were published by M. Witmark & Sons, a publisher owned by Warner Bros.  MPHC was the acronym for Music Publishers Holding Corporation, which represented Warner-owned publishing companies.  As Dylan wrote new songs in the early 1960s, MPHC acetates were cut to serve as demos, and circulated to other artists to solicit potential cover versions.

Dylan recorded ‘Corrina, Corrina’ three times: an acoustic version on July 9, 1962, a version with four backing musicians on October 26, which appeared on The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, and a final version, on November 14, with four different musicians and the same drummer.

The third version is the one on this acetate, which has was only released on Dylan’s very rare first single, ‘Mixed Up Confusion/Corrina, Corrina,’ issued December 14, 1962.

The acetate is in excellent condition and plays well.  There is age related staining to the label, and the handwritten notations ‘Witmark & Sons’ and ‘100L.’

From Wikipedia: “Corrine, Corrina” (sometimes “Corrina, Corrina”) is a 12-bar country blues song…first recorded by Bo Carter in December 1928…The Mississippi Sheiks, as the Jackson Blue Boys with Papa Charlie McCoy on vocals, recorded the same song in 1930; this time as “Sweet Alberta”, substituting the words Sweet Alberta for Corrine, Corrina.

The version on Dylan’s first single bears the credits “Adapted and Arranged: Bob Dylan.” The Bob Dylan Commentaries website notes: Dylan’s lyrics bear little resemblance (outside the chorus) to [Carter’s] version. In his version, Dylan borrowed from Robert Johnson songs, specifically “Hellhound on my Trail,” “32-20 Blues,” and “Kind-Hearted Woman Blues.” Todd Harvey notes that Dylan changed the song structure from the conventional four-line to the six-line blues form.  “Corrina” is the first song Dylan attempted with a band…Dylan says that he never learned the older version of the song but just used what he had heard on the radio.