The Midnight Special is a 1962 album by Jamaican-American singer, Harry Belafonte. The album notably contains the first officially-released recording by Bob Dylan, who plays harmonica on the title track. For many years the Belafonte session was thought to have been Dylan’s first professional recording, simply because this RCA Victor album was released first. However, in 2001, documentation was found in the RCA Victor vaults along with the session tapes which definitively dates the session as having been recorded at Webster Hall, New York City, in February 1962. This places it later than Dylan's recording session with folksinger Carolyn Hester, which dates from September 1961, also in New York City, although her album was not released until later in 1962.
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