Highway 61 Revisited

Description

Its title references the road that spans North Minnesota to the Mississippi Delta, and the formative blues, country, and roots sounds connected to its existence. The highway also lays claim to towering musical myths and deaths, many tied to the blues lexicon and narrative. All figure prominently on the revolutionary beacon that is Highway 61 Revisited, Bob Dylans 1965 set that overturned rules, upended preexisting limits, and utterly changed everything in its path.

Recorded amidst a time of unfathomable turmoil and frustration that witnessed Dylan booed by fans, labeled a traitor, and call into question his work, Highway 61 Revisited roars and snarls, jabs and criticizes. Its bonfire of cynicism, fury, indignation, and absurdity forever transformed rock, what it could mean, and what it could do. Supported by a thundering, commanding band that included guitarist Mike Bloomfield and organist Al Kooper, Dylan hopscotches between tempos, moods, and melodies. The symmetry of the songs references a scattered hybrid of R&B, blues, folk, soul, gospel, vaudeville, and garage rock pieces that Dylan assembles in the shape of the worlds greatest aural puzzle.

Outside of Like a Rolling Stone the six-minute-plus anthem that both challenged and chewed up all preconceived notions of an acceptable radio single by way of its length, ambition, and vitriol every tune was captured shortly after Dylans contentious performance at the Newport Folk Festival. The lingering impact of the hostility comes through in both the searing music and rich, literate, zinging poetry. Dylans sneering tones, raucous arrangements, and unmistakable resentment toward both the establishment and counterculture that adopted him, assume the form of songs such as Ballad of a Thin Man, Queen Jane Approximately, Tombstone Blues, and the stupefying Desolation Row.