Maps of Music

Highway 61 Revisited (1965)

Where the lyrics of Highway 61 Revisited take you, and where it was really made.

Columbia resisted the title Dylan wanted, yet the album is now counted among the greatest records of all time.

Key places

Cover photo on the Gramercy Park stoop (1965)

Album cover Gramercy Park — Daniel Kramer photographed Dylan on the stoop of manager Albert Grossman's apartment in Gramercy Park several weeks before the recording sessions. The photo became the cover of the album. Google Maps · Apple Maps

How to get there: See the map for directions.

Album story

Overview

• Highway 61 Revisited: sixth studio album by Bob Dylan
• Released 30 August 1965 by Columbia Records
• Rock musicians back Dylan on every track, except the closing acoustic ballad 'Desolation Row'
• The closing track runs 11 minutes
• Critics praise the driving, blues-based music and subtle poetry that captured the political and cultural climate of mid-1960s America
• Author Michael Gray argues that, in an important sense, the 1960s 'started' with this album
• Opens with 'Like a Rolling Stone', a hit single released ahead of the album
• Includes songs Dylan has kept performing live, including 'Ballad of a Thin Man' and the title track

Background

• The title comes from U.S. Highway 61, which linked Dylan's birthplace Duluth, Minnesota, to St. Louis, Memphis, New Orleans and the Delta blues area of Mississippi
• Dylan later wrote that the route felt like his place in the universe
• Continues the approach of the previous album, Bringing It All Back Home (1965), moving further from his initial acoustic folk sound
• In May 1965, after a tour of England, Dylan returned exhausted and dissatisfied with his material
• He had written 20 pages of verse, which he reduced to a song with four verses and a chorus: 'Like a Rolling Stone'
• He said writing and recording that song washed away his dissatisfaction and restored his enthusiasm for music

Recording

• Recorded in two blocks of sessions at Columbia's Studio A, located on Seventh Avenue in Midtown Manhattan
• The first block, 15 and 16 June, was produced by Tom Wilson and produced the single 'Like a Rolling Stone'
• Al Kooper, invited to observe, improvised the organ riff on 'Like a Rolling Stone' despite never having played electric organ before
• Dylan performed his controversial electric set at the Newport Folk Festival on 25 July, where some of the crowd booed
• Four days later he returned to the studio, and the band completed the album from 29 July to 4 August under new producer Bob Johnston
• Nashville musician Charlie McCoy was invited to play guitar at the 4 August session, which was mostly devoted to 'Desolation Row'

Cover

• Cover photographed by Daniel Kramer several weeks before the recording sessions
• Shows Dylan on the stoop of his manager Albert Grossman's apartment in Gramercy Park, New York
• Dylan's friend Bob Neuwirth appears behind him, with only the lower half of Neuwirth visible

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Tracklist

Sources: musicbrainz.org

Artist

Formation

• Born Robert Allen Zimmerman on May 24, 1941, in Duluth, Minnesota; raised in Hibbing, Minnesota.
• Moved to New York City in January 1961 to pursue a music career.
• Signed to Columbia Records after playing harmonica on Carolyn Hester's album; debut album Bob Dylan released in 1962.

Members

• Solo artist; backed over the years by bands including the Hawks/the Band, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, and his touring band led by bassist Tony Garnier.

Career

• Breakthrough with The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan (1963); protest songs such as "Blowin' in the Wind" became anthems for the civil rights and antiwar movements.
• Went electric with Bringing It All Back Home and Highway 61 Revisited (1965) and Blonde on Blonde (1966), provoking controversy among folk fans.
• Motorcycle accident in 1966 led to nearly eight years without touring; Basement Tapes recorded with the Band.
• Converted to Christianity in the late 1970s and released gospel albums; won Album of the Year Grammy for Time Out of Mind (1997).
• Has toured since 1988 on the Never Ending Tour; won an Academy Award and ten Grammy Awards; awarded the 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature.

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Reception

At release

• Billboard praised the album in September 1965 and predicted big sales, citing the hit single 'Like a Rolling Stone'
• Early British press reviews mixed bafflement with admiration
• New Musical Express critic Allen Evans called it another set of message songs and story songs sung in a monotonous, tuneless way that becomes arresting on repeated listens
• Melody Maker's anonymous reviewer found the LP fairly incomprehensible yet an absolute knock-out
• Poet Philip Larkin, reviewing for The Daily Telegraph, said he was well rewarded by the record
• Robert Christgau included the album in his 1969 piece on a recommended rock library of 25 albums

Reappraisal

• Positively received on release, and since described as one of Dylan's best works
• Rolling Stone ranked it No. 4 on its 2003 list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time and No. 18 in the 2020 revision
• Colin Larkin's All Time Top 1000 Albums voted it No. 26 in its third edition (2000)
• Robert Dimery's 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die includes it
• Michael Gray calls the album revolutionary and stunning, fusing radical electric music with lyrics far ahead of others
• Biographer Anthony Scaduto calls it one of the most brilliant pop records ever made
• PopMatters critic Hank Kalet described it as the most electrifying rock and roll record ever made

Records

• Peaked at No. 3 on the US Billboard Top LPs chart
• Peaked at No. 4 on the UK Albums Chart
• Certified gold in the US in August 1967 and platinum in August 1997
• Inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2002

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Trivia

• Gill points out that Abraham was the name of Dylan's father, which ties into the opening lines of the title track.
• Dylan said he had to overcome resistance at Columbia Records to keep the album's title.
• Columbia accidentally released an alternate take of 'From a Buick 6' on an early pressing of the album.
• 'Desolation Row' is the album's sole acoustic track and runs about 11 minutes.
• The album's cover was shot by Daniel Kramer, with Dylan's friend Bob Neuwirth visible behind him.
• In 2015 Dylan released The Cutting Edge, a Bootleg Series volume that includes every take recorded during the album's sessions.

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Maps of Ages ↗ (mapsofages.com)

Privacy · Contact