Bob Dylan – Highway 61 Revisited [180g Vinyl LP]

Bob Dylan – Highway 61 Revisited [180g Vinyl LP]

Details

• Format: Black Vinyl LP, Album, Reissue, Remastered, Stereo
• Catalogue Number: CL 2389
• Barcode: 888751463011
• Genre: Rock / Folk Rock / Blues Rock
• Label: Columbia / Legacy / Sony Music
• Originally Released: 30 August 1965
• Reissue Released: 2015
• Pressing: 180 Gram Vinyl
• Condition: New & Sealed

Description

Highway 61 Revisited is Bob Dylan's sixth studio album — released on 30 August 1965 on Columbia Records — and by the near-unanimous verdict of critics, musicians and listeners across six decades, one of the greatest records ever made. It arrived in the immediate wake of the Newport Folk Festival controversy of 25 July 1965, at which Dylan had performed electric for the first time to a folk audience that included many who considered the decision a betrayal. The album left no ambiguity: every track bar the closing "Desolation Row" was recorded with a full electric rock band, with Dylan's regular acoustic approach replaced by a dense, rolling ensemble sound anchored by the guitar work of Mike Bloomfield (of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band), the keyboards of Al Kooper — who famously bluffed his way onto the session and played the iconic organ part on "Like a Rolling Stone" having never played organ professionally before — and the production of Bob Johnston, who had taken over from Tom Wilson mid-sessions after Wilson produced "Like a Rolling Stone" and the earlier tracks. The whole was recorded in just three sessions in July 1965, with the haste audible as energy rather than carelessness.

"Like a Rolling Stone" — released as a single on 20 July 1965, two weeks before the album — had already reached number two on the US Billboard Hot 100, becoming Dylan's highest-charting single and transforming the grammar of what a rock song could be: at over six minutes, it demolished the conventions of radio-length pop and demonstrated that a lyric of sustained, concentrated literary force could reach the very top of the mainstream charts. It is ranked number one on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. The remaining eight tracks match its ambition. "Tombstone Blues" is a furious, surrealist blues driven by Bloomfield's slashing guitar; "Ballad of a Thin Man" is a slow, organ-led indictment of cultural incomprehension that has never been bettered as a piece of pointed contempt; "Highway 61 Revisited" (the title track) builds a series of absurdist American vignettes over a police whistle and a rolling roadhouse groove; and "Desolation Row" closes the album with an extraordinary eleven-minute acoustic narrative — the most densely allusive and surrealist piece Dylan had yet committed to record, drawing on figures including Einstein, Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot, the Phantom of the Opera and Cinderella in a vision of civilisational collapse that many have subsequently described as prophetic of the decade's upheavals to come. The album peaked at number three on the US Billboard 200 and number four on the UK Albums Chart, and has been ranked number four on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. It was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2002.

This 2015 Columbia / Legacy reissue carries the original catalogue number CL 2389 on the label — Columbia Records branding with the iconic Columbia logo — and is pressed on 180 gram vinyl, manufactured in the EU. The lacquers were cut at Sterling Sound in New York City, confirmed from the matrix runout stamping, one of the most celebrated mastering studios in the world known for warm, dynamically faithful transfers from authoritative masters. Housed in a faithful replica of the original Columbia sleeve with the iconic Dan Kramer portrait photograph on the front cover.

Tracklist

Side A

1. Like a Rolling Stone
2. Tombstone Blues
3. It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry
4. From a Buick 6
5. Ballad of a Thin Man

Side B

1. Queen Jane Approximately
2. Highway 61 Revisited
3. Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues
4. Desolation Row

Credits

• Bob Dylan – Vocals, Guitar, Harmonica
• Mike Bloomfield – Guitar
• Al Kooper – Organ, Piano
• Harvey Brooks – Bass
• Bobby Gregg – Drums
• Frank Owens – Piano
• Charles McCoy – Bass, Guitar
• Bob Johnston – Producer
• Tom Wilson – Producer (Like a Rolling Stone, Tombstone Blues, Phantom Engineer)
• Dan Kramer – Cover Photography
• Label – Columbia / Legacy / Sony Music