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May 16: Bob Dylan released  Blonde On Blonde in 1966

The closest I ever got to the sound I hear in my mind was on individual bands in the Blonde on Blonde album. It’s that thin, that wild mercury sound. It’s metallic and bright gold, with whatever that conjures up. That’s my particular sound.
~Bob Dylan (to Ron Rosenbaum – Nov 1977)

Blonde on Blonde is all resonance. The songs and their stories and evocative lines and seductive melodies inhabit a realm of sound unique to this album, different from anything created before or since by Dylan or anyone else. Dylan called it “that thin, that wild mercury sound-metallic and bright gold, with whatever that conjures up.”
~Paul Williams (Bob Dylan Performing Artist I: The Early Years 1960-1973)

To have followed up one masterpiece with another was Dylan’s history making achievement here…Where Highway 61 Revisited has Dylan exposing and confronting like a laser beam in surgery, descending from outside the sickness, Blonde on Blonde offers a persona awash inside the chaos…We’re tossed from song to song…The feel and the music are on a grand scale, and the language and delivery are a rich mixture of the visionary and the colloquial.
~Michael Gray (Song & Dance Man III: The Art of Bob Dylan)

Visions of Johanna – Live in Melbourne 1966:

The ghost of electricity
Howls in the bones of her face
Where these visions of Johanna
Have now taken my place

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Wikipedia:

Released	May 16, 1966; the date is only “theoretical”. Check David Burgess’s comment to the post.
Recorded	October 5, 1965; November 30, 1965; and January 25, 1966, Studio A, Columbia Recording studios, New York; February 14–17 and March 8–10, 1966, Columbia Music Row Studios, Nashville, Tennessee
Genre	Folk rock
Length	72:57
Label	Columbia
Producer	Bob Johnston

Blonde on Blonde is the seventh studio album by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, released on May 16, 1966 on Columbia Records. Recording sessions began in New York in October 1965 with numerous backing musicians, including members of Dylan’s live backing band, The Hawks. Though sessions continued until January 1966, they yielded only one track that made it onto the final album—”One of Us Must Know (Sooner or Later)”. At producer Bob Johnston’s suggestion, Dylan, keyboardist Al Kooper, and guitarist Robbie Robertson moved to the CBS studios in Nashville, Tennessee. These sessions, augmented by some of Nashville’s top session musicians, were more fruitful, and in February and March all the remaining songs for the album were recorded.

Blonde on Blonde completed the trilogy of rock albums that Dylan recorded in 1965 and 1966, starting with Bringing It All Back Home and Highway 61 Revisited. Critics often rank Blonde on Blonde as one of the greatest albums of all time. Combining the expertise of Nashville session musicians with a modernist literary sensibility, the album’s songs have been described as operating on a grand scale musically, while featuring lyrics one critic called “a unique blend of the visionary and the colloquial”. It was one of the first double albums in rock music.

The album peaked at No. 9 on the Billboard 200 chart in the USA, where it eventually went double-platinum, and reached No. 3 in the UK. Blonde on Blonde spawned two singles that were top twenty hits in the USA: “Rainy Day Women #12 & 35” and “I Want You”. Two further songs, “Just Like a Woman” and “Visions of Johanna”, have been described as among Dylan’s greatest compositions and were featured in Rolling Stone‘s 500 Greatest Songs of All Time list.

Stuck Inside Of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again – Live version from 1999:

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Recording Sessions:

Recording sessions took place in New York City @ Studio A, Columbia Recording studios between October 5, 1965 & January 25, 1966. And in Nashville @  Columbia Music Row Studios between February 14 & March 10, 1966.

Check out:

• The 6th Blonde On Blonde session
• The 7th Blonde On Blonde session
• The 9th recording session for Blonde On Blonde
• The 10th (and final) Blonde On Blonde recording session

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He had a piano in his room at the hotel and during the day I would go up there and he would teach me a song. I would be like a cassette machine. I would play the song over and over on the piano for him. This served a double purpose. One, he could concentrate on writing the lyrics and didn’t have to mess with playing the piano; two, I could go to the studio early that night and teach it to the band before he even got there, so they could be playing the song before he even walked through the door.
~Al Kooper (talking about BoB recording sessions)

Al Kooper: The Making of Bob Dylan’s Blonde on Blonde / The Record That Changed Nashville (50min video):

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Track listing

All songs written by Bob Dylan.

Side one

1. “Rainy Day Women #12 & 35”  – 4:36
2. “Pledging My Time”  – 3:50
3. “Visions of Johanna”  – 7:33
4. “One of Us Must Know (Sooner or Later)”  – 4:54

Side two

5. “I Want You”  – 3:07
6. “Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again”  – 7:05
7. “Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat”  – 3:58
8. “Just Like a Woman”  – 4:52

Side three

9. “Most Likely You Go Your Way (And I’ll Go Mine)”  – 3:30
10. “Temporary Like Achilles”  – 5:02
11. “Absolutely Sweet Marie”  – 4:57
12. “4th Time Around”  – 4:35
13. “Obviously 5 Believers”  – 3:35

Side four

14. “Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands”  – 11:23

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Personnel

• Bob Dylan – vocals, guitar, harmonica, piano

Additional musicians

• Bill Aikins – keyboards
• Wayne Butler – trombone
• Kenneth Buttrey – drums
• Rick Danko or Bill Lee – bass guitar (New York)
• Bobby Gregg – drums (New York)
• Paul Griffin – piano (New York)
• Jerry Kennedy – guitar
• Al Kooper – organ, guitar
• Charlie McCoy – bass guitar, guitar, harmonica, trumpet
• Wayne Moss – guitar, vocals
• Hargus “Pig” Robbins – piano, keyboards
• Robbie Robertson – guitar, vocals
• Henry Strzelecki – bass guitar
• Joe South – bass guitar, guitar

Technical personnel

• Bob Johnston – production
• Jerry Schatzberg – cover photographer

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4th Time Around – Sydney 1966

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Critical reception and legacy

• Pete Johnson in the Los Angeles Times, “Dylan is a superbly eloquent writer of pop and folk songs with an unmatched ability to press complex ideas and iconoclastic philosophy into brief poetic lines and startling images.”
• The editor of Crawdaddy!, Paul Williams, reviewed Blonde on Blonde in July 1966: “It is a cache of emotion, a well handled package of excellent music and better poetry, blended and meshed and ready to become part of your reality. Here is a man who will speak to you, a 1960s bard with electric lyre and color slides, but a truthful man with x-ray eyes you can look through if you want. All you have to do is listen.”
• In 1974, the writers of NME voted Blonde on Blonde the No. 2 album of all time.
• Demonstrating the transitory nature of such polls, in 1997 the album was placed at No. 16 in a “Music of the Millennium” poll conducted by HMV,Channel 4, The Guardian and Classic FM.
• In 2006, TIME magazine included the record on their 100 All-TIME Albums list.
• In 2003, the album was ranked No. 9 on Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.
• In 2004, two songs from the album also appeared on the magazine’s list of the 500 greatest songs of all time: “Just Like a Woman” ranked No. 230 and “Visions of Johanna” No. 404.

 

Spotify:

Check out:

• Visions Of Johanna
• Stuck Inside Of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again
• Sad Eyed Lady Of The Lowlands
• Bob Dylan – album posts @ JV
• Bob Dylan recording session

-Egil & Hallgeir