Tag Archives: Highway 61 Revisited

List, Poll

These are the 20 Greatest albums of all time according to the JV community

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Bob_Dylan_-_Highway_61_Revisited

The votes have been counted.

Read further down in the post…..

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I hereby challenge all readers to put out their personal list of the 20 Greatest albums of all time.
Top 15 /10 is also appreciated.

Use the comments section in this post or check out our Facebook page.

The poll will be open till Tuesday’ish.

The rules:

  • ONLY 5 Bob Dylan albums allowed
  • It’s an album list, but 2 exceptions are allowed (Greatest Hits/Very Best/..)
    This is meant to cover artists that didn’t really put out many “albums”, typically older music 40/50s.

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Again: Don’t take theses lists so seriously ! It’s meant to be FUN.

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It was a great poll to host, and we got lists in from 52 musicologists.

notes:

  • It’s nice to see (though hardly a surprise) 3 Dylan albums on top (as on my list)
  • lists with fewer than 5 did not count
  • Live albums did not count, including my own “Live @ San Quentin”, as stated above.. this will be a separate poll
# Album Artist votes
1 Highway 61 Revisited (1965) Bob Dylan 29
2 Blood On The Tracks (1975) Bob Dylan 26
3 Blonde On Blonde (1966) Bob Dylan 25
4 Revolver (1966) The Beatles 18
5 Exile On Main St. (1972) The Rolling Stones 17
6 Astral Weeks (1968) Van Morrison 15
7 Rubber Soul (1965) The Beatles 14
8 Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967) The Beatles 13
8 White Album (1968) The Beatles 13
10 Abbey Road (1969) The Beatles 12
10 Let It Bleed (1969) The Rolling Stones 12
10 Who’s Next (1971) The Who 12
13 Kind Of Blue (1959) Miles Davis 11
14 John Wesley Harding (1967) Bob Dylan 10
14 The Band (1969) The Band 10
16 Bringing It All Back Home (1965) Bob Dylan 8
16 Dark Side Of The Moon Pink Floyd 8
16 Music From Big Pink (1968) The Band 8
16 Beggar’s Banquet (1968) The Rolling Stones 8
16 Sticky Fingers (1971) The Rolling Stones 8

Lurking under:

  • Beach Boys – Pet Sounds
  • Crosby Stills & Nash
  • Neil Young – After The Gold Rush
  • Van Morrison – Moondance
  • Bruce Springsteen – Nebraska
  • Crosby Stills & Nash  – Deja Vu
  • Pink Floyd – Wish You Where Here
  • Bob Dylan – The Freewheelin Bob Dylan
  • Bruce Springsteen – Darkness On The Edge Of Town
  • George Harrison – all Things Must Pass
  • Grateful Dead – American Beauty
  • The Jimi Hendrix Experience – Are You Experienced
  • Tom Waits – Rain Dogs

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My list – 20 favorite  albums:

Continue reading These are the 20 Greatest albums of all time according to the JV community →

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August 4 in music history

August 4: Louis Armstrong (August 4, 1901 – July 6, 1971) (read more)

“Seems to me it ain’t the world that’s so bad but what we’re doing to it, and all I’m saying is: see what a wonderful world it would be if only we’d give it a chance. Love, baby – love. That’s the secret.”
― Louis Armstrong

“Louis Armstrong was the first important soloist to emerge in jazz, and he became the most influential musician in the music’s history.”
~William Ruhlmann (allmusic.com)

  louis armstrong2
 Bob Dylan’s 6th & final recording session for “Highway 61 Revisited”.
Separate post ->

Bob Dylan – 6th & last recording session for Highway 61 Revisited – 4 August 1965

  bob dylan - highway_61_revisited
 James Milton Campbell, Jr. (September 7, 1934 – August 4, 2005), better known as Little Milton, was an American electric blues, rhythm and blues, and soul singer and guitarist, best known for his hit records “Grits Ain’t Groceries” and “We’re Gonna Make It.”  LittleMilton
 Lee Hazlewood (July 9, 1929 – August 4, 2007), born Barton Lee Hazlewood was an American country and pop singer, songwriter, and record producer, most widely known for his work with guitarist Duane Eddy during the late 1950s and singer Nancy Sinatra in the 1960s.  lee hazlewood

Spotify Playlist – August 4
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August 2 in music history

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August 2: Happy 77th Birthday Garth Hudson (read more)

Hudson was just as crucial to the very different sounds made in the Basement the year afterwards: especially since in large part it was Garth who tape-recorded those unique, informal sessions, and had the sense to look after, afterwards, all the dozens of unknown-about extra ones beyond those of immediate interest to Dylan’s music publisher, and which only began to circulate decades later.

Hudson was also the musicians’ musician—and actually gave the other Hawks music lessons—and when the Hawks became the Crackers became The Band, he was the multi-instrumentalist supreme in a group of multi-instrumentalists. If The Band introduced a small orchestra’s worth of olde world instruments to mainstream rock music, it was Hudson who had introduced many of them to The Band.
~Michael Gray (The Bob Dylan Encyclopedia)

  Garth Hudson

August 2: Bob Dylan: 5th recording session for Highway 61 Revisited in 1965 (read more)

“Highway 61 Revisited is the product of a series of recording session in which Dylan is performing at his peak, pure creativeness, sheer intensity, inspired by and pulling forth equivalent performances from the musicians around him. Whichever way he turns, something new and remarkable happens.”
~Paul Williams (Bob Dylan Performing Artist I: The Early Years 1960-1973)

  Bob_Dylan_-_Highway_61_Revisited
 Fela Kuti (born Olufela Olusegun Oludotun Ransome-Kuti; 15 October 1938 – 2 August 1997) also known as Fela Anikulapo Kuti or simply Fela, was a Nigerian multi-instrumentalist, musician, composer, pioneer of the Afrobeat music genre, human rights activist, and political maverick.  Fela-Kuti
 Billy Lee Riley (October 5, 1933 – August 2, 2009) was an American rockabilly musician, singer, record producer and songwriter. His most memorable recordings included “Rock With Me Baby” and “Red Hot”.  billy lee riley
 The Suburbs is the third studio album by the Canadian indie rock band Arcade Fire, released 2 August 2010. Coinciding with the announcement the band released a limited edition 12-inch single containing two tracks from the album, “The Suburbs” and “Month of May”. The album debuted at No. 1 on the Irish Albums Chart, the UK Albums Chart, the US Billboard 200 chart, and the Canadian Albums Chart. It won Album of the Year at the 2011 Grammy Awards, Best International Album at the 2011 BRIT Awards, Album of the Year at the 2011 Juno Awards, and the 2011 Polaris Music Prize for best Canadian album. Two weeks after winning Grammy’s Album of the Year, the album jumped from No. 52 to No. 12 on the Billboard 200, the album’s highest ranking since August 2010.  Arcade_Fire_-_The_Suburbs

Spotify Playlist – August 2
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July 30 in music history

July 30: Bob Dylan: 4th recording session for Desire in 1975 (read more)

The result is a sound and a set of songs unlike anything Dylan or anyone else has ever done before…. The lyrics of “Sara” and “Abandoned Love” (and, for that matter, of “Isis” and “Hurricane”) could not be more perfect, but overall the triumph of Desire is musical
~Paul Williams (Bob Dylan: Performing Artist, Vol 2: The Middle Years 1974-1986)

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Recorded in the summer lull before the first Rolling Thunder tour and released soon after it, the stand-out tracks are ‘Isis’, ‘Romance in Durango’ and ‘Black Diamond Bay’, but ‘Hurricane’, ‘One More Cup of Coffee’ and ‘Oh Sister’ are breathing down their necks.
~Michael Gray (The Bob Dylan Encyclopedia)

  Bob_Dylan-Desire-Frontal
 Samuel Cornelius Phillips (January 5, 1923 – July 30, 2003), better known as Sam Phillips, was an American businessman, record executive, record producer and DJ who played an important role in the emergence of rock and roll as the major form of popular music in the 1950s. He was a producer, label owner, and talent scout throughout the 1940s and 1950s. He most notably founded Sun Studios and Sun Records in Memphis, Tennessee. Through Sun, Phillips discovered such recording talent as Howlin’ Wolf, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis and Johnny Cash.  sam phillips prestoampex
 George “Buddy” Guy (born July 30, 1936) is an American blues guitarist and singer. Critically acclaimed, he is a pioneer of the Chicago blues sound and has served as an influence to some of the most notable musicians of his generation, including Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix and Stevie Ray Vaughan. In the 1960s Guy was a member of Muddy Waters’ band and as a house guitarist at Chess Records. He can be heard on Howlin’ Wolf’s ‘Killing Floor’ and Koko Taylor’s ‘Wang Dang Doodle’ as well as on his own Chess sides and the fine series of records he made with harmonica player Junior Wells.Ranked 30th in Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the “100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time”, Guy is known for his showmanship on stage: playing his guitar with drumsticks or strolling into the audience while playing solos. His song “Stone Crazy” was ranked 78th in list of the 100 Greatest Guitar Songs of All Time also of Rolling Stone.  buddy-guy

July 30: Bob Dylan: 5th recording session for Highway 61 Revisited 1965 (read more)

“I never wanted to write topical songs,…. Have you heard my last two records, Bringing It All Back Home and Highway 61? It’s all there. That’s the real Dylan.”
~Bob Dylan (to Frances Taylor – Aug 1965)

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“Dylan had not only changed his sound, but his persona, trading the folk troubadour for a streetwise, cynical hipster. Throughout the album, he embraces druggy, surreal imagery, which can either have a sense of menace or beauty, and the music reflects that, jumping between soothing melodies to hard, bluesy rock. And that is the most revolutionary thing about Highway 61 Revisited — it proved that rock & roll needn’t be collegiate and tame in order to be literate, poetic, and complex.”
~Stephen Thomas Erlewine (allmusic.com)

 highway61revisited
 The Rising is the 12th studio album by American recording artist Bruce Springsteen, released in 2002 (July 30) on Columbia Records. In addition to being Springsteen’s first studio album in seven years, it was also his first with the E Street Band in 18 years. It is centered around Springsteen’s reflections on the September 11, 2001 attacks.  Bruce the rising album
 Catherine “Kate” Bush (born 30 July 1958) is an English singer-songwriter, musician and record producer. Her eclectic musical style and idiosyncratic vocal style have made her one of the United Kingdom’s most successful solo female performers of the past 30 years.  kate-bush-183726

Spotify Playlist – July 30
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July 29 in music history

July 29: Bob Dylan: The third recording session for Highway 61 Revisited in 1965 (read more)

“I never wanted to write topical songs,…. Have you heard my last two records, Bringing It All Back Home and Highway 61? It’s all there. That’s the real Dylan.”
~Bob Dylan (to Frances Taylor – Aug 1965)

  Bob_Dylan_-_Highway_61_Revisited
 On July 29, 1966, Bob Dylan crashed his 500cc Triumph Tiger 100 motorcycle on a road near his home in Woodstock, New York, and was thrown to the ground. Though the extent of his injuries was never fully disclosed, Dylan said that he broke several vertebrae in his neck. Mystery still surrounds the circumstances of the accident since no ambulance was called to the scene and Dylan was not hospitalized. Dylan’s biographers have written that the crash offered Dylan the much-needed chance to escape from the pressures that had built up around him. Dylan confirmed this interpretation of the crash when he stated in his autobiography, “I had been in a motorcycle accident and I’d been hurt, but I recovered. Truth was that I wanted to get out of the rat race.” In the wake of his accident, Dylan withdrew from the public and, apart from a few select appearances, did not tour again for almost eight years.  bob_dylan_triumph+
 Ina Anita Carter (March 31, 1933 – July 29, 1999), the youngest daughter of Ezra and Mother Maybelle Carter, was a versatile American singer who experimented with several different types of music and played upright bass with her sisters Helen Carter and June Carter Cash as The Carter Sisters. The trio joined the Grand Ole Opry radio show in 1950 (Anita was 17 years old at the time), opened shows for Elvis Presley, and joined The Johnny Cash Show in 1971. As a solo artist, and with her family, Carter recorded for a number of labels including RCA Victor, Cadence, Columbia, Audiograph, United Artists, Liberty and Capitol.  anita carter
 Vivienne Patricia “Patti” Scialfa, born July 29, 1953, is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist. She is married to Bruce Springsteen and they have three children.  Patti Scialfa2
 Geddy Lee Weinrib, OC (born Gary Lee Weinrib; July 29, 1953), better known as Geddy Lee, is a Canadian musician, best known as the lead vocalist, bassist, and keyboardist for the Canadian rock group Rush. Lee joined what would become Rush in September 1968, at the request of his childhood friend Alex Lifeson, replacing original bassist and frontman Jeff Jones.  Geddy Lee

Spotify Playlist – July 29