“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)
“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)
Studio A Columbia Recording Studios New York City, New York 2 August 1965 The 5th Highway 61 Revisited session, produced by Bob Johnston
….would be Like A Rolling Stone because I wrote that after I’d quit. I’d literally quit singing and playing, and I found myself writing this song, this story, this long piece of vomit about twenty pages long, and out of it I took Like A Rolling Stone and made it as a single. And I’d never written anything like that before and it suddenly came to me that that was what I should do, you know. I mean, nobody had ever done that before.
~Bob Dylan (to Martin Bronstein – Feb 1966)
.. The sound is so rich the song never plays the same way twice
~Greil Marcus
The first time I heard Bob Dylan, I was in the car with my mother listening to WMCA, and on came that snare shot that sounded like somebody had kicked open the door to your mind
~Bruce Springsteen (Jan 1988)
Michael Bloomfield was one of America’s first great white blues guitarists, earning his reputation on the strength of his work in the Paul Butterfield Blues Band. His expressive, fluid solo lines and prodigious technique graced many other projects — most notably Bob Dylan’s earliest electric forays — and he also pursued a solo career, with variable results. Uncomfortable with the reverential treatment afforded a guitar hero, Bloomfield tended to shy away from the spotlight after spending just a few years in it; he maintained a lower-visibility career during the ’70s due to his distaste for fame and his worsening drug problems, which claimed his life in 1981.
~Steve Huey (allmusic.com)
Bob Dylan recorded Romance in Durango in Studio E – Columbia Recording Studios, NYC in 1975. This was the 2th Desire session, produced by Don DeVito.
David “Junior” Kimbrough (July 28, 1930 – January 17, 1998) was an American blues musician. His best known work included “Keep Your Hands Off Her” and “All Night Long”. Music journalist Tony Russell stated “his raw, repetitive style suggests an archaic forebear of John Lee Hooker, a character his music shares with that of fellow North Mississippian R. L. Burnside”.
Hell Among the Yearlings is the second album by Gillian Welch, released July 28, 1998. All the songs on the album are written by Welch and David Rawlings.
Richard William “Rick” Wright (28 July 1943 – 15 September 2008) was an English musician, composer, singer and songwriter, best known for his career with Pink Floyd. A multi-instrumentalist, Wright’s richly textured keyboard layers were a vital ingredient and a distinctive characteristic of Pink Floyd’s sound. Wright frequently sang harmony and occasionally lead vocals on stage and in the studio with Pink Floyd (most notably on the songs “Time”, “Echoes”, “Us and Them”, “Wearing the Inside Out”, “Astronomy Domine” and “Matilda Mother”).
“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)
“If you had to sum up Highway 61 Revisited in a single sentence, suffice it to say that it is the album that invented attitude and raised it to an art form. Just take a look at the cover. Nobody from Johnny Rotten to Eminem has done it better to this day.
~Nigel Williamson (The Rough Guide To Bob Dylan)
Studio A Columbia Recording Studios New York City, New York 29 July 1965 The 3rd Highway 61 Revisited session, produced by Bob Johnston
To create the material for Highway 61 Revisited, Dylan spent a month writing in his new home in the Byrdcliffe artists’ colony of Woodstock in upstate New York. When he returned to Studio A on July 29, he was backed by the same musicians as the previous session, but his producer had changed from Wilson to Johnston.
Their first session together was devoted to three songs. After recording several takes each of “Tombstone Blues”, “It Takes a Lot to Laugh” and “Positively 4th Street”, masters were successfully recorded. “Tombstone Blues” and “It Takes a Lot to Laugh” were included in the final album, but “Positively 4th Street” was issued as a single-only release. At the close of the July 29 session, Dylan attempted to record “Desolation Row”, accompanied by Al Kooper on electric guitar and Harvey Brooks on bass. There was no drummer, as the drummer had gone home. This electric version was eventually released in 2005, on The Bootleg Series Vol. 7. ~Wikipedia
Songs:
It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry
It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry
It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry
Tombstone Blues
Tombstone Blues
Tombstone Blues
Tombstone Blues
Tombstone Blues
Tombstone Blues
Tombstone Blues
Tombstone Blues
Tombstone Blues
(recorded 10 am – 1 pm)
released 30 Aug 2005 – The Bootleg Series Vol 7. No Direction Home: The Soundtrack
Tombstone Blues
Tombstone Blues (recorded 10 am – 1 pm)
released 30 Aug 1965 – Highway 61 Revisited
– If Salvador Dali or Luis Bunuel had picked up a Fender Strat to head a blues band, they might have come up with something like “Tombstone Blues.”
~Bill Janovitz (allmusic.com)
—
It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry
It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry
It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry
It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry (recorded 2:30 – 5:30 pm)
released 30 Aug 1965 – Highway 61 Revisited
–
Positively 4th Street
Positively 4th Street
Positively 4th Street
Positively 4th Street
Positively 4th Street
Positively 4th Street
Positively 4th Street
Positively 4th Street
Positively 4th Street
Positively 4th Street (recorded 2:30 – 5:30 pm)
released 7 Sept 1965 as a single
–
Musicians:
Bob Dylan (guitar, piano, harmonica, vocal)
1-14 Mike Bloomfield (guitar), Paul Griffin (piano), Bobby Gregg (drums), Joseph Machao Jr. (bass), Al Kooper (organ)
15-28 Mike Bloomfield (guitar), Frank Owens (piano), Bobby Gregg (drums), Russ Savakus (bass), Al Kooper (organ)
