BOB DYLAN - HIGHWAY 61 REVISITED "NEAR MINT" ALBUM

Description: We are called Rita's Rare Finds because all the albums and collectibles we list are hard to find in the condition we have them. I am probably one of the only sellers who has the original release of this iconic music from Bob Dylan that pretty much changed my life and started the sixties era of new and different music in near mint condition. I'm sure you can find lots of the same record in good or very good condition or reissues from the year 2,000 and something, but not in near mint. We are unusual because I made it a point with my collection to only let me be the one to play my records being very careful, holding them by the edges and not messing them up in the process of recording them so I wouldn't have to keep playing the record if I wanted to listen to it again. This was how I kept my collection in the excellent condition my albums are in. It's like buying an original Picasso Painting instead of a reprint. This is a piece of Rock History. I do have some good records I got second hand in my collection but I will always price them lower and inform the buyer of the way I got the album. Here are some interesting facts about the musicians that played on this album and other facts about the recording itself. Highway 61 Revisited is the sixth studio album by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, released on August 30, 1965, by Columbia Records. Having until then recorded mostly acoustic music, Dylan used rock musicians as his backing band on every track of the album, except for the closing track, the 11-minute ballad "Desolation Row". Critics have focused on the innovative way Dylan combined driving, blues-based music with the subtlety of poetry to create songs that captured the political and cultural chaos of contemporary America. Author Michael Gray has argued that, in an important sense, the 1960s "started" with this album.[2]Leading with the hit song "Like a Rolling Stone", the album features songs that Dylan has continued to perform live over his long career, including "Ballad of a Thin Man" and the title track. He named the album after the major American highway which connected his birthplace of Duluth, Minnesota, to southern cities famed for their musical heritage, including St. Louis, Memphis, New Orleans, and the Delta blues area of Mississippi.Highway 61 Revisited peaked at No. 3 on the US Billboard Top LPs chart and No. 4 on the UK Albums Chart. Positively received on release, the album has since been described as one of Dylan's best works and among the greatest albums of all time, ranking No. 18 on Rolling Stone's "500 Greatest Albums of All Time list in 2020. It was voted No. 26 in the third edition of Colin Larkin's All Time Top 1000 Albums (2000) and was featured in Robert Dimery's 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die (2010). "Like a Rolling Stone" was a top-10 hit in several countries, and was listed at No. 4 on Rolling Stone's "500 Greatest Songs of All Time" list in 2021. Two other songs, "Desolation Row" and "Highway 61 Revisited", were listed at No. 187 and No. 373 respectively on the 2010 list.Dylan and Highway 61[edit]In his memoir Chronicles: Volume One, Dylan described the kinship he felt with the route that supplied the title of his sixth album: "Highway 61, the main thoroughfare of the country blues, begins about where I began. I always felt like I'd started on it, always had been on it and could go anywhere, even down in to the deep Delta country. It was the same road, full of the same contradictions, the same one-horse towns, the same spiritual ancestors ... It was my place in the universe, always felt like it was in my blood."[3]When he was growing up in the 1950s, U.S. Highway 61 stretched from the Canada–US border in far northeast Minnesota (redesignated in 1991 as MN-61), through Duluth, where Dylan was born., along the Mississippi River down to New Orleans. Along the way, the route passed near the birthplaces and homes of influential musicians such as Muddy Waters, Son House, Elvis Presley and Charley Patton. The "empress of the blues", Bessie Smith, died after sustaining serious injuries in an automobile accident on Highway 61. Critic Mark Polizzotti points out that blues legend Robert Johnson is alleged to have sold his soul to the devil at the highway's crossroads with Route 49.[4] The highway had also been the subject of several blues recordings, notably Roosevelt Sykes' "Highway 61 Blues" (1932) and Mississippi Fred McDowell's "61 Highway" (1964).[5]Dylan said he had to overcome resistance at Columbia Records to give the album its title. He told biographer Robert Shelton: "I wanted to call that album Highway 61 Revisited. Nobody understood it. I had to go up the fucking ladder until finally the word came down and said: 'Let him call it what he wants to call it'."[6] Michael Gray said the album's title represents Dylan's insistence that his songs are rooted in the blues: "Indeed the album title Highway 61 Revisited announces that we are in for a long revisit, since it is such a long, blues-travelled highway. Many bluesmen had been there before [Dylan], all recording versions of a blues called 'Highway 61'."[7]Recording[edit]Background[edit]In May 1965, Dylan returned from his tour of England feeling exhausted and dissatisfied with his material. He told journalist Nat Hentoff: "I was going to quit singing. I was very drained" and added, "[i]t's very tiring having other people tell you how much they dig you if you yourself don't dig you."[8]As a consequence of his dissatisfaction, Dylan wrote 20 pages of verse he later described as a "long piece of vomit".[9] He reduced this to a song with four verses and a chorus—"Like a Rolling Stone".[10] He told Hentoff that writing and recording the song washed away his dissatisfaction, and restored his enthusiasm for creating music.[8] Describing the experience to Robert Hilburn in 2004, nearly 40 years later, Dylan said: "It's like a ghost is writing a song like that ... You don't know what it means except the ghost picked me to write the song."[11]Highway 61 Revisited was recorded in two blocks of recording sessions that took place in Columbia's Studio A, located on Seventh Avenue in Midtown Manhattan.[12] The first block, June 15 and 16, was produced by Tom Wilson and resulted in the single "Like a Rolling Stone".[13] On July 25, Dylan performed his controversial electric set at the Newport Folk Festival, where some of the crowd booed his performance.[14] Four days after Newport, Dylan returned to the recording studio. From July 29 to August 4, he and his band completed recording Highway 61 Revisited, but under the supervision of a new producer, Bob Johnston.[15]Recording sessions, June 15–16[edit]See also: Like a Rolling Stone § Writing and recordingAl Kooper's improvised organ riff on "Like a Rolling Stone" has been described as "one of the great moments of pop music serendipity".[16]In the first recording session on June 15 Dylan was backed by Bobby Gregg on drums, Joe Macho, Jr. on bass, Paul Griffin on piano, and Frank Owens on guitar.[17] For lead guitar, the singer recruited Michael Bloomfield of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band.[18] The musicians began the session by recording a fast version of "It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry" and the song "Sitting on a Barbed Wire Fence", which was omitted from the album.[19] Dylan and his band next attempted to record "Like a Rolling Stone";[20] at this early stage, Dylan's piano dominated the backing, which was in 3/4 time.[21] "Barbed Wire Fence", the fast version of "It Takes a Lot to Laugh", and an early take of "Like a Rolling Stone" were eventually released on The Bootleg Series Volumes 1–3 (Rare & Unreleased) 1961–1991.[22]The musicians returned to Studio A the following day, when they devoted almost the entire session to recording "Like a Rolling Stone". Present on this occasion was Al Kooper, a young musician invited by Wilson to observe, but who wanted to play on the session.[23] Kooper managed to sit in on the session; despite never having played electric organ before, Kooper improvised an organ riff that, critics such as Greil Marcus and Mark Polizzotti have argued, is a crucial element of the recording.[24][25] The fourth take was ultimately selected as the master, but Dylan and the band recorded eleven more takes.[26]Recording sessions, July 29 – August 4[edit]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.[27] When he returned to Studio A on July 29, he was backed by the same musicians, except Harvey Brooks replaced Joe Macho on bass and his producer had changed from Tom Wilson to Bob Johnston.[28][a 1]Nashville sessions musician Charlie McCoy's chance visit to New York resulted in the guitar flourishes accompanying "Desolation Row", the last track on the album.[29]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.[30] "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.[31] This electric version was eventually released in 2005, on The Bootleg Series Vol. 7.[32]On July 30, Dylan and his band returned to Studio A and recorded three songs. A master take of "From a Buick 6" was recorded and later included on the final album, but most of the session was devoted to "Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window?" Dylan was unsatisfied with the results and set the song aside for a later date; it was eventually re-recorded with the Hawks in October.[33]After Dylan and Kooper spent the weekend in Woodstock writing chord charts for the songs,[34] sessions resumed at Studio A on August 2.[35][36] "Highway 61 Revisited", "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues", "Queen Jane Approximately", and "Ballad of a Thin Man" were recorded successfully and masters were selected for the album.[37][38][39]One final session was held on August 4, again at Studio A. Most of the session was devoted to completing "Desolation Row". Johnston has related that Nashville musician Charlie McCoy was visiting New York, and he invited McCoy to play guitar at the session.[29] According to some sources, seven takes of "Desolation Row" were recorded, and takes six and seven were spliced together for the master recording.[40]The resulting album, Highway 61 Revisited, has been described as "Dylan's first purely 'rock' album",[41] a realization of his wish to leave his old music format behind and move on from his all-acoustic first four albums and half-acoustic, half-electric fifth album, Bringing It All Back Home. Documentary director D. A. Pennebaker, who filmed Dylan on his acoustic UK tour in May 1965, has said: "I didn't know that he was going to leave acoustic. I did know that he was getting a little dragged by it."[42]

Price: 564 USD

Location: Medford, Oregon

End Time: 2024-09-09T21:06:37.000Z

Shipping Cost: 5.38 USD