61 Years Ago Today, A Folk Rock Legend Released The Album That Took The Genre Somewhere Totally New
Already an important and famous figure of the 1960s folk revival movement, Bob Dylan made a definitive artistic change and moved up to legendary status with the transformative "Highway 61 Revisited." A vinyl every '60s music buff should already own, the album was released on August 30, 1965.
In the early 1960s, Dylan issued five studio albums, generally in the folk and folk rock tradition. He mostly paired his effusive, poetic, and grand story tunes with acoustic instrumentation. Then everything changed in 1965 when he introduced electrification and thereby elements of rock 'n' roll — still a gritty and audacious medium — to his sound. After leaning into the idea on the "Bringing It All Back Home" LP, Dylan upset folk traditionalists and looked to the future when he played a few songs on electric guitar during the Newport Folk Festival, an iconic moment that changed rock history forever. About a month later, the release of "Highway 61 Revisited, " a classic album that defines folk rock, confirmed and completed Dylan's creative transition.
He went electric with Highway 61 Revisited
The world was used to Bob Dylan sounding a certain way: Warbling along to an acoustic guitar on songs like "The Times They Are a-Changin'" and "Subterranean Homesick Blues." But "Highway 61 Revisited" blasts off with "Like a Rolling Stone," a six-minute epic that Dylan belts out with the accompaniment of multiple electric guitars and a loud organ. That No. 2 hit single was a taste of what was to come on the rest of "Highway 61 Revisited" — and the foreseeable future for Dylan.
"Highway 61 Revisited" is by and large a rock album, as evidenced by the many rock studio musicians that back up Dylan on everything but the pure folk album closer "Desolation Row." But it's also a folk record, because Dylan made it. His lyrics on the LP feel like rambling free verse full of metaphor and emotion, just like they always have.
Critics looking back on 20th-century music have frequently cited "Highway 61 Revisited" as one of the absolute best albums ever made. But in its time, the LP was a commercial breakthrough for Dylan. It peaked at No. 3 on the album chart and sold 500,000 copies in two years.