Visions of Dylan

Bob Dylan (born Robert Allen Zimmerman; May 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter, musician, author, and artist.  He has been an influential figure in popular music and culture for over five decades.  Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly reluctant figurehead of social unrest.  A number of Dylan's early songs, such as Blowin' in the Wind and The Times They Are a-Changin', became anthems for the US civil rights and anti-war movements.  Leaving his initial base in the culture of folk music behind, Dylan's six-minute single Like a Rolling Stone has been described as radically altering the parameters of popular music in 1965.  His recordings employing electric instruments attracted denunciation and criticism from others in the folk movement. Dylan's lyrics incorporated a variety of political, social, philosophical, and literary influences.  They defied existing pop music conventions and appealed hugely to the then burgeoning counterculture.  Initially inspired by the songs of Woody Guthrie, Robert Johnson, and Hank Williams, and the music and performance styles of Buddy Holly, Little Richard and Elvis Presley, Dylan has both amplified and personalized musical genres.  His recording career, spanning fifty years, has explored numerous distinct traditions in American song—from folk, blues and country to gospel, rock and roll, and rockabilly to English, Scottish, and Irish folk music, embracing even jazz and swing.  Dylan performs with guitar, keyboards, and harmonica.  Backed by a changing line-up of musicians, he has toured steadily since the late 1980s on what has been dubbed the Never Ending Tour.  His accomplishments as a recording artist and performer have been central to his career, but his greatest contribution is generally considered to be his songwriting. Visions of Bob Dylan features his studio recordings from 1962 to 1989.  The albums Highway 61 and Blonde On Blonde released 1965 and 66 respectively are featured here in their entirety.

Highway 61 Revisited was released in August 1965 by Columbia Records.  On his previous album, Bringing It All Back Home, Dylan devoted Side One of the album to songs accompanied by an electric rock band, and Side Two to solo acoustic numbers.  For Highway 61 Revisited, Dylan used rock backing on every track, except for the closing 11-minute acoustic song, Desolation Row.  Critics have written that Dylan's ability to combine driving, complex, blues-based rock music with the power of poetry made Highway 61 Revisited one of the most influential albums ever recorded. Leading off with his hit single of that summer, Like a Rolling Stone, the album features many songs that have been acclaimed as classics and that Dylan has continued to perform live over his long career, including Highway 61 Revisited, Ballad of a Thin Man, and Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues.  Dylan named the album after one of the great North American arteries, which connected his birthplace in Minnesota to southern cities famed for their musical heritage, including St. Louis, Memphis, and New Orleans.

Blonde on Blonde was released in May 1966 on Columbia Records and produced by Bob Johnston.  Recording sessions commenced in New York in October 1965, with numerous backing musicians, including members of Dylan's live backing band, The Hawks.  They continued until January 1966, but yielded only one track that made it onto the final album One of Us Must Know (Sooner or Later).  At Johnston's suggestion, Dylan, accompanied by keyboard player 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. The album completed the trilogy of rock albums that Dylan recorded in 1965 and 1966, commencing with Bringing It All Back Home and Highway 61 Revisited.  Blonde on Blonde is often ranked by critics 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.

Favorite lyric from Visions of Johanna: Ain't it just like the night to play tricks when you're tryin' to be so quiet? We sit here stranded, though we're all doin our best to deny it And Louise holds a handful of rain, tempting you to defy it Lights flicker from the opposite loft In this room the heat pipes just cough The country music station plays soft But there's nothing really nothing to turn off Just Louise and her lover so entwined And these visions of Johanna that conquer my mind

Wanderin' Spirit
November, 2012
"Visions of Dylan"

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