Taking the first, electric side of
Bringing It All Back Home
to its logical conclusion,
Bob Dylan
hired a full rock & roll band, featuring guitarist
Michael Bloomfield
, for
Highway 61 Revisited
. Opening with the epic
"Like a Rolling Stone,"
careens through nine songs that range from reflective folk-rock (
"Desolation Row"
) and blues (
"It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry"
) to flat-out garage rock (
"Tombstone Blues,"
"From a Buick 6,"
"Highway 61 Revisited"
).
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
-- it proved that rock & roll needn't be collegiate and tame in order to be literate, poetic, and complex. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine