Highway 61 Revisited

2022 reissue!

Highway 61 Revisited is the sixth studio album by Bob Dylan, originally 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.

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.