Highway 61 Revisited

Bob Dylan’s Highway 61 Revisited didn’t just mark a shift in his sound—it detonated a seismic change in rock music itself. Released on 30 August 1965, his sixth studio album saw Dylan shed the last vestiges of his acoustic folk roots in favour of a full-bodied, electrified blues-rock sound. All but one track feature a backing band, and what a band it was. With Mike Bloomfield’s blistering guitar licks and Al Kooper’s now-iconic organ riff, Highway 61 Revisited delivered some of the most striking, urgent music of its era.

Opening with the era-defining Like a Rolling Stone, the album barrels through a string of hard-hitting tracks, from the carnival-esque paranoia of Ballad of a Thin Man to the title track’s bluesy swagger. Dylan’s songwriting had never been sharper, combining razor-edged social critique with surrealist wit. By the time Desolation Row closes out the record—its sprawling, 11-minute poetry set against sparse acoustic guitar—Dylan has already torn down and rebuilt the foundations of popular music.

Named after the highway that connects his hometown of Duluth, Minnesota, to the deep musical heartlands of the South, the album reflects Dylan’s deep kinship with the blues. He fought Columbia Records for the title, insisting on its significance. The road had already been immortalised in blues lore—Robert Johnson’s mythical crossroads, Bessie Smith’s tragic end, the ghosts of Son House and Charley Patton—and now, with Highway 61 Revisited, Dylan laid his own claim to its legacy.

Recorded in the wake of his electric set at the Newport Folk Festival—a moment that saw folk purists turn on him—Dylan entered Columbia’s Studio A in Manhattan exhausted yet driven. The sessions were fast and intense, fuelled by a creative spark that resulted in some of his most enduring work. The recording of Like a Rolling Stone itself was a moment of sheer serendipity, with Kooper sneaking onto the organ and laying down a part so integral that it’s now etched into rock history.

Upon release, the album peaked at No. 3 in the US and No. 4 in the UK, but its impact transcends chart positions. Frequently listed among the greatest albums of all time—No. 4 on Rolling Stone’s 2003 list, later revised to No. 18—it remains a benchmark for fearless reinvention. Nearly six decades on, Highway 61 Revisited still crackles with the same untamed energy that made it such a revolutionary force in 1965. Dylan didn’t just revisit Highway 61—he rewrote its map entirely.