Folkie Bob Plugs In...

As I talked about before, 1965 was a turning point in rock n' roll because two figures tried to steal rock n' roll back from the Brits, one of them was James Brown and the other was the magnificent Bob Dylan. From March 1965 with the release of "Bringing It All Back Home" to May 1966 with the release of the double album "Blonde on Blonde" Bob Dylan was the undisputed king of rock n' roll. Vital to his success were his backing musicians, who included Al Kooper on organ, and Michael Bloomfield on guitar. "Bringing It All Back Home" is my favorite album of all time, and it is significant because the first side of the album was played entirely with electric instruments and a drummer which he had never used before. The second side of the album was acoustic to demonstrate that he still had his folk sensibility and that was still effective as the interpreter for a generation. The album also featured what some call the first rock music video for "Subterranean Homesick Blues." Newport was the place that he chose to unveil his new sound, his new band, to an extent his new musical mission statement. Newport had been Bob's coming out party in 1963, introducing him to the world as a fresh, unique, and extremely potent songwriter and performer. At Newport in 1965, he was booed, he was slandered, and probably in the eyes of some he was hated. People thought of his new sound as hypocritical, treasonous, and disingenuous, but nevertheless Bob pursued new projects to expand and morph the sound of rock n' roll of the day.

Later in 1965 he released "Highway 61 Revisited" which contained the single "Like A Rolling Stone" which is often considered among music critics to be the greatest song in rock n' roll history. Tom Wilson produced this record but stopped working halfway through. Instead Bruce Johnston produced the second half of the record and continued to work with him in the rest of the decade. Blonde on Blonde was the first double album in rock and was as Bob described it, the time he came closest to recording "the sound within his head, that thin, wild, mercury sound.

In 1965 and 1966 he set out on a world tour and he recruited a band called the Hawks to tour with him. The Hawks were Robbie Robertson on guitar, Garth Hudson on organ, Rick Danko on bass, Richard Manuel on piano, and Levon Helm on drums. Although each member of the Hawks was a multi-instrumentalist I only listed their primary instruments. They were a tight, very talented backing band and they served Dylan well helping cement their status as probably the greatest rock act of the time, and also later in the decade as collaborators for the "Basement Tapes." The world tour was not well received and Dylan was booed viciously during most stops, most famously at Manchester, England on May 17, 1966. If you are interested in seeing what these events looked like you should rent, but probably buy, D.A. Pennebaker's "Don't Look Back" or Martin Scorcese's "No Direction Home." Shortly after the world tour Bob was in a motorcylce accident, and this caused him to become very reclusive and private, well at least more than he was already. After he recovered he decided to take a break from music and get a taste of rural family life, so he moved to Woodstock, NY with his wife Sara Lowndes.

The Hawks later followed him to Woodstock and bought a ho use there called "Big Pink." Since they would play around town and sometimes at big pink they were routinely referred to as The Band, so the name eventually stuck. The Band and Bob, eventually started playing together most days, mostly because Bob wanted to put out an album to try and make some money. They would rehearse and write from the basement of big pink and the recordings that came from these sessions were released as The Basement Tapes. They would later be heralded as some of Bob's greatest work and some of the most highly influential rock recordings.

Under the persuasion of Dylan, The Band began to record their own material under the tutelage and aid of Bob. What resulted was 1968's music from Big Pink. A raw, American, rural masterpiece that echoed from the mountains and plains of America. They used colorful retrospective narrative and created a sound that was a unique blend of traditional mountain and rural folk forms mixed with rhythm and blues. Their second self-titled album went even further thematically, featuring a cover photo of the band, dressed and groomed stylistically to look like they belonged in the 19th century. The songs spoke of an older, more genuine, but more difficult America to live in. Listen to "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" "Whispering Pines" "King's Harvest (Has Surely Come)" and "Up On Cripple Creek" People often ask me what I think the perfect rock n' roll record and the answer is almost always this one. Please buy it.

Bob later made two country albums "John Wesley Harding" and "Nashville Skyline" while in Woodstock. He would later move back to rock n' roll and into some adventurous places like gospel before eventually turning back to his roots with "Love and Theft" and "Modern Times."

I would speak more about the frustrations and transformations of Dylan but I am trying to make this a strictly pragmatic post and I apologize for the lack of colorful insight or anecdotal evidence. But I feel like what is here is what you need to know. Listen to The Band, they will blow your mind, listen to the three monumental Dylan rock albums, they will also blow your mind. And if you can get your hands on "The Last Waltz" by Martin Scorcese. There are two books out on the Band and Bob if you are interested as well. One is called "Million Dollar Bash" and it is about the Basement Tapes sessions and the other is called "This Wheel's On Fire" and it the autobiography of Levon Helm the longtime drummer for The Hawks, and The Band. Thank you, I'd have you anytime...DXL