Bob Dylan
Blonde On Blonde

THE REVIEW

"Highway 61 Revisited" was already legendary, and the name Bob Dylan was a sure thing. No longer just a sermonizing songwriter, but also a writer of rock, folk, jazz, and blues songs. In essence, a Distinguished Musician.

"Like a rolling stone" had already shattered a record that had stood for forty years: having a song last more than five minutes ("Satisfaction" by the Stones was under 4 minutes), but he drew the ire of numerous fans who saw him distancing from Joan Baez and the protest song. Undoubtedly, in hindsight, rock Dylan is certainly less affected and monotonous than the excellent sermonizing Dylan.
In 1966, Dylan released "Blonde on Blonde," and again broke another record. "Blonde on Blonde" is the first double LP in music history, practically, at the time, it seemed an almost monumental work. And in fact, it is a monumental work. Jazz, folk, blues, soul, rock, pop: Dylan performs the miracle of combining multiple musical genres into a single genre, perhaps indefinable, or perhaps so ingenious as to remain innovative today, forty years later.

Double LP recorded in a somewhat quirky way (a bit like what will happen with the Beatles and "Abbey Road"): Dylan practices the tracks along with Al Kooper - sound master and author of all the excellent sessions recorded entirely in Nashville - while band musicians pass the time chatting among themselves or playing cards. Dylan practices the songs two or three times a day and then records them. Awkward condition, no doubt, yet, the art and talent of Dylan seem to suffer no hindrance.
Young and a bit reckless, Dylan quickly records a series of tracks that will almost immediately go down in history: from the almost folk "Just like a woman" to the unsteady sway of "Rainy day women nos 12 & 15," leading to the beautiful "One of us must know," excellently sung by Dylan but played even more excellently, by Robbie Robertson's six-string guitar and a heavenly accompanying organ, before spilling over into a 'drugged' refrain.

Of course, the record is not all there is. There are at least another six or seven tracks worth mentioning: "Vision of Johanna," "Temporary like Achilles," "4th time around," the delightful "I want you" (vibrant, cheerful, sparkling) culminating in the lengthy "Sad eyed lady of the lowlands," 11 minutes that speak of love, like no one had managed to do before. Among mystical visions, vibrant joys, Lewis Carroll’s mirrors, desolation, love, dust, rain, sun: everything is in "Blonde on Blonde," all of Dylan's art, half of early Sixties American musical history, there are references (obligatory and clear) to the Byrds and Joan Baez, there are all imaginable instruments, there is a rock that seems to turn into something astral, there is a way that would be an understatement to define as genius, of conceiving music adapting it at will.

But above all, there is a desire for redemption: the year before cutting "Blonde on Blonde" (so, 1965) Dylan was absurdly booed at the Newport Folk Festival guilty of having started playing purely electric and rock pieces (the audience expected something like "The times they are a changin’"), and, in protest, anything was thrown at the stage where Dylan was playing. Forced to withdraw from the stage, he would understand that all the respect to which his fans had rightly accustomed him was lost.

And it is from here, from this awareness, that redemption is born: the redemption of doing only and exactly what he wanted, regardless of everything and everyone. "Blonde on Blonde" is an absolute cult classic in music history, a fundamental album to understand the evolution of the singer-songwriter genre made in the USA, and, more generally, a historic album that, in an eventual paradoxical music ranking, can only appear in the top ten positions. Before or after the equally epochal "Highway 61 Revisited"? That, I'll leave for you to decide.