Video Classics: 'Highway 61 Revisited' - Bob Dylan

To honor WNEW's legendary Firecracker 500, every day we are highlighting the music that populated the 1991 and 1996 lists, with classic videos, live performances and little-known facts about the songs and how they came to be...

Lest we list humility amongst Bob Dylan's virtues, let's listen to what he had to say about his album Highway 61 Revisited before listening to the title track ...

"I'm not gonna be able to make a record better than that one... Highway 61 is just too good. There's a lot of stuff on there that I would listen to."

Certainly, many critics and fans agreed with Dylan's assessment, and Highway 61 Revisited remains one of his most popular and influential albums, and the source of many of his concert favorites. It was the first album to be entirely recorded with a full rock band backing him, after he had experimented with the sound earlier on Bringing It All Back Home.

Ironically, Highway 61 Revisited, for all that it is often considered quintessential Dylan, is a bit of an anomaly, stylistically, as it encapsulates only the singer/songwriter's 'angry young period'. His work both prior to the album and following it were definitely more playful, or at least wistful in tone.

The title track itself (seen above in a 1969 performance with the Band from the Isle of Wight Festival) comes in at spot #447 on the 1996 Firecracker 500. Highway 61 is often referred to as 'The Blues Highway', as it is the major route that runs along the course of the Mississippi River nearly from its source all the way to New Orleans. Dylan, however, a native Minnesotan, wasn't familiar with the more famous end growing up. Instead, Highway 61 represented something else, possibly freedom... a road away from Minnesota to more musically interesting places. Dylan himself believed, in writing Highway 61 Revisited that a different kind of folk/blues could be written from the northern end, where the river begins. What came out of this 'different kind' of song was perhaps one of Dylan's most disturbing compositions, and also, perhaps, one of his most heartfelt.

Have memories of this song or the Firecracker 500? Add your thoughts to the comments below or take a look at Video Classics past...