Where is ‘Highway 61’ from the Bob Dylan album?
Bob Dylan’s 1965 album Highway 61 Revisited is a historic release. In lists of the most influential albums ever made, it scores high every time, making the moment when the folk wonder kid hit new and dizzying heights of success. After booming to notoriety in the early ‘60s, his rise to the top was fast and steep, matched only by his swift artistic evolution.
Already, he’d come a long way from the artist he started out as. On his 1962 self-titled debut album, there was nothing and no one but Dylan, an acoustic guitar and a harmonica. As he made the rounds of folk festivals, embedding himself in the music scene, he quickly began to run ahead of the pack. Within only a few short years, his music developed into its own unique style. While obviously inspired by the country scene he first emerged in and continuously nodding to his heroes like Woody Guthrie, Dylan’s music was swiftly something else entirely, developing his own poetic lyrical language and unique musical stylings.
It also developed in terms of sound. By the time he released the 1965 album, it was no longer just Dylan and his guitar. Instead, the record featured a full backing band accompanying him on nearly enough every track. There were 11 more musicians on the record, including electric guitar players and a drummer, as his instrumentation began to push into a rock direction and away from his origins.
But, as suggested by the album’s title, Highway 61 Revisited was a kind of return for Dylan. He was revisiting his origin story, the influences that first inspired him, and key places and points along his journey. Taking its title from a famous Highway that represents more than just a road getting people from A to B, the album connects to a rich legacy of musicality.
So, where is ‘Highway 61’?
Highway 61, or US 61, is a major highway that runs for 1,400 miles between New Orleans, Louisiana and the city of Wyoming, Minnesota. It connects the north and south of the country, following the course of the Mississippi River.
Along the way, the road goes through Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Wisconsin and Minnesota. Venturing through so many places means that the road also acts as an intersection between so many different cultures, sights and sounds. When thinking about that in musical terms, the road links all of these places, each with its own unique musicality and musical history, and connects them all together in one long lineage.
Why did Bob Dylan call his album Highway 61 Revisited?
Dylan has a rich, personal connection to Highway 61. In his memoir, Chronicles: Volume One, he explained it in his own words as he wrote, “Highway 61, the main thoroughfare of the country blues, begins about where I began.” Born in Duluth, Minnesota, Dylan’s childhood was at the southernmost part of the road. But as his musical journey took him venturing into the world of country and folk music, it took him North, up the highway.
He continued: “I always felt like I’d started on it, always had been on it and could go anywhere, even down in to the deep Delta country. It was the same road, full of the same contradictions, the same one-horse towns, the same spiritual ancestors … It was my place in the universe, always felt like it was in my blood.”
Dylan’s connection to the Highway is one shared by a long history of musicians. Along the Highway, the route passes by the birthplace of so many musical legends like Elvis Presley, Muddy Water and Charley Patton. Especially in blues music, the road has always had a mythical connection to the genre. It was where the ‘Empress of the Blues’, Bessie Smith, lost her life in a crash. It was where influential songwriter Robert Johnson supposedly sold his soul to the devil for musical success. It’s referenced over and over either in the lyrics or life stories of blues legends, giving the road the nickname of the “Blues Highway”.
The ties between country, folk, and blues music have always been tight, and Dylan’s music has always been more complex than any one genre categorisation; he was firmly in this lineage.
So when it came to naming his sixth album, right as he was on the precipice of moving into a bold, new era for his music as he began to go electric and venture further into experimentation, the album is a nod to these origins. Especially when it comes to the album’s final track, ‘Desolation Row’, where Dylan strips back to the simple sound of him and his guitar for an epic piece of social commentary, it’s a revisiting of the legacies that inspired him and the roots he grew from as he wandered up that road into the future.
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