The Dylan Masterpieces

Most every long-time fan has their "personal favorite" Bob Dylan albums. With such a large catalog of music to draw from, spanning nearly fifty years, it is a hard decision to make. In listening to him since the late 60's, the three that I consider his masterworks are "The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan", "Blonde on Blonde", and "Blood on the Tracks". They are, in my estimation, his most brilliant and cohesive bodies of work.

The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan: Released May, 1963
Unlike his first album "Bob Dylan" which contained only two original songs, eleven of Freewheelin's thirteen songs were written by Dylan himself. Recorded over the course of the year prior to it's release in May '63, Dylan's songwriting development and proliferation were moving at an extraordinary pace. Events such as the Cuban Missile Crisis, the escalation of the Civil Rights Movement and sharing an apartment in New York with his girlfriend Suze Rotolo were making his songs much more topical and political. Freewheelin' debuted one of Dylan's most famous songs, "Blowin' in the Wind" as well as the epic "A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall". The latter became an anthem to the threat of nuclear holocaust which was so ominous in the early sixties. Other songs done in this vein include "Masters of War" and the comically tragic "Talkin' World War III Blues". Dylan was just as poignant concerning love and heartbreak with songs like "Don't Think Twice It's Alright", and "Girl From The North Country" which is Dylan's rewrite of the traditional English ballad "Scarborough Fair". "Oxford Town" gives an account of the injustice at the University of Mississippi a year earlier when U.S. Air Force veteran James Meredith became the first black student to enroll there. When Meredith first tried to attend classes at the school, a number of Mississippians pledged to keep the university segregated, including the state governor himself. Dylan's version of "Corrina, Corrina", a non-original 12 bar country blues tune also borrows lyrics from Robert Johnson's "Stones in My Passway". The album ends with "I Shall Be Free", a rewrite of Leadbelly's "We Shall Be Free". At the end of such a monumental piece of work, it is a welcomed comical rant about the culture of the day including J.F.K., Marlyn Monroe, Willy Mays, Sophia Loren, Martin Luther King and even "greasy kid's stuff".

Blonde on Blonde: Released May, 1966
Many believe Blonde on Blonde to be the first significant double album in rock history. Released in 1966, it preceded the Beatles' double "White Album" by over two years. It is also perceived by many critics as being the best album of Dylan's career. A year earlier in 1965 the Byrds had recorded Dylan's "Mr. Tambourine Man" with electric 12 string guitar, bass, and drums along with some haunting three part harmony vocals. It was a major hit and was labeled with the term "folk rock". Dylan himself had already gone electric with his two previous albums "Bringin' It All Back Home" and "Highway 61 Revisited" which included his biggest single "Like a Rolling Stone". In fact he was actually booed while performing some of the electric songs from these albums at the Newport Folk festival that year. For Dylan, it was not so much the so called folk rock sound he was looking for but rather a more bluesy feeling to compliment the more personal and sometimes cryptic songs he was now writing. This sound is what evolved and was best captured on his next album.
At the end of his 1965 tour Dylan decided to take his backing band the Hawks (later know simply as "The Band"), into Columbia Studios in New York. There they recorded a handful of songs but nothing really gelled. Sensing a need for a change of venue, Dylan decided to take the advice of session guitarist Charlie McCoy and scheduled sessions at Columbia's Music Row Studios in Nashville. Dylan brought along Jamie Robbie Robertson of the Hawks and Al Kooper who played organ on Highway 61 from New York. He also hired several top Nashville session musicians including McCoy. Recording began in February of 1966. The change of scenery worked and the songs began to flow with Dylan writing several in the studio during the sessions.
Blonde on Blonde kicks off with "Rainy Day Women No. 12 & 35" which includes the phrase "but I would not feel so all alone...everybody must get stoned!" "Visions of Johanna" is consider to be one of Dylan's greatest songs. At seven and one half minutes long, it's meaning has been interpreted in many ways with Dylan himself referring to it as his favorite song on the album capturing that "thin, wild mercury sound". "I Want You" is thought to be a song about Anita Pallenberg, at the time, the girlfriend of Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones who was a friend of Dylan's. "Just Like A Woman", arguably the most commercial track on the album, was released as a single featuring Dylan with the Nashville session players. "4th Time Around" is widely considered a response to "Norwegian Wood" the first Beatles track where the lyrics are seen as being more important than the melody and show an obvious Dylan influence. At over eleven minutes long "Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands" takes up the entire fourth side of the original double LP. Dylan is said to have written it for his wife Sara and acknowledges this in the song "Sara" from the "Desire" album.
A month after the release of Blonde on Blonde, Dylan suffered a near-fatal motorcycle accident and withdrew from public life for several years. During this period Dylan worked with the Hawks in a house in upstate New York recording and developing songs which would later become known as the "Basement Tapes", the most famous bootleg album in rock history.

Blood on the Tracks: Release January, 1975
Blood on the Tracks marked Dylan's return to Columbia Records after doing two albums with David Geffen's Asylum records. The content of it's material is generally thought to be the direct result of Dylan's personal turmoil over the breakup with his wife Sara. The songs would certainly support this theory though Dylan insists it is not the case. All ten songs on the album were originally recorded at Columbia's New York studios. After Dylan played the acetates for his brother David Zimmerman, it was decided that five would be re-recorded. David arraigned for studio time in Minneapolis and booked some local musicians for the sessions. The Minneapolis remakes are as follows: "Tangled Up In Blue", "You're a Big Girl Now", "Idiot Wind", "Lily, Rosemary, and the Jack of Hearts", and "If You See Her Say Hello". This collection of New York songs as well as the revamped Minneapolis songs were what was released as the official album in January of 1975.
Though widely labeled as his "confessional" album, Dylan insists these are not songs of his personal pain. In an interview discussing the album's ongoing popularity and stature as one of his greatest, Dylan stated "A lot of people tell me they enjoy that album. It's hard for me to relate to that. I mean, it, you know, people enjoying that type of pain, you know?"

You can also find great outtakes and alternate versions of the songs on these albums on the following CDs.
Bob Dylan: The Bootleg Series, Vols. 1-3 : Rare And Unreleased, 1961-1991
Bob Dylan: Biograph Boxed Set