My love for folk music led inevitably to Bob Dylan. I was immediately drawn to his iconoclasm, his dry, bitter, sometimes silly sense of humor, his seeming unschooled voice, his visionary poetry, and his rage at the injustices of 50s and 60s America.
And just I grew bored with the droning sameness of most folk music, Dylan made a radical change, embracing electric instrumentation, much to the outrage of more traditional folkies. I loved it.
Highway 61 Revisited is still one of my all-time favorite albums. It features some of his greatest lyrics and the accompaniment of some of the most interesting musician of the time: Al Cooper with his jazz-inflected keyboards and Michael Bloomfield with his endlessly inventive blues guitar riffs. Blonde On Blonde is a close second--Visions of Johanna is probably my favorite Dylan song.
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