Bob Dylan records Like A Rolling Stone
By the spring of 1965 Bob Dylans presence in the world of music was beginning to be felt well outside the boundaries of his nominal genre.Within the world of folk music he had been hailed as a hero for several years already but now his music was capturing the attention and influencing the direction of artists like the Byrds the Beatles and even a young Stevie Wonder.With Dylan as a direct inspiration popular music was about to change its direction but so was Dylan himself.
On June 16 1965 on their second day of recording at Columbia Records Studio A in Manhattan he and a band featuring electric guitars and an organ laid down the master take of the song that would announce that change Like A Rolling Stone.It would prove to be folksinger Bob Dylans magnum opus and arguably the greatest rock and roll record of all time.It was the fourth of 11 takes that day that yielded the six-minute-and-34-second recording that very nearly didnt become a revolutionary hit single.Returning to the CBS studios to hear Like A Rolling Stone several days after the recording session Dylan and manager Albert Grossman were thrilled by what they heard but the sales and marketing staff of Columbia Recordsthe gatekeepers who decided what songs would and wouldnt be released as singlesdid not agree.
At 634 Like A Rolling Stone was nearly twice as long as the average single and its raw rock sound was way outside the comfort zone of a label best known for artists like Andy Williams and Johnny Mathis.As Shaun Considine the coordinator of new releases for Columbia Records at the time recounted 40 year later in a New York Times Op-ed Dylans magnum opus was rejected as a single and resurrected only after Considine slipped a studio acetate to a DJ at a prominent Manhattan nightclub in mid-July.Two well-known radio DJs in the audience heard Like A Rolling Stone and the overwhelming crowd reaction to it that night and called Columbia the next day demanding their copies of the new Bob Dylan single.
Sales and marketing got its last dig in by chopping Like A Rolling Stone in half and putting it on separate sides of 45 but a re-spliced full version was what radio stations played and what climbed very nearly to the top of the Billboard pop charts.(It peaked at 2 in the week of September 4 1965 blocked from the 1 spot by the Beatles Help.)The most important impact of Like A Rolling Stone was not commercial but creative.As Rolling Stone magazine wrote in 2004 in naming it the greatest song of all time Dylan transformed popular song with the content and ambition of Like a Rolling Stone.
Or as Bruce Springsteen said of the first time he heard it [it] sounded like somebodyd kicked open the door to your mind.
