Bringing It All Back Home - Bob Dylan

Originally released on vinyl, it had two distinct sides; one acoustic folk and the other electro-blues. Though Dylan displays his vast talents on vocals, guitar, harmonica and keyboards, the music itself leaves a lot to be desired and vocals can become irritating after a while, but it's the lyrics themselves where the genius lies. During the writing of the album, his writing in general was becoming more surreal and the lyrics are abstract and personal and often touching. It was recorded in several sessions and as a result has a long list of contributors; John Hammond Jr - Guitar John Sebastian - Bass Kenny Rankin - Guitar Bobby Gregg ...  Read the complete review

Bringing It All Back Home is often seen as the transitional album for Dylan in the sixties, marking the change from simply acoustic guitar and voice to Dylan backed by an electric group. This in all truth is quite a profound change of direction at the time, but the previous album Another Side showed that Dylan was moving in a new direction and was turning his back on the folk purists and turning on to a style of music that had been his original childhood passion. But this is purely transitional as it contains a side of electric songs and a side of electric tracks. Apparently there were electric versions of all the songs, but I am a yet to hear either an electric Gates Of ...  Read the complete review

This was a transitional record for Bob Dylan. At this time he had had enough of the folk music he’d been doing and he knew it was time to move on. Little did he know the harsh treatment he would receive from angry folk purists who demanded he just sit there with his acoustic guitar and harmonica. He even got death threats after the release of this LP and there are a few references to the situation, which I will gat into later. In an interview in 1965 when asked why folk was out and rock ‘n’ roll was in he said, “Folk music destroyed itself. Nobody destroyed it. Folk music is still here – it’s always going to be here, if you ...  Read the complete review

The impact Bob Dylan has had on the music scene hard to fully realise. He has influenced hundreds of artists, who in turn have influenced others and so it goes on. He brought poetry to the contemporary song, something that brought music to a higher plateau. In short, he is God. Bringing it All Back Home is his first masterpiece. Those hoping for more Blowin’ in the Wind style songs would do well to skip the first seven songs, Bob decided that his electric guitar was his new best friend, and that the figure ten on the volume control of his amps was a reliable companion. So offended were his diehard folk fans, that he received death threats. ...  Read the complete review

Bringing It All Back Home is one of the genuine, no question Must Own Bob Dylan records. It is his first "electric" album (although the final four tracks - Mr Tambourine Man, Gates Of Eden, It's Alright Ma I'm Only Bleeding and It's All Over Now Baby Blue - are all acoustic), it's stacked from one end to the other with some of the most recognisable, memorable and exhilarating of Dylan's compositions (no album that starts with Subterranean Homesick Blues and ends with It's All Over Now Baby Blue can be anything BUT a Must Own, surely), it's ridiculously exciting (if Maggie's Farm doesn't get you fired up of a morning or evening or afternoon, little will) and, ...  Read the complete review