Here's something incredible:
April 11, 2005 - In, Like A Rolling Stone: Bob Dylan at the Crossroads, Greil Marcus recounts the recording sessions for the 1965 Dylan hit.
Read an Excerpt
Recording Session 2 for "Like a Rolling Stone" / 16 June 1965, Studio A / Columbia Records, New York City
With Michael Bloomfield, guitar, Joe Macho, Jr., bass, Bobby Gregg, drums. Al Kooper is at the organ; Paul Griffin is at the piano; Bruce Langhorne is playing tambourine. Al Gorgoni and Frank Owens are not present.
Rehearsal take 1 — 1.53
Dylan leads the group into the song with a strong, strummed theme on his electric rhythm guitar. Paul Griffin has a loose, free bounce on the piano; Kooper immediately has a high, clear tone. Dylan stops it: "Hey, man, you know, I can't, I mean, I'm just me, you know. I can't, really, man, I'm just playing the song. I know — I don't want to scream it, that's all I know — " He takes up the theme again; Bloomfield and Gregg come in. The feeling is right all around; a rich ensemble is coming together.
Hoarsely, Dylan starts the second verse — "Never turned around to see the frowns" — and you can feel Bloomfield finding his groove. "You never understood that it ain't no good" — and it breaks off, just when it was getting exciting. From the control booth: "Bob, just you alone, so you can hear what your guitar sounds like, on this amplifier. Only you, please, for a minute." Dylan plays the lead-in, again, the rhythm behind "Once upon a time," a small, twirling dance around something that is yet to appear, and you begin to hear how the whole song is structured around those four words, that idea: how the purpose of the song is to make a stage for them. "That's enough," says the voice from the booth. "We can play it back for you."