The mid-January sessions started with Bob recording solo on guitar and harmonica, while a backing band was added for the final two days. In just three days, Bob and the band recorded the landmark, half-acoustic, half-electric "Bringing it All Back Home."

This take is solo acoustic with a gentle vocal. They try it again later with backing instruments at a slightly slower tempo and a lower key.
The next day Bobby Gregg sits in on drums and an instant classic is born.

There were only two takes of this classic song recorded with a full band. Here we have the first take, where Dylan has trouble with the lyrics and the band misses a few changes.

The weather was quite cool & pleasant for this time of year. Bob had just returned from a successful tour of England and was ready to hit the studio again. Between Tuesday night and all of Wednesday, June 16, one of the greatest songs in rock & roll history was put on tape.

This is a more rockin’ version of this song exploding with Mike Bloomfield’s blues-influenced guitar playing. It was labeled “Phantom Engineer Cloudy” on the recording sheet.

Here's a very different waltz time recording of "Rolling Stone," the very last of the Tuesday sessions. The following day, the version we all know and love would happen.

During the dog days of summer, the "Highway 61" album — slide whistle and all — came together. A new producer, Bob Johnston, joined the sessions. It was a time of prodigious change everywhere. The Social Security Act and The Voting Rights Act were signed that week.

What’s missing from this take? No slide guitar — and more noticeably — no police whistle. Just a few takes later, the whistle — a child’s toy — would replace the harmonica.

We’re listening to take 3, where they come up with the dreamy, floating, humid approach that matches the song's lyrics of alienation and displacement.

Here we have take 5 of this classic. Notice, there’s quite a bit of piano vamping by Frank Owens on the run out, supporting the famous harmonica line.

This is a stripped-down rehearsal of another Dylan classic. Just Bob at the piano and Russ Savakus on the stand-up bass in the wee hours of the morning.

Bob had just completed a U.S. tour, encompassing over 20 dates — ending in D.C. two nights earlier. The band for this session is quite literally that — 4/5 of the members of The Hawks, aka The Band — minus Levon Helm. The sessions from this day carried over the electricity from the tour.

If you’re familiar with this song — be ready for a surprise. This version, take five, has a faster tempo and more of a bar band rock sound, no doubt picked up from the road.

The sessions from Jan. 21 – Jan. 27 would prove to be Dylan’s last in New York for over three years. The final New York sessions were marked by frustration, snowy weather and, eventually…one under-appreciated Dylan classic.

A fine example of Dylan’s use of off the cuff song titles. Originally referred to as "Just a Little Glass of Water," this epic track was never completed by the full band. We're listening to take six.

Here we are now in Music City. Bob Johnston relocated the whole operation to Columbia studios on 16th Avenue South to see what the Nashville studio aces could do (when they weren’t playing ping pong). What followed was Blonde on Blonde, one of the first rock and roll double albums — an instant classic.

Ever the prankster, Al Kooper plays with a doorbell and car horn sound effect on his Wurlitzer keyboard. Enjoy the knock-knock joke, call and response intro.

Recorded in the wee hours of the morning, this is take 13 out of a total 20 takes. The distinctive element here is the descending interlude after the chorus, which evolved (in about an hour) to the interlude we all know.

That’s the Texas accented voice of Bob Johnston asking for the song title. Dylan gives him not quite the final title, but close enough. There were only two takes of this song ever recorded.

The first take of “Pledging My Time” is a very different up-tempo boogie. It features a stellar harmonica outro coupled with one final cough from Dylan.

Like other takes, it’s not necessarily what’s here that makes it unique as much as what isn’t here — in this case, there are none of Wayne Moss’ 16th-note guitar runs. Those were overdubbed after the fact.