Now this is a jam! Another record of amped-up blues standards, as was the style circa '66, but here there's a fire and energy that so many of the contemporary albums were missing. The harmonica is savage, the bass funky and dark, and the vocals actually are ragged and powerful enough to stand up to the jamming.
I've been listening to enough jazz and experimental proto-post-rock type stuff lately that I almost missed how revolutionary this actually was. When wikipedia, source of all truth, claimed that the 13-minute closing jam was a game-changer I scoffed. The first of its kind? The Grateful Dead? Krautrock? The longform jam was nothing new. oohright. Nineteen sixty fuckin six. Wow. Beats em all. The Stones has just put out an epic-length blues jam, and Dylan was getting up there in his indulgence, but this is an altogether woolier thing: a truly wild, strange, adventurous, downright fuckincrazy raveup, standing way outside of the blues jam tradition. And it's good. Intense and exciting and unpredictable throughout its running time. An epic achievement.
The rest of the album is comparatively tame, but that's not saying much. It's still pretty rollicking blues showmanship, creating cracks in the shell that the final track would shatter. Word is we have drugs to thank. Thanks drugs! 4.5/5
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