October 15, 2010
The story behind the Highway 61 sleeve

I always wondered who is the guy behind Dylan on the sleeve of Highway 61. Why is he carrying a camera? And where is the picture taken?  You too? Record Collector (november issue) has the answers in a feature article ‘the making of Highway 61 revisited’. Daniel Kramer took the picture, surprisingly two months before the recording of the album. Kramer and Dylan spent a whole day in New York shooting pictures eventually ending up at the apartment of Albert Grossman. Dylan is sitting on the steps to this apartment holding his glasses in his right hand. Because he didn’t like the composition he asked Neuwirth to stand behind Dylan. Kramer: “The shirt added colour to the picture”. To add “balance to the picture”, he gave Neuwirth his camera to carry. I always thought this as one of the best album sleeves in history.

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