I listened to all of Bob Dylan

 

The Great Bob Listening Project 2022  

(January 19 – April 12, 2022)     John Browning

 

Prologue

Certainly the idea of listening to All of Bob Dylan as a short-term pursuit or project is a daft idea, suitable only for the get a life! crowd, but that is just what I determined to do and then did.  I’m not sure why I chose this journey, exactly, but I’m glad I did.

In the year after whatever year it was that Bob Dylan was given the Nobel Prize for Literature, I decided to conduct a more-or-less exhaustive listening project of his (to that point) recordings.  Easier said than done. The Minnesota artist formerly known as Zimmerman had deposited a boatload of sonic artifacts by that point the mass of which has only increased since then.  I got through most, but not all of them.

After a couple of years of pandemic and interesting developments in Bob World (his Rough and Rowdy Ways album, the continuation of the Never Ending Tour, more official bootlegs, etc.) I said ( to myself) “Duh, I ought to listen to Bob again.”  Just the overwhelming nature of plowing through the official recordings stood like some Australian mountain range before me, but I had time and motivation, so I started and listened straightaway to the first 8 (Bob Dylan, Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, The Times They Are A Changin’, Another Side, Bringing It Back Home, Highway 61 Revisited, Blonde on Blonde and John Wesley Harding) albums to get warmed up.  It would have been reasonable to stop there, but why be reasonable (I reasoned)?

I listened to everything covered here in the timeframe above.

This is my highly disorganized report on this project.

Listening Procedures while Pledging My Time

I have a fair number of Bob releases in my own holdings, and I reasoned that the rest were available through my library and it’s network. (There are also things on YouTube unavailable through Normal sources).  This approach has resulted in a studiously haphazard listening sequence, to say the least.  I get em when I get em and listen to what I have in whatever order I get it.  Not to mention, it’s a lot to keep score on. This guy has released a lot of product in varying collections and formats asynchronously (much twentieth century stuff has been released for the first time in the 21^st century and so forth).  I stuck mainly to “Official Releases” (no bootlegs or haphazard compilations).

My listening has been done variously on: 1) my Bluetooth Disc Player / TV stereo soundbar.  2) my record player  3) my truck and car CD players.  4) a new  cheap but sonically excellent Disc-man type personal player. Okay, none of these are audio elitist-type set-ups, but then again, I’m not that discerning an audiophile and neither is Bob, one could say.  Dylan, it is reported, records by feel, which overrides minor considerations like Mike Bloomfield being slightly out of tune (reportedly) on Queen Jane Approximately.

This puts me in mind of the situations and methods, accidents and casual set-ups through the years in which I have experienced Dylan’s music.  When he (and I) started, it was either the radio or vinyl records.  No other media carried Bob Dylan.  As far as I know, he wasn’t featured on any TV programming until around 1965. I can recall crazy amounts of moments almost song-by-song, discussions of his music on sports fields as a boy, specific songs heard in specific cars on radios and stereos with specific quirks and sounds, specific states of mind I heard songs in and specific states the songs induced, specific people and places associated with specific songs, what the feel was, what weather was upon us, what the world felt like at the time.  Listening evokes an entire animated, moving Rorschach situation for me. It’s all a sort of tangled up with Bob music thing, so much so that I doubt that I can manage any objective commentary at all.

I fit the listening in whenever wherever I could, like on a trip by auto to Ohio from New Jersey. (My wife gamely put up with my private Never-ending Bob tour).  I did regular morning listening, listened in the truck wherever I went – birding, to the library, to the grocery, etc.

I haven’t done any close-reading of lyrics, close listening to songs / albums and pretty much just let the music and my reactions flow.  In fact, I have never done much analysis of Dylan lyrics – they just reach me as they reach me. I’ll leave that to my pals, the dylanologists.

Needless to say, I haven’t kept careful score of what I listened to when and my interest and focus was mainly for the listening pleasure and mindless challenge nature of the project, but let me start by discussing the relative few recordings I found disappointing and distasteful - not up to Bob standards.  There’s something really wrong with the following three releases In My Opinion (you may well disagree and,  I may well disagree at some later date, as is often the case with Bob releases and my slowly altering taste).  You might want to skip these:

Sub-standard Bob

Before the Flood (1974): This could have been one of his best releases, but he perversely rearranges a bunch of his classics, altering phrasing, voicing, melodies, lyrics, etc. He is backed by the Band, so the music is high caliber, but gee whiz, Bob, if you are tired of “the hits” play something else, don’t assault us out of spite. Fortunately, he alternates sides with the Band here and they are in top form and wonderful, as usual. So, the Band isn’t totally wasted here.  This record angers and aggrieves me.  As Johnny Rotten said, “Did you ever feel like you’ve been cheated?”

Bob Dylan at Budokan (1978): There must be some way out of here I said to the unsuspecting Japanese audience.  For this one, sometimes called “THE WORST RECORD IN ROCK HISTORY” we can accuse Bob of cashing out in the most perverse way possible.  It’s sort of a soft-rock FM take on Bob-ism.  It’s sounds like he listened to John Denver, Firefall and Barry Manilow and said, ‘yeah, I can do that.’   Hey Bob, what the heck is going on here?  To be fair, I like the music, it’s sort of like a pop orchestra rehash of Dylan songs, with melodies and lyrics intact.  Weirdsville, man.

Real Live (1984):  Bob sneers out his lyrics in very altered arrangements, changes lyrics and melodies along the way, backed with a slick, professional rock band playing at breakneck speed.  Is this a cocaine album?  I don’t like it. The emotions of the songs have been converted uniformly to spleen and spite.  What the hell is going on here?  Bob is a real joker but he might have been angry at his audience and fans. Who knows?  These sorts of sideswipes only amplify Bob-ism, I think, setting me up for the great moments.

(I’m skipping the American Songbook and Christmas albums here – I really actively dislike them, but am merely confused and dismayed by these 4 releases.)

Things I Never Heard Before

I did some thinking about why it was that there were so many Bob Dylan releases I STILL hadn’t heard as of 2022. After all, I started listening more or less regularly to Bob in 1965. However, my listening at that point was more 45rpm-oriented.  His stuff was really on-and-off the radio where we all encountered our music back then and I didn’t buy any of his albums other than Bringing it All Back Home.  I then didn’t buy another Dylan album until 1973’s Greatest Hits, Volume 2. So albums weren’t my focus ever. I continued to buy singles (Gotta Serve Somebody) until the 80s when my family interests brought my record buying to a standstill.  The next thing I remember picking up was Dylan and the Dead, the idea of which totally bowled me over.  So, suffice it to say, although a pretty ardent fan, I missed a lot of what was happening with Bob. Which of course, was always A LOT always happening.

Another thing about Dylan’s immense output is that critics and fans pretty much are disappointed if his latest release wasn’t absolutely astonishing and buzzworthy-newsworthy – like Highway 61 Revisited, Blood on the Tracks, Slow Train Coming, Nashville Skyline or Rough and Rowdy Ways.  That leaves an avalanche of releases that didn’t get much notice. Indeed, even online dylanologists were caught by surprise by this year’s Springtime in New York, an amazing release that everyone loved but which was accorded underwhelming press.

So, with all of that there were many albums I had never heard which I plowed through in the last 3 months. They were:

Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid            Dylan

Saved                                                            Shot of Love

Infidels                                                        Knocked Out Loaded

Down in the Groove                               Under the Red Sky

Together Through Life                         Christmas in the Heart

Tempest                                                       MTV Unplugged

 

I was hazy about some other albums, like Empire Burlesque. I remember listening to it, but none of the songs ring any bells now. Also, I had heard a lot of songs from these albums incidentally, on FM, XM, MTV, VH1 and at work on my part-time job at Borders.

Many people I know would consider me not a fan at all having not heard this estimable sub-catalog of brain-shattering recordings. And yet, I was and am.  This list doesn’t even include the Bootleg series, many of which I hadn’t heard before this.  I guess my crazed listening project is atonement for missing so much of the man’s career.

Well, I’m caught up with his releases now.  Good lord, I’m all bobbed up.

Albums Moving Up my Bob Charts

Some albums have risen in my estimation since my post-Nobel listen-in.  What once I held suspect, I now think essential for continued listening.

Hard Rain:  This one rips right along, live from 1975 and the Rolling Thunder Review tour. There’s sort of sense of chaos with all the players on stage blasting away behind Bob.  A lot of the excitement here comes from ace guitarist Mick Ronson, the back-up singers and the electric violinist.  The crowd presence is greater than most other Bob live stuff and there’s an atmosphere of wildness, a wild mercury sound.

Dylan and the Dead:  The Grateful Dead are doing their thing here, but also backing up Bob like no other band is capable.  There’s a big-ass-ed-ness to the proceedings and renditions of tunes like Queen Jane Approximately, Joey, and Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door are really pretty great.  I also listened to Dylan and the Dead full live show in Eugene 1987 on YouTube, which really needs to be heard.  It sounds better than anything on the official release and includes deep cuts like Simple Twist of Fate and Frankie Lee and the Judas Priest. This stuff is life-affirming, incredible and unfathomable.

The Basement Tapes:  OMG! I guess you have to let these recordings grow on you, but by now I’m totally in awe of this stuff, where previously I was merely dumbstruck.  It’s legendary and all that crap, but this is really a whole load of mashed potatoes.  Listening to the 6 disk Complete Basement Tapes is a must-do.  You literally can’t predict what’s going to come up next or prepare yourself against the impact of the songs are all weird or crazy or unaccountable or blasé or otherly.

John Wesley Harding:  When this one came out, I was underwhelmed, but it has grown on me like untended vegetation over the years. At the time, this one (and then Music From Big Pink) caused a re-evaluation throughout the rock and roll world and a move away from the crazy overkill of psychedelic rock.  It’s a quiet, melodic, Vietnam era set absolutely spare and wonderfully performed.   All Along the Watchtower, Down Along the Cove, Dear Landlord, I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight – this was a far cry from Leopard Skin Pillbox Hat and Desolation Row.  I listened to this one many times during the course of this listening project as a mechanism for resetting my listening palette, so to speak.

Desire:  For whatever reasons (maybe it was panned in Rolling Stone magazine?) I never bought this one or heard its tracks anywhere but FM radio, but this is premium quality stuff. It still gets bad noise from the “critics”, but this is magnifique. Hurricane, Isis, Mozambique, One More Cup of Coffee, Joey and Black Diamond Bay are really ridiculously good. Oh, Sister is good, but is done better on Hard Rain and elsewhere.  The songs are all co-written with Jacques Levy and the band and singers really cut loose.  Bob seldom has been as unrestrained and casual except here and with Rolling Thunder which is kind of a shame, I think.

Saved:  This is a pretty much flat-out gospel record and it is short and sweet. The band is largely his touring band of that time and the singers led by Clydie King are maximum gospel hummingbirding it here.  Bob is in good voice and this album has really dwelt beneath the hip radar.

 

36 Disks of Listening Bliss!

So, around March 21, I found myself driving 45 miles to an associate library to pick up the Bob Dylan Live in 1966 box set of 36 discs and was starting to seriously doubt my mission.  (I could tell that my wife had enough of Bob at this point, when she started referring to him as “What’s-his-name”).

This is dedicated to the people who read Time Magazine.                                              -stage announcement by Bob Dylan in Liverpool, May 1966.

I had already listened to almost all the official Bob releases (or about 80% of them, which by the way, is A LOT).  36 live discs is a whole lot of Bob by most standards, so I started my music appreciation of 1966 writ large in my blue pickup heading home. I was apprehensive – I had already listened to the other live 1966 stuff and it was high quality even by Dylan standards.  I knew that this was pretty much the same 2 sets (one acoustic solo and one electric with the Band) repeated 18-20 or so times.  On the face of it, this sounded like it might be redundant and possibly of dubious sound quality (1966 sources).  I was prepared to be disappointed.  However, my anticipated disappointment was completely unfounded. This stuff is uniformly ridiculously great and everything seems to improve as the tour progresses through 1966. Full levitation.  I got my first taste of this while driving home from the distant library, listening to disc one (from Sydney, Australia) and noticing that I had become absolutely lost in the performance of Desolation Row, and then in Mr. Tambourine Man. Throughout my listening to this big box, I found this happening – the Bob trance, getting lost in the music despite myself.

Strange things happen listening to a repeating set list like this – for instance, after 10 or so listens to “Tell Me, Momma” I note that the general format mimics that of Elvis first recording, “That’s All Right, Mama”, but in a decidedly surrealist mode. The Scotty Moore rockabilly picking is there, but it’s like Rimbaud re-wrote the lyrics. Compounding my amazement over this song (the electric set opener throughout the 66 tour) I find that it was never committed to vinyl and was never played after the 66 tour. What’s up with that?

For another thing, there is the case of Mr. Tambourine Man rising out of this collection like never before in my tabla rasa.  I have always had a tenuous relationship with this song, ever since the Byrds Bach / choir-boy / High-EQ / dumbed-down single came to Top 40 AM radio.  I didn’t get the appeal.  Later, I heard Dylan’s version on Bringing It Back Home and it seemed second string to It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue and Gates of Eden.  I have largely ignored it over the years, based on these considerations until listening to it roll out across lo, these many evenings of then and now.  It is, show-by-show a singular sidetrack in the proceedings whereby Dylan leads everyone disappearing across the smoke rings of our minds, together.  The vocals and harmonica weave a web, you could say, leaving the chief impression from the set’s residue.  It becomes magical in this setting and I got carried away each time I listened to it  This one has now become LARGE to me, perhaps a greatest number, by virtue of appreciating it here, over and over and over again.  The effect of the song embodies its lyric.

 

Continuing favorites:

Anything reputedly recorded live in 1966: Live in 1966, The Real Albert Hall Concert, and a studio release related to these, the Best of the Cutting Edge. Among these I hold the live solo acoustic stuff (Dylan on vocals, acoustic guitar and harmonica) in highest regard: She Belongs to Me, Visions of Johanna, Fourth Time Around, Gates of Eden, Desolation Row, Mr. Tambourine Man. For me, this is the best work ‘Mr. Song and Dance man Dylan’ has ever done.  It’s like, totally flabbergasting.  The Live in 1966 double disc is a must hear, the other two are merely great, but also should be heard. The Live 66 36 disc set almost defies description (see description above).

 

I admire The First 8 albums

(I listened to these in order to get started on my project, then went catch as catch can). Bob’s first eight albums constitute a tour bus ride through the Dylan sixties from 1962 to 1968 (we didn’t hear from him again until 1970). Starting with Bob Dylan in 62 and ending up with John Wesley Harding in 68, this was and is a blur of reimagined, future and past American music as well as being a breath of fresh air in the freeze-dried realms of popular song.  Each album in this sequence was a shock to the system at the time.  Mid-stream, when the worlds of Dylan and the Big Beat smashed together, the results (“Dylan Goes Electric!”) were sensational and surprising, to say the least.  This is where we found out the denim folkie really longed to be Little Richard all along.

Listening to these albums in sequence now is a great entertainment – they are full of life, memory, nostalgia, melody, poetry, and philosophy. Before, the albums each were jarring and back then I would follow along on the music of the words, not even thinking so much of the sentiments those words represented, but marveling at their boldness.  Nowadays when I hear them, the words and their meanings are clear to me.  I have finally caught up to the point at which the songs are integrated in my head.

That’s a curious effect of Bob’s music on me. With first listening (and for several years, usually) I don’t exactly get what is going on. I’m on an enjoyment (or sometimes annoyance) level and have to grapple with the music until it’s a part of my consciousness and it’s context has clarified itself in my mind.

Nowhere was this effect more dramatic than the early years / albums: Bob Dylan, the Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, The Times They Are a Changin’, Another Side of Bob Dylan, Bringing it All Back Home, Highway 61 Revisited, Blonde on Blonde and John Wesley Harding.

There is a distinct disconnection between Blonde on Blonde and John Wesley Harding which Dylan has attributed to a change of attitude brought on by his motorcycle accident – he switched from a “don’t look back” or just making things happen mode to a more restrained, relaxed and planned process.  I think he switched from breakneck youth to young adult and family man, but that probably is an oversimplification that only hints at what was going on Bob-wise up in Woodstock, down in Nashville and out in California.  We thought he “mellowed out” (in sixties terms), but this guy never mellowed out: he’s still generating nothing but sparks.

A lot can and has been said about these collections but let’s just say they are still vibrant and exciting, entertaining in 2022.  One can still listen to them un-dismissively and avidly.  If you have never listened to “The Times They Are a’ Changin’”, for instance, or haven’t heard it in a long while,  get ready to get lost with Bob on this one.

The Next Really Great Period in Bob History (post-motorcycle wreck)

I spent a disproportionate amount of time listening to and thinking about the following three art objects to inspire myself and to keep me going while I listened to the rest of Dylan’s output.  For whatever reason, this is the period I best like to listen to (along with John Wesley Harding, recorded in the midst of the Basement Tapes)

The Basement Tapes (recorded 66-67 and released in 1975, and later)                             I highly recommend listening to the 6 disc Basement Tapes Complete official bootleg if you can track it down. The sound quality varies, but if, like me you don’t care much about that, this is great stuff.  Bob and the Band play everything under the sun and all of it entertainingly.  I listened to the 1975 original Basement Tapes release, the Official Bootleg Basement Tapes Raw and the Complete Basement tapes.  They’re all good and different enough to enjoy separately and together.  This is Bob holed up in New York State after his 66 tour and motorcycle accident, just playing old songs, writing and recording new songs as demos for other groups and putting together a new electric roots music in a casual atmosphere. The escape from the previous “Bob Dylan” persona is evident throughout. It’s loose, enjoyable, new and old at the same time.  The material from these sessions has flowed through popular music and Dylan’s concerts ever since.  This is good stuff with vocals from Bob, Rick Danko, Richard Manuel, Robbie Robertson and unbelievable accompaniment from master musician Garth Hudson. (If nothing else, it's worth listening to this stuff just to listen to Garth Hudson).  Again, near the end of the Basement Tapes period, these fellows released two albums that turned music on its ear: Music From Big Pink and John Wesley Harding.

Music From Big Pink (1968)

Yes, I know this is technically a recording by the Band. It contains songs co-written by Dylan and is influenced throughout by the collaborations in The Basement and at the Big Pink House in Saugerties, New York where Bob, Robbie Robertson, Richard Manuel, Rick Danko, Garth Hudson and later, Levon Helm played, rehearsed, wrote songs and recorded. 

I keep Big Pink on my upstairs high quality 3 disc changer and listen to it before my Zoom sessions and when I’m working on crazy projects. This album is particularly wonderful and has mesmerized me since I picked it up on vinyl before heading off to my freshman year of college in 1968.  Everyone was talking about it (around the world) it seems and everyone I knew loved it – farmers, greasers, hippies, frat boys, male and female. To me it has only improved with the decades. It seems to capture ancient days and slices of life that had already past when it was recorded. The songs have emotional resonance unequaled before or since – if  you ask me.  The versions of Tears of Rage, I Shall Be Released, the Weight, Chest Fever, Long Black Veil and others are emotional dynamite. It’s pretty, professional, loose and creaky all at once.  This could only have happened after woodshedding with Bob Dylan for over two years.

This album changed popular music, swerving it back away from sixties pop glitz to country and roots-influenced music and composition – or something like that. It’s just crazy good and never gets old.  As I say, I use it to punctuate the work of Bob Dylan.

Self-Portrait (1970)

Critics bleated in dismay over this release, but it was a great success, otherwise. I only really got on to this one about five years ago when I did my first Bob Dylan post Nobel Laureate Listen-In. Needless to say, I couldn’t believe my ears. From accounts by people involved, like returning Dylan alumnus Al Kooper and folk / blues guitarist extraordinaire David Bromberg, Bob was taking songs out of old songbooks and recordings and trying them out, sometimes in several arrangements, a la the Basement Tapes: reach into the song-barrel and play some antique curiosities from the rural past. It features a Bob oil self-portrait on the cover, to boot.

This method worked devilishly well. The collection is amazing and diverse with a moonshiner ballad, murder ballads, instrumentals, pop songs (Let It Be Me, the Boxer) and uncategorizable stuff (All the Tired Horses, Wigwam).  Bob is in fine voice throughout, pushing the crack musicians for all they’re worth. It’s pure magic and I never tire of this one, either.  I have heard long discourses on his version of the Boxer. It’s like an aural Rorschach test – everyone hears something sprung from their own psyches, I think.  I hear it as Bob duetting with Paul Simon and Simon barely keeping pace (this is a mistaken impression, I have been told).

Some years back, Bob was kind enough to release Another Self Portrait, an official bootleg of material from these sessions, that is even better (almost) than Self Portrait. This is perhaps my favorite official bootleg, among many favorites.  It just goes on and on, extending the idea of  the original.  When I listened to both of these for this listening extravaganza, I just got lost in the experience.  Bob, you maniac!

 

the Nashville Skyline, New Morning and Planet Waves era

I lump these three together, all coming in the period after the Basement Tapes, Self Portrait and the motorcycle accident, when Bob was going country, changing his vocal approach and getting all situated as a family man.  Nashville Skyline is Bob’s most carefree, happy-face, real country album and a delightful listen.  Smooth Bob.  New Morning is a move back toward dynamic Dylanism and features collaborations with George Harrison – very nice. This too is adult Bob as is Planet Waves, a mainly overlooked album that I found to be most excellent, with many great songs and the Band back supporting him.  These three releases would take you a long way and in conjunction with Self Portrait and Another Self Portrait, they constitute a 1969 to 1971 ish onslaught of really great music.  The sequence of Basement Tapes, John Wesley Harding, Self Portrait, Another Self Portrait, New Morning and Planet Waves has been my new favorite swathe of Dylan-iana over the past 5 years or so.  Re-listening to all of them now continues to balance on my head like a mattress on a bottle of wine.

                    KOOK OR GENIUS?   -UK Newspaper Headline, 1966

A Minority Report

I have always been a devotee of Bringing It All Back Home – one side of jumped-up rockabilly folk vituperation and one side of surrealist acoustic folk music from 1965. This was my introduction to Dylan and I have remained a fan of this dualistic masterpiece.  It was and is crazy good.   When I listen to it, it seems like I’m listening to my whole life as sub-text, all the images and emotions float along on its waves.

The next album up in 1965 for Dylan is the one everyone loves, Highway 61 Revisited. This album is revered beyond all reason, I think.  I have never much liked it.  I had the Like a Rolling Stone single and really loved Positively 4^th Street and Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window?  Of these, only Like a Rolling Stone made the cut for this album. I guess that angered me at the time and that resentment has foolishly clung to the album for me.  I do like Highway 61 on the album, but the rest of it sort of bores me.  I know this is heresy, but oh well.

I always held Blonde on Blonde, the next 1965 album, in higher regard than Highway 61. In fact, it has grown in my estimation through the years until I value it even beyond Bringing It Back Home (gasp!) This one is Dylan’s best, in my opinion.  (He seems to share this opinion, mainly, in some interviews). And the compositions seemingly get better and better as the years crawl by.  My antipathy for Highway 61 is a definite minority opinion, but you can scratch the whole thing and listen to the Live ’66 and Cutting Edge discs instead which make the whole thing moot.  But, Blonde on Blonde contains my favorite Bob Dylan song, in its original format: Visions of Johanna. I can never get too much of nothing with this one.  I need to hear  that “Jewels and Binoculars hang from the head of the mule” and “the Ghost of Electricity Howls in the Bones of her Face.”  It’s right there, man!

Just an aside here about Fourth Time Around, the second song up on Side 1: This is one that it took decades to begin to sink in. Very confusing at first with nonsense lyrics and the same melody as Norwegian Wood, it slowly accretes meaning as quibbles fall away to the immanence of the song itself.  Depending on which account, Dylan taught the Beatles this melody and Lennon went ahead and wrote his somewhat-self-deceiving Norwegian Wood - which Bob then parodied in Fourth Time Around.  But then, listening to it for years none of that matters, is just fodder for the tired horses.  Hearing it over and over on the Live 66 discs, it just seems like a great song sang well as an acoustic solo.  And the song still retains it mysteries.

Now, when I listen to Blonde on Blonde, it seems perfect, from the drum beats opening Rainy Day Women on through to the dreamlike dirge Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands.  Let’s put this sucker on repeat, why don’t we?

 

Someone's got it in for me - They're planting stories in the press

To put it mildly, Bob Dylan has not been immune to criticism. I am sort of amazed now that none of this matters much when I am just listening to his recordings.  All of the notoriety, fame, rumor, innuendo, over-analysis, hype and craziness has blown over. Now he’s just that Nobel Prize winner whose music is everywhere.  These are some of the negatives Dylan has been charged with:

He can’t sing

From the start, this has been the omnipresent knock on Dylan – what’s with that voice? Listening now, the voice is familiar, but I am struck with how much of a pose his use of voice has been.  He started out with the whiny, nasal, talkative voice of the first few albums which  astonished popular music listeners, whose aesthetic preference at the time was the studied, well-modulated, tone-perfect voice.  More expressive vocals (African Americans, rock and rollers) were on the rise, but Dylan’s voice was totally unanticipated. 

His voice has changed, it seems, every year of his career.  When I listen to Real Live, or Saved, or his later period albums (Modern Times, Rough and Rowdy Ways), it sounds like he’s becoming a different guy each time, with different phrasing and tone in each album.  Most of it works, and his approach is varied but effective for the most part. 

An element of the enjoyment of listening to Dylan continues to be “What the heck is he doing now?”  The vocals are interesting, considered, comical or serious by turn.  He’s an interesting bunch of guys, as they say.

All of his music, much of his lyrics are “borrowed”

I didn’t bother much with thinking about this as I listened to EVERYTHING, but it was well in mind and constantly reinforced by dylanologists online and in books I read (Old Weird America, Why Bob Dylan Matters) that Bob is a major borrower of melodies, phrases and styles.  The other way this has been said is that Dylan has stolen everything he’s ever done. This is a common complaint.  Everything from the melody to Blowin’ in the Wind to big chunks of his memoir Chronicles has been noted as lifted from elsewhere. 

The purloining of material certainly mattered not to me as I cranked my way through the recordings.  I could associate a lot of his work with other things, some songs are covers, some are clearly inspired by others, some (Fourth Time Around, Clothesline Saga) are parodies of other songs (Norwegian Wood and Ode to Billie Joe).  To the casual, or more active listener, this doesn’t matter except in a positive way – it adds to the experience, one could say.  But this remains a constant complaint.

His recordings are inconsistent and flawed

Well, I certainly heard this as I worked my way through the catalog. From the start, he has included false starts, mid-song laughter and uncorrected out of tune recordings. All is sacrificed to the feel of the performance, so to speak.  Dylan has stated in interviews that what’s important (over lyrics, melodies, etc.) is the performance.  By this I think he means the correctness of the feel of the performance.  (Compare and contrast to the Eagles, those post-Dylan millionaires whose notes and tones are never out of place, but who sound pre-fab compared to the organic messiness of Dylan).

It’s all hype, man!

This is an unfair, or beside the point, I think. This complaint has always been leveled at Dylan. “Hey, this guy ain’t so great!”  He has always been a tireless song-plugger and self-promoter, but that’s to his credit, I think. It’s hard to be an artist and a business person, so hat’s off to Bob on this. Certainly, the show biz angle came into play early with the early hobo attire and the name change from Zimmerman to Dylan and the later personas and styles- Bob the Country Gentleman, Born Again Bob, Endless Tour Bob, Traveling Wilbury, etc. There has been endless hype on the endless tour and the endless recording career.  None of this comes in to play as I listen now – the music goes straight to me.

Compilations:

The Greatest Hits (1967)

Out of the chrono-synclastic infinidibulum with the flower-power rainbow-hair poster and best known songs of the first seven albums, this one was the starter set for many. If you quibbled with the selection or sequence you could still stick the poster up on your bedroom or dorm room wall.   I prefer Best of The Original Mono Masters (see below) – sort of the same turf with different flowers.

The Greatest Hits Volume 2 (1971)

Really more of a compilation / retrospective. This one is good if only for new recordings by Bob of some of his great ones and the then-current When I Paint My Masterpiece / Watching the River Flow single.  This collection includes master re-recordings of Basement Tape classics, I Shall Be Released, You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere, The Mighty Quinn, and Down in the Flood.  The last one, Down in the Flood, has become a new favorite. It has taken a long time to sink in but now when I hear it, I just can’t get over it.  Wonderful. Great song collection, hard to quibble.

The Greatest Hits Volume 3 (1994)

This was a big surprise to me. I had planned to skip it but found it perhaps the strongest single disc in the whole catalog. I’m getting a copy to keep in my truck (for truckin’). It opens with a powerhouse trio of songs: Tangled Up in Blue, Changing of the Guards and The Groom’s Still Waiting at the Altar.  This opening is shockingly effective. The rest of the disc is great stuff: Series of Dreams, You Gotta Serve Somebody, Brownsville Girl, Dignity, Silvio and others. Nary a weak cut here.  Not really Greatest Hits, but more a “Best of” this portion of his career.

Biograph (1985)

Inexplicably good – this one is an early career summary over three discs that is just fantastic.  I enjoyed listening to this one all the way through again. Essential Bob.

Best of The Original Mono Masters (2010)

This is a good one for the truck, pretty much gets all of Greatest Hits Volume 1 PLUS Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window and Leopard Skin Pillbox Hat. I love it.

Bob Dylan the Bootleg Series (1-3)

I have trouble choosing between this one and Biograph. Similar, but different. More rare cuts here and nobody sings the blues like Blind Willie McTell (not even Blind Willie Mattel).

In their own uncategorizable category:

Christmas In The Heart  Bob sounds like a demented elf or crazy old Uncle Bob on this one. Sheesh!  Only Christmas Blues is worth digging out.

Great American Songbook recordings (Shadows in the Night, Fallen Angels, Triplicate)  Out of all the off the wall stunts Dylan has ever done, this one takes the cake.  Bob Dylan channeling Mel Torme and Jerry Vale?

I listened to these again (excluding and I just can’t get with this stuff. Mainly, this illustrates Bob’s vocal limitations.  Even Willie Nelson does this stuff better.

 

A few things embodied since Bob’s debut in 1962:

The Kennedy Assassination           Beatles, et al.             Apple (both of them)

The Moonwalk (both kinds)          Cable TV                    Death of the Soviet Union

Bob goes electric                              Bob goes gospel        American Songbook Bob

Disney World                                   Voting Rights Act     the Viet Nam War

The personal computer                   COVID                       The End of Apartheid

The AIDS epidemic                        Gulf War                    9/11 and 20 years of war

Hippies and Woodstock                 Electric Cars              Cell Phones

End Stage Capitalism                      Punk Rock                 Public Education decline

Red Sox, Cubs, White Sox win World Series                  Watergate

The Persistence of Dylan Memory

In addition to world events which Dylan’s career has spanned, consider the musicians and musical styles his career has preceded and outlived:

Passing musical styles

Ska                              Fusion                        New Age                    Gangster Rap

Punk                           Second wave Punk   Folk Revivals 1 and 2          

Psychedelic               Folk Rock                  Synth Rock                                      

(there’s a lot of other styles I’m not conversant with which have also come and gone, but you get the idea)

A few recording artists who have come and gone during Bob

John Prine                 Pink Floyd                 the Eagles                  the Beatles

Michael Jackson      Prince                         Otis Redding             Led Zeppelin

Aretha Franklin        Dusty Springfield     Jimi Hendrix            Crosby, Stills and Nash

The Byrds                  New Wave                 Tom Petty                  the Monkees (hah)

John Denver             Soul Music                Tom Jones                 Sir Doug Sahm

I can hear some influence of these trends and artists in Bob’s recordings, but not much.

 

Some New Old Favorite Bob Songs

Angelina and Blind Willie McTell - take 1 (from Springtime in New York), note: Angelina take on Bootleg Vol.s 1-3 is good but not as compelling

Down in the Flood / Crash on the Levee – Greatest Hits vol 2, the Basement Tapes

Sitting on a Barbed Wire Fence (from The Best of The Cutting Edge)

Series of Dreams (from Bootleg Vol. 3, Greatest Hits 3 and one other)

One Too Many Mornings (from the Times They Are a Changin’ and ubiquitous elsewhere in varying arrangements)

Every Grain of Sand (on many releases)

Joey and Black Diamond Bay (from Desire)

A Simple Twist of Fate (from Blood on the Tracks) -check Joan’s version, too

New Danville Girl (Springtime in New York and Brownsville Girl (Knocked Out Loaded) – these are versions of the same song, both versions are excellent

 

The Bootleg Series, Briefly

I listened to about everything I could in the Bootleg Series. There’s really nothing to complain about much here, but Travelin’ Through is pretty thin.  It’s a lot of fooling around. Comparatively, covering the same time frame “Another Self Portrait” is a better choice.

Bootleg Series Entry (in listened-to order)	My Rating	My listening order
Vol.s 1-3 (rare and unreleased 1961-1991	4 stars	6
Vol. 4 (Live 1966, The Royal Albert Hall Concert)	4 stars	7
Vol. 5 (Live 1975, The Rolling Thunder Revue)	4 stars	8
Vol. 6: Bob Dylan Live 1964, Concert at Philharmonic Hall	3 stars	1
Vol. 7: No Direction Home, the Soundtrack	5 stars	10
Vol. 8: Tell Tale Signs: Rare and Unreleased 1989–2006	4 stars	11
Vol. 9: The Witmark Demos: 1962–1964	5 stars	12
Vol. 10: Another Self Portrait (1969–1971)	5 stars	3
Vol. 11: The Basement Tapes Raw (& Complete)	5 stars	2
Vol. 12: The Best of the Cutting Edge 1965–1966	4 stars – studio 5 stars - live	4
Vol. 13: Trouble No More 1979–1981	5 stars	12
Vol. 14: More Blood, More Tracks	3 stars	13
Vol. 15: Travelin' Thru, 1967–1969	3 stars	5
Vol. 16: Springtime in New York 1980–1985	5 stars	9

(note that  my ratings above are relativistic – none of this is bad, all of my ratings are subjective and shift over time).  I particularly like the Witmark Demos (early Bob, casual demo recordings), Trouble No More – two concerts from the Born Again Bob phase – hot stuff!, Springtime in New York and No Direction Home. 

 

A temporary top ten-list as of 3/25/2022:  1) Visions of Johanna  2) Positively 4^th Street  3) Lay, Lady Lay  4) Gates of Eden  5) I Shall Be Released  6) A Simple Twist of Fate  7) Can You Please Crawl Out of Your Window?  8) Murder Most Foul  9) When the Ship Comes In 10) It Ain’t Me, Babe  and from 4/13/22: Down in the Flood, Crossing the Rubicon, One Too Many Mornings, 4^th Time Around

 

Bob songs that now I mainly skip over, and why

Ballad of a Thin Man:  This song now strikes me as cruel and unkind, so I skip it. (Yes, I know it’s based on Brecht’s Pirate Jenny which Suze Rotolo played for Bob.)

(I make an exception here for the Live 1966 stuff, where this is played on every electric set before the closer, Like a Rolling Stone – I think it was done well there. It still sounds nasty to me in the original studio version – it leaves a bad taste. I think it might be the instrumental flourishes by Garth Hudson on the box set that make it more than tolerable).

If you gotta go, go now: Here, the speaker of the song seems a bit of a sexual predator and thinks it’s cute and funny. No, thanks.

Bear Mountain Picnic:  This is a goofy story song, that although documentary, once I heard it, that was enough.

Leaving at my own chosen speed

After listening to the 36 discs from 1966, I admit that I was growing a little Bob-weary but I soldiered on and was rewarded with gems on each of the albums I had never heard before.  These included Under the Red Sky, Down in the Groove, Soundtrack for Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, Empire Burlesque, Greatest Hits Volume 3, MTV Unplugged, Tempest and Together Through Life. These albums, for one thing, all feature great musicians. Mick Taylor, Sly and Robbie, Jim Keltner, Roger McGuinn, Danny Kortchmar and numerous other luminaries hold forth persuasively on these discs, tightly reined in by Dylan, the consummate band leader. On the negative side, I listened to Dylan, the album Columbia put out without Dylan’s approval, in 1973 when Bob left for Geffen records. This album is terrible and should have been titled Out-takes and Discards.

Covers, tributes and adaptations

Briefly, I’ll touch on after-artist work.  First, let me sneer sidewise at the soundtrack from the Broadway musical The Girl From the North Country.  This is bad. It seems like the Broadway crew decided they would make some Dylan songs “pretty” and completely stripped all the feel out, replacing it with schmaltz. Ugh!

Lu’s Jukebox: Songs of Bob Dylan by Lucinda Williams (also YouTube full-band performances)

Joan Baez Sings Bob Dylan: Aces!

Richie Havens Sings Dylan and the Beatles: Richie was a great interpreter of Dylan. I play this quite a bit.

The Byrds Sing Dylan: Definitely worth a spin. Bob Acolyte Roger McGuinn kept the Byrds ever focused on Bob’s songs, to the benefit of both artists.  A lot of unique arrangements.

Chimes of Freedom: Amazing 3 disc compilation for Amnesty International. Great cover art and inspired covers throughout. Put a star on Angelique Kidjo’s rendition of Lay, Lady Lay – it’s arrangement based (I think) on the Byrds’ version.

Nod to Bob:  Mostly neo-folk Bob covers – good listening.

Bob Dylan: the 30^th Anniversary Concert: All-Star Bob Birthday concert. Good set, including Dylan himself.

 

What Was It You Wanted? (Nothing Was Delivered)

This has been a unique though determined lark of a project – systematically listening my way through the Bob Dylan library.  It took diligence, but was self-reinforcing because I kept finding and rediscovering absolutely captivating gems of musical compositions, and even a spoken word piece (Last Thoughts on Woody Guthrie). There were moments of displeasure that also kept me glued to my seat (so to speak). But the thing about Bob Dylan is he is always changing in surprising, entertaining or perplexing ways.  It occurs to me that he never answered to anyone but himself and he never asked himself, “How will this play in Peoria (or London, or L.A.)” He remains, for better and for worse until death does him part from us, his own man.  That’s pretty amazing in its own right.

What the Great Bob Listening has taught me, is that I’ll never be done with Dylan. His work changes with time and in the ear of the beholder (me).  When I don’t “get” what he’s doing, I can trust that time will knock the rough corners off it and all will become clear – because this has happened time and time again.  Even in his least popular  phrase, the (so-called) Born Again phase, he was making remarkably great music.  To my credit, I somehow saw that at the time.  On the other hand, the Great American Songbook phase has confounded me since he began it and since he ended it.  I may get on board with it and I may not, but Dylan was, I suppose, true to himself.

Another great thing - we never know what the man will do next.  An album of Jamaican Hymns? A classical album?  It’s impossible to guess.  But, likely it will be confounding to some and a work of genius to others.  How does it feel?