BLOWIN’ INTO TOWN
Dylan’s delights go beyond his 1960s singles
There’s very little in this world that we can all agree on except for Bob Dylan, right?
Just kidding! The subject of Dylan can rip families apart, have lovers at each others throats, turn friends into enemies. From the very beginning of his career the Minnesota-born, Nobel Prizewinning singer-songwriter has evoked loathing as well as praise, usually for his ever-changing, always surprising voice. Sometimes he sings an entire song as though he’s attempting to suppress a sneeze (check out Ballad of a Thin Man from 1984’s Real Live), other times he’ll summon the wheezing, hiccuping laugh of Pete Puma, a minor Bugs Bunny nemesis. For the entire Nashville Skyline album he seemed to be paying homage to Jim Nabors, perhaps in tribute to Nabors’ mellifluous take on Blowin’ in the Wind on an episode of Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C.
His wildcat version of Jerry Jeff Walker’s Mr. Bojangles, released on the self-titled outtakes collection from Columbia after he left them in 1973, is perhaps only matched by Can’t Help Falling In Love, a yowling love letter to Elvis from the same album.
During his live performances, Dylan manages to alienate quite a number of fans by shifting both voice and arrangement on songs that people wanted to hear in a form that they at least somewhat recognized. That’s the catch with a Dylan performance; he’s going to do it the way he wants, and tough luck if you don’t like it. Fraud to some, visionary to others, Dylan at the very least intrigues by being so frustrating.
We could use Dylan’s stop at Rogers Arena on Tuesday to talk about Triplicate, his three-album set of songs traditionally associated with Frank Sinatra, or just to recycle some of the usual stories about the rock legend, but that would be too obvious. Instead, let’s take a side path into some of the shadowy crevices of Dylan’s career:
FOUR ALBUMS BY DYLAN THAT YOU REALLY SHOULD REVISIT
Shot of Love (1981): The third in his quartet of overtly Christianthemed albums, Shot of Love boasts some of his best songs from that often-ignored period. The title track is a slow burner; The Groom’s Still Waiting at the Altar (which was left off the vinyl release but tacked on to the CD reissue) is bluesy and tough; Every Grain of Sand is an unassailable masterpiece.
Self Portrait (1970): Oft reviled as one of the worst records ever, singer-songwriter Ryan Adams has made it a point of defending this double album, bashing critics of the time for their vitriolic reviews, even if Dylan himself has in the past dismissed it as a joke. So should we take Adams’ call-out and reassess the album as great? No, not really, though it certainly didn’t deserve the vicious pile-on. If you don’t like the admittedly pointless covers of songs by Paul Simon and Gordon Lightfoot, there are good versions of traditional numbers like Little Sadie and Copper Kettle. There’s also something to be said for an album that starts with a cryptic, bizarre number like All the Tired Horses, which goes on at least two-anda-half minutes too long, or ends far too quickly depending on your perspective. Christmas in the Heart (2009):
I’ll admit that I was sold the moment I saw the video for Must Be Santa, which featured our hero in a blond wig and various hats, and accordionist David Hidalgo looking perplexed. The rest of the album is exactly what you’d expect from Bob tackling seasonal tunes, but there’s something wonderfully ludicrous and special about the polka-styled Must Be Santa, which barely scraped the charts in earlier versions by Mitch Miller and Tommy Steele. Now here is a man that clearly does not care how he’s perceived, or worries about his hallowed place in musical history. The Classic Interviews Vol. 2 — The
Weberman Tapes (2004): Back in 1971, Dylan decided to deal with a stalker by the name of A.J. Weberman, a self-styled “Dylanologist” who made a habit of going through Dylan’s garbage to gather evidence for his thesis, that Dylan was writing certain songs directly for Weberman. The bootlegged recording of a phone conversation between the two of them isn’t particularly illuminating, but it does have some excellent moments, as when Dylan gives some pithy reviews of singersongwriter peers of the time. You can find it on YouTube if you look, though keep in mind it is mildly NSFW.
THREE JAW-DROPPING COVERS OF LIKE A ROLLING STONE
Most critics and fans tend to point to Like a Rolling Stone as Dylan’s greatest achievement. Just over a half-century after it was released (1965) younger music lovers can no longer really understand why it had the seismic effect it did on both listeners and other performing artists, but we can enjoy the attempts by musicians of the time and after to grab some of that majestic, ranting mojo madness. It’s been covered time and again, not always particularly well, but in the same way that Dylan himself likes to mess with his own arrangements we should applaud how these three very different artists have made the song their own:
Buddy Greco: Greco wasn’t the only pre-rock lounge singer to directly grapple with the advent of rock ’n’ roll, but his 1969 album Let the Sunshine In was a strange and beautiful mutant of its time, especially his cover of the Dylan standard. If you can track down the vinyl you should also pay close attention to his version of Blood Sweat & Tears’ Spinnin’ Wheel, which has been topped only by Hank Kingsley on The Larry Sanders Show.
Articolo 31: Strictly speaking this Italian hip-hop/funk group hasn’t covered Like a Rolling Stone so much as sliced and diced it, but it can still jar on first listen. Dylan liked the 1998 re-imagining so much that he approved it for use in Masked and Anonymous, the film he co-wrote and starred in with Larry Charles.
Cher: This was back when Sonny was still picking the songs, recorded barely a year (1966) after Dylan had hit the charts with the original version. No doubt Cher was just as bemused at the backing track as the rest of us are.