YES, THERE’S LIFE IN THE OLD BOB YET
An album of new songs from the master storyteller at 79 proves . . .
BOB DYLAN: Rough And Rowdy Ways (Columbia) Verdict: A giant at the top of his game ★★★★★
JOHN LEGEND: Bigger Love (Columbia) Verdict: Soulful return ★★★★✩
PHOEBE BRIDGERS: Punisher (Dead Oceans)
Verdict: Life lessons from rising star ★★★★✩
THE biggest names in rock have been busy during lockdown. The Rolling Stones, Queen and Elvis Costello have released new singles and Led Zeppelin, Radiohead and Foo Fighters have posted classic gigs online.
Pink Floyd update a digital playlist daily, while guitarist David Gilmour is about to unveil his first new music in five years.
But no musical giant has sparked greater interest than Bob Dylan.
He sprang a surprise in March with his first original song in eight years, the sprawling Murder Most Foul, following that with two shorter singles and, today, his first album of new material since 2012’s Tempest.
It’s a significant move. Dylan, 79, was the lyricist who brought intrigue and depth to pop with LPs such as 1965’s Bringing It All Back Home, but his three most recent albums have consisted of standards from the swing era: taking his cue from Sinatra, music’s poet laureate turned himself into the world’s least likely crooner.
There are no covers here. Instead, his 39th album is a testimony to his enduring ability to pen songs of heft and feeling. With CD versions of Rough And Rowdy Ways spread across two discs, the second consumed by all 17 minutes of Murder Most Foul, it isn’t a gentle introduction for the curious.
If you can’t stand Dylan’s labyrinthine lyrics or his gruff, deathrattle voice, this won’t change your views. For existing fans, though, it’s a treasure trove.
Even before he started covering jazz classics on 2015’s Shadows In The Night, Dylan had been looking back musically, and he builds on old-time influences again on an album rooted in Fifties rock ’n’ roll and blues.
Recent single False Prophet remodels an obscure 12-bar blues tune (If Lovin’ Is Believing) by Florida singer Billy ‘The Kid’ Emerson, and its lyrics include references to the rockabilly hits Hello Mary Lou and Miss Pearl. Goodbye Jimmy Reed pays homage to the Mississippi bluesman — although its wounded lyrics seem to be about Dylan, too.
Typically of Dylan, despite the album title, the songs here are neither rough nor rowdy. Drums are softly brushed, guitarist Charlie Sexton plays with understated elegance and Donnie Herron’s accordion adds a plaintive edge on Key West (Philosopher Pirate). Those all-important words are given plenty of room to breathe.
Amid ruminations on Judgment Day and a roll-call of people he’s admired and places he’s known, Dylan’s songwriting sparkles. References to history and pop music abound on Murder Most Foul and I Contain Multitudes — The Beatles, Eagles, Anne Frank and the assassination of JFK are all mentioned — and My Own Version Of You finds the singer visiting graveyards in a ghoulish search for body parts to make a Frankenstein’s monster.
He remains wilfully enigmatic, daring fans to pin him down on I Contain Multitudes by declaring himself ‘a man of contradictions’ who drives fast cars, eats fast food and carries pistols.
There’s an air of menace elsewhere, too: the shuffling rocker Crossing The Rubicon contains a threat to commit murder.
There’s also, on I’ve Made Up My Mind To Give Myself To You, a love song as sweet and melodic as any he’s written. Adele introduced new fans to his music when she covered Make You Feel My Love in 2008, and it’s easy to imagine her singing this one, too.
Dylan’s thoughts on mortality come with cryptic asides. He claims to have ‘outlived’ his life on Mother Of Muses, but then seems untroubled by what lies ahead on Crossing The Rubicon: ‘Three miles north of Purgatory, one step from The Great Beyond / I prayed to the cross, I kissed the girls and I crossed the Rubicon.’
His more obsessive fans will pore long and hard over these songs in search of hidden meanings.
The rest of us can simply marvel at a master storyteller at the top of his game.
JOHN LEGEND has branched out since emerging as a singer in thrall to R&B’s soul and gospel roots, and new album Bigger Love finds the Ohio piano man toying with our perceptions by embracing jazz, doo-wop and — with the help of guitarist Gary Clark Jr. — heavy blues.
PRODUCER Raphael Saadiq is an inspired collaborator, recreating classic soul styles of the 1970s without resorting to pastiche. The excellent Actions — about a failed attempt to woo a woman through song — looks to Curtis Mayfield, while there are duets with singers Koffee and Jhené Aiko and a cameo by rapper Rapsody.
PASADENA singer Phoebe Bridgers assembles a strong cast of indie-rock luminaries on new album Punisher, reuniting with her all-girl trio Boygenius on two tracks and working with Yeah Yeah Yeahs guitarist Nick Zinner.
But it’s her writing that catches the ear. Garden Song looks back on a childhood that saw her home go up in flames and ICU is a breakup song with a novel twist in that it was co-written with the exboyfriend in question — who is also her drummer.
All albums are out today. A double vinyl edition of the Bob Dylan lP follows on July 17.