A radical, revealing ‘ Portrait’ of Bob Dylan as an artist

His most controversial album finds redemption

BOB DYLAN

Another Self Portrait

DOWNLOAD Copper Kettle, Days of ’ 49, Pretty Saro, Minstrel Boy, Only a Hobo

In 1970, Self Portrait sparked a critical backlash against Bob Dylan led by a savage review in the formerly

worshipful Rolling Stone.

Fast- forward to the revelatory An

other Self Portrait ( 1969- 1971), the 10th installment of the prodigious Bootleg Se

ries, and Dylan’s back pages warrant a rewrite. The two- disc set, out today, contains 35 rarities and previously unreleased recordings from the controversial Portrait and immediate follow- up New

Morning, plus sundry tracks before and after, including live cuts from 1969’ s Isle of Wight performance with The Band.

The cutting- room sweepings suggest the chief errors in Dylan’s recording career were his tendencies to discard gems and cede power to producers. Stripped of overdubs, the new

Portrait has a mellow, natural beauty. In stark, porous arrangements, the music is vibrant and urgent, driven by Dylan’s raw, potent vocals.

The original Portrait would have been a finer album had the Paul Simon and Gordon Lightfoot covers been scrapped in favor of newly unearthed nuggets like his moving

rendition of Spanish Is the Loving Tongue or Tom Paxton’s Annie’s Going to Sing Her Song. And why shelve Working on a Guru, an original with rockabilly riffs courtesy of George Harrison? The unfairly maligned first Portrait, a motley array of country, folk and contemporary covers, retooled originals and oddities plumbed from his upbringing, came as a sucker punch to Dylan disciples who expected a repaved Highway 61. Renouncing the title of generational spokesman, wrestling with myriad artistic impulses, fired up by drive and a need to reboot, Dylan confounded expectations with a hodgepodge of tunes that have proven more durable and endearing than predicted.

Bootleg closes with a demo of

When I Paint My Masterpiece, an apt

finale. The sprawling, engaging, somewhat daffy Portrait Dylan sketched at 29 foreshadowed his brilliant late- career run of deep- roots dives that blend folk, country and blues. Both versions of Self Portrait may be a bit messy and frustrating, but they’re also among Dylan’s most revealing and radical works, finding him deeply immersed in music and busy being born.