Goldmine's Essential Guide to Record Collecting by Dave Thompson

Author:Dave Thompson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Krause Publications, a division of F+W Media, Inc.

The collection was flawed, to be sure, but still, there was scarcely a Dylan fan in the world who did not listen to it and perceive the myriad different directions that he could have taken out of the sessions.

Then came Blood On The Tracks, a divorce (and more) set to music, and universally proclaimed to be Dylan’s greatest album since Name Your Favorite a decade or more before. And it still is, from the accusatory snarl of “Tangled Up In Blue,” to the aural western “Lily Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts,” through “Idiot Wind” and “Simple Twist Of Fate,” and onto the various “alternate versions” that have leaked out onto the collectors’ market. As journalist Carol Caffin put it, “This album is a masterpiece, Dylan’s magnum opus. It changed my life when I was only fourteen and I have never looked back. Brilliant—a perfect record.”

Better was to come. Desire may not have been granted the same all-out adoration as its predecessor, but it has just as many high points, and a clutch of songs that even rose above the last album’s high bar… the mystifying “Isis,” the rollicking “Black Diamond Bay,” the plaintive “Sara.”

Then came the Rolling Thunder tour, an outing that is almost mythical now, so brilliantly realized was Dylan’s medicine show road show; and, although the critics panned Renaldo and Clara, the movie that grew so organically from the tour, every time it washed up on the late night theater circuit, the lines stretched around the block.

It’s true that Dylan’s next album stumbled. 1978’s Street Legal certainly had its moments—both “Senor (Tales of Yankee Power)” and the opening “Changing of the Guard” would have beautified either of its predecessors, and when Patti Smith covered the latter on her Twelve album, she knew exactly what she was doing. Smith is already enshrined in rock history as one of Dylan’s biggest fans, and she had his entire career to choose from. She chose “Changing of the Guard.” End of discussion.

Neither did Dylan slow down. Between the late 1970s and the early 1990s, Dylan either achieved, or embarked upon some of the most crucial adventures of his entire career, not to mention some of his most astonishing moves—his then-controversial conversion to Born Again Christianity; partnerships with some of the most seminal musicians of the day, from Mark Knopfler and Sly & Robbie, to Keith Richard and Ronnie Wood; groundbreaking, record-smashing tours and collaborations with the Grateful Dead and Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.

It includes his involvement in the Travelling Wilbury’s, perhaps the most misunderstood super group of all time—for who could truly get a handle on a new group fronted by… Dylan, George Harrison, Jeff Lynne and Roy Orbison? His dalliance with reggae, his return to protest music, his reiteration of folk, his sudden love of pop and rock; and the now-legendary and still-churning Never Ending Tour, kicked off in the early nineties and still going strong today. And, most recently, his Nobel Prize and his first triple album, so aptly titled Triplicate.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.