I’ve been enjoying a Christmas present, Travellin’ Thru. It’s clear that Dylan thrives on the pressure of the genuine take or live performance. Suddenly, he comes alive. But what is going on with his voice?
Dylan was always pretending to be someone else other than Robert Zimmerman. In interviews he’d make up outlandish stories about his past. Here, we hear him pretending to pretend in at least three different ways. I understand he’d taken a sabbatical following his gruelling ‘Judas’ tour and motorbike accident. Maybe, he no longer wanted to be the pre-1967 Dylan. John Wesley Harding is austere, almost Old Testament medieval, and his voice sounds like a withered old seer who lives as a hermit and doesn’t know how to conduct a conversation. For Nashville Skyline, he reinvents himself as a masculine hunk, irresistible to women, all deep round baritone notes, as seductive as molten toffee. It strikes me as his freakiest album, even stranger than the one with The Grateful Dead. The duets with Johnny Cash are also weird, as though he realised he couldn’t compete with Cash’s sonorous voice and ended up pitching betwixt and between. On these outtakes, he defers a lot to Cash, who relaxes nicely into the lead role, “Have you met Bob?”. He’s on his best behaviour with Earl Scruggs. That man could play the hell out of a banjo.
By Self Portrait, Dylan no longer sounded like the Dylan of the sixties, more like a normal human being who could actually sing, hitting the right notes and everything. I guess the amphetamines that kept him going through 65/66 affected his vocal chords, stretching them into a whine and causing him to sing through his nose. Another Self Portrait remains my favourite Bootleg Series because his singing sounds so natural and free, as though singing is a pleasure rather the chore it sounded pre motorbike accident.
Any thoughts?
Tell Me That It Isn’t True
I think it’s one of the things that’s infuriating about Dylan, all his different voices…. such an awkward thing to do… but paradoxically I suppose it also all helps to feed the legend.
My first Dylan love was Blood On The Tracks, an LP my mum and dad used to play when I was wee. His voice on that sounds so confident and assured, like the hippest guy who ever lived. It was only later I found out this record was seen as a return to form and he didn’t always sound like that. The other Dylan LP my mum and dad had was Self Portrait… oh yes (my mum liked All The Tired Horses)… so I stopped there and never pursued further.
It was only years later when this funky seer poet leapt out of the radio singing “Like A Rolling Stone” that I realised there were different Dylans and you didn’t have to like all of them.
In my teen years, a friend had access to his dad’s small van. The only cartridge he had was Desire. We spent hours driving around being subjected to Dylan’s assertive righteousness. In the back. No seat belts. Thrown round corners. Drinking beer. I’d kill my son if he did the same now.
“Blood On The Tracks, an LP my mum and dad used to play when I was wee” – would you mind not reminding me how old I am.
My wife wandered in the other night after a meeting and started to tell me about some poor feller who had got up in the middle of the night, gone for pee and dropped down dead in the loo. FFS, I said, I’m 59, these are not stories I want to hear!!!!
Back on topic – I thought that about Dylan at the time as well. Astonishing album
Oops sorry! 🙂
He’s a fantastic artist, I only really got how much of an artist he was when I read Chronicles. You get so much Dylan over the years, like Mr Cowslip says, there were so many different ones. I’m really enjoying Travelin’ Thru, I used to have a crappy set of those Dylan/Cash outtakes and this bunch of polished takes are brilliant. You can imagine the two of them together, getting wrecked, jamming and laughing
Cash seems like a very affable chap, Dylan sniggering behind his hands.
Dylan has been so many different characters and there’s so much smoke and mirrors, with very personal songs sometimes hiding in plain sight (both fond of claiming it’s NOT about them). He and Bowie have more in common than it would first appear, even apart from Ronson and the occasional make up.
Dylan also poached Charlie Sexton from The Glass Spider Tour. Plus, I’d say Bowie was more of a make up enthusiast than Dylan.
There’s a podcast Dylan v Bowie. The episode on 1987, Never Let Me Down v Hearts Of Fire, the worst of each, is fascinating.
http://www.bowievsdylan.com/
I would really like to see Dylan in drag though. I think. Or maybe not.
Bowie’s voice kept on improving, just like… no?
Because Bowie performed with a raised eyebrow and in strange costumes, his singing ability is often over-looked. It never left him. He could sing the hell out of a tune right to the end. One of the joys of revisiting his lesser appreciated albums (almost anything after Scary Monsters) is stumbling across a heartstopping vocal.
I think his singing on Heathen is one of the main reasons that album is a favourite of mine.
Good to hear of this podcast. Gave it a try, wow it’s a tough listen. Unsubscribed
Did you listen to 1987?
No. I started with 1976 and found it unbearable.
Stationtostation v Desire. No contest.
I remember buying John Wesley Harding (and remember in those far off days we knew nothing, nada and there were entirely believable rumours Bob had died in a motorbike accident) and thinking ” I’m not really sure that this isn’t a Bob Dylan impersonator”.
I honestly can’t think of an artist whose voice, and particularly phrasing, went from “Oh my god he is so awesome” (think Leopardskin Pillbox Hat ) to “Yeah but it’s Bob and he is still a genius even though he sounds like a family of frogs have taken over his throat”.
Travellin’ Thru only reinforces my point
This is perhaps my favourite of the bootleg series. The version of I threw it all away is just astounding. Easily my most played song over the CHristmas period.I
The songs with Johnny are an interesting historical snapshot. Bob seems under rehearsed and just along for the ride but very amusing.
That was from The Johnny Cash show, sung live. When the red light was on, Dylan was sharp and focussed and always delivered. I can see why he liked to capture a song in as few takes as possible.
That is simply stunning. I’ve just got the set. Looking forward to listening even more now.
Favourite? Wow that astounds me. Better than Vols 1 to 3, Live 66, Live 75, Basement tapes, Trouble No More etc? For me it is one of the least interesting released so far, especially as they later released more stuff from same era for copyright reasons in extremely limited fashion.
How many of those have you listened to in the last year?
It took me ages to get through The Basement Tapes. I’ve a stripped down playlist I listen to regularly. 66 and 75 I haven’t revisited for a very long time. The shortened version of More Blood is also a regular. Another Self Portrait is the one for me, thank you.
3 of them.
I have always had trouble with Dylan’s voice around the Nashville Skyline period, and I’ve said before that Lay Lady Lay is one of my least favourite songs of his anyway, so
I have a NS shaped hole on my Dylan shelf. The latest Travellin’ Through set is interesting, but I don’t find it a particularly enjoyable listen for some reason – clearly both artists have an enormous respect for each other, which is fascinating to hear, but I just don’t think they sing together particularly well.
His singing voice is now virtually non-existant to these ears as well, so the latest covers albums aren’t there either – I really don’t understand the enthusiasm for those in some quarters.
The Bootleg series are a continuing source of joy – I hummed and ha’d over recent mega boxes, but recently settled for the slimmed down Trouble No More, More Blood and Basement Tapes sets…and the latter has been a complete revelation! I always had the 1975 release but never ‘got it’ for some reason, however this was one of those times that I just sat there and wondered what the hell I had been thinking all these years. At last
I could see the path that led to John Wesley Harding, which has always been a favourite since it came out.
*cough*
Apologies for the typos: