As I continue digesting downloaded snippets from the soon-to-be-released Bob Dylan record Modern Times (which was “leaked” by Sony on Friday), I got to digging through the old stuff. Thought I’d pass along the occasional thought until Dylan’s first CD in five years is officially distributed on Aug. 29 …
Taken of a piece, there are few who can match the pure artistry of his career – whether folk is your bag or not.
“It’s important,” Dylan once said, “to come to the bottom of this legend thing, which has no reality at all. What’s important isn’t the legend, but the art, the work.”
We’ll start, where else?, in the 1960s:
“THE FREEWHEELIN’ BOB DYLAN,” 1963
From the loopy title to the goofy picture of Bob and his girlfriend Suze Rotolo on West Fourth in New York City, Dylan’s second LP reveals something you don’t see much anymore — save for the Wilbury projects about 15 years back: Dylan’s humor. Even the liner notes are funny: “Anything I can sing,” Dylan writes, “I call a song. Anything I can’t sing, I call a poem.”
Nick’s Picks: The serious songs – especially “Don’t Think Twice” and “Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall,” written during the 1962 Cuban missile crisis.
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