http://www.pressplus1.com/blog/evan+dowbiggin/2672-bob-dylan-1978-94-navigating-through-the-rough-waters-of-his-middle-years.html
Call
it the lull, the calm before the storm- or at least before lightning
struck again- but the fact remains: Bob Dylan in a near two decade
period of his storied five decade career became a shell of his former
self. Even if the idea of a career dip or two is not alien to even the
greatest of performers, the years of 1978-1994 had a lot of people
doubting his legacy and doubting he was capable of artistic genius
again. Many people wondered aloud if Dylan could
really recapture his former status or anything close to it. A lot of
critics with high standards would even say he was noticeably sketchy
after 1966 but that's a falsehood in my view, seeing as how he still
created all those great "Basement Tapes" with the Band in 1967 plus the
excellent albums John Wesley Harding and Blood on the Tracks, the very good Nashville Skyline, New Morning, Planet Waves and Desire, and a superb live album with the Band called Before the Flood.
All these
worthy albums came in the 8 years following his infamous neck injury in
a motorcycle accident. Since that point Dylan slowly but surely made
his way back to touring and now can be found on the road as almost a
permanent fixture of the concert scene. Despite
being committed to this relentless touring since 1988, Dylan often-
whether due to his own whims or health issues- can flummux or disappoint
fans live, especially those that don't quite "get" his constant
reinventions of his own works. But to be perfectly fair, Bob truly is a
mixed bag to witness in concert and it's not overly critical to say so
at all. When he's on, you feel like you're witnessing the flicker of the
original genius. And even at his worst moments, he has outshone half
the rock stars out there. But he must feel the music is his muse because
he has rarely taken time off since his early 40s.
Once
you set a standard as great as the one he set between 1962-1969, then
again between 1974-1976, people don't expect to hear a man who sounds
like he stopped caring. In his famed memoir, 2004's Chronicles Part One,
Dylan admitted as much. Personal problems played a role at first but by
all reports he was a more contented man in the 80s, having secretly
re-married and fathered a daughter. However he again hit a personal low
ebb in the 90s when he became disenfranchised enough to quit writing
songs for a good spell. His time in the wilderness is not a time of great musical innovation but is an enthralling story to tell nonetheless. The events of Dylan's post-prime period can tell the proper background to his slump as well. It begins in 1967 with Dylan left up on the proverbial shelf, recuperating in upstate New York's West Saugerties region from that motorcycle accident.
It had happened in August 1966 and soon rumours spread as to what exactly occurred. Had Dylan been mortally wounded? Paralyzed? Left a vegetable? Died? The myths grew as his many touring dates booked by manager Albert Grossman had to be cancelled. It was likely for the best since Bob was in a run-down state, more precarious health-wise than he would be until the mid-90s. A steady diet of marijuana, mphetamine and possible heroin use had turned Dylan into a zonked-out creature, not too far from the fictionalized portrayal of Cate Blanchett playing the very 1966 Dylan-based "Jude" in 2010's film I'm Not There. The scathing backlash of many in his fanbase to his adoption of electric rock music had seemingly rolled off Dylan like water off a duck's back. But deep inside the madness got to him and made him contemplate retiring from music, secluding himself or changing directions entirely. Luckily he opted for the latter two routes.
The following year, Dylan relocated with his wife and started a family. He also took an integral part in the immortal Basement Tapes at the nearby cottage of some friends. The friends were the Hawks - later to become world renowned as the Band. These mostly Canadian fellows had been Dylan's 1966 touring band, reaching glorious heights by fusing their bluesy bar band/rockabilly nature with his folk leanings. His prolific songwriting would also rub off on them to fantastic results. Many of the tunes made the rounds on a popular bootleg album called The Great White North Album,which led to Columbia officially releasing many of the recordings (but not really close to all of them) in 1975. The sessions still stand as Dylan's own lost touchstone moment, signalling his immersion into a mythology by yarning a legendary string of songs seemingly borne out of a different time and place in American folklore, as if conjured up by world-weary bluesmen and then unearthed by Alan Lomax or Harry Smith stumbling upon some rural, cotton-picking Southern village.
They solidifed Dylan as no longer a mere copyist or byproduct of the 60s culture he helped create, but as a timeless creative beacon. But in typical Dylan fashion, many of the recordings and songs weren't intended to see the light of day- the first sign that Dylan, willingly or unwillingly, didn't know what to do with his most stirring material. Eight years previous to the official release of these "tapes," Columbia was most certainly relieved when Bob eased back into the public eye- if only for a moment- with the release of John Wesley Harding at the end of 1967, a spare, country-tinged album that was hardly a followup in spirit to the expressionist Blonde and Blonde and contrasted with the flower power psychedelia ruling the rock world at the time. Columbia had tried to placate his void in the marketplace with a greatest hits release in 1967, an event that extremely rankled Dylan due to it being put out without his approval or consultation.
Meanwhile, his woodshedding continued through 1968 in spite of the new material unleashed to the public. Everyone wanted a piece of the icon but he was content to release music every so often while raising a family with his wife Sara Lowndes, married to him in a secret ceremony in 1965. A foray into much more faithfully pure country came in 1969 with Nashville Skyline but all the while, Dylan was being pressured by the radical Hippies to become their champion and spokesperson against the Vietnam War. The counterculture saw Dylan as the pied piper and wanted to follow him on the march to peace. Dylan resisted, being a rather apolitical thinker when push came to shove. But the adulation and demand was starting to grate on him, so with 1970's double-LP Self Portrait, he somewhat intentionally made the corniest, squarest album possible in order to shake off the attention in both his private and artistic life. It was a set even Merle Haggard and his "Okie from Muskogee" types would consider simplistic.
It had happened in August 1966 and soon rumours spread as to what exactly occurred. Had Dylan been mortally wounded? Paralyzed? Left a vegetable? Died? The myths grew as his many touring dates booked by manager Albert Grossman had to be cancelled. It was likely for the best since Bob was in a run-down state, more precarious health-wise than he would be until the mid-90s. A steady diet of marijuana, mphetamine and possible heroin use had turned Dylan into a zonked-out creature, not too far from the fictionalized portrayal of Cate Blanchett playing the very 1966 Dylan-based "Jude" in 2010's film I'm Not There. The scathing backlash of many in his fanbase to his adoption of electric rock music had seemingly rolled off Dylan like water off a duck's back. But deep inside the madness got to him and made him contemplate retiring from music, secluding himself or changing directions entirely. Luckily he opted for the latter two routes.
The following year, Dylan relocated with his wife and started a family. He also took an integral part in the immortal Basement Tapes at the nearby cottage of some friends. The friends were the Hawks - later to become world renowned as the Band. These mostly Canadian fellows had been Dylan's 1966 touring band, reaching glorious heights by fusing their bluesy bar band/rockabilly nature with his folk leanings. His prolific songwriting would also rub off on them to fantastic results. Many of the tunes made the rounds on a popular bootleg album called The Great White North Album,which led to Columbia officially releasing many of the recordings (but not really close to all of them) in 1975. The sessions still stand as Dylan's own lost touchstone moment, signalling his immersion into a mythology by yarning a legendary string of songs seemingly borne out of a different time and place in American folklore, as if conjured up by world-weary bluesmen and then unearthed by Alan Lomax or Harry Smith stumbling upon some rural, cotton-picking Southern village.
They solidifed Dylan as no longer a mere copyist or byproduct of the 60s culture he helped create, but as a timeless creative beacon. But in typical Dylan fashion, many of the recordings and songs weren't intended to see the light of day- the first sign that Dylan, willingly or unwillingly, didn't know what to do with his most stirring material. Eight years previous to the official release of these "tapes," Columbia was most certainly relieved when Bob eased back into the public eye- if only for a moment- with the release of John Wesley Harding at the end of 1967, a spare, country-tinged album that was hardly a followup in spirit to the expressionist Blonde and Blonde and contrasted with the flower power psychedelia ruling the rock world at the time. Columbia had tried to placate his void in the marketplace with a greatest hits release in 1967, an event that extremely rankled Dylan due to it being put out without his approval or consultation.
Meanwhile, his woodshedding continued through 1968 in spite of the new material unleashed to the public. Everyone wanted a piece of the icon but he was content to release music every so often while raising a family with his wife Sara Lowndes, married to him in a secret ceremony in 1965. A foray into much more faithfully pure country came in 1969 with Nashville Skyline but all the while, Dylan was being pressured by the radical Hippies to become their champion and spokesperson against the Vietnam War. The counterculture saw Dylan as the pied piper and wanted to follow him on the march to peace. Dylan resisted, being a rather apolitical thinker when push came to shove. But the adulation and demand was starting to grate on him, so with 1970's double-LP Self Portrait, he somewhat intentionally made the corniest, squarest album possible in order to shake off the attention in both his private and artistic life. It was a set even Merle Haggard and his "Okie from Muskogee" types would consider simplistic.
If
you take the album as a larf, it's actually quite enjoyable. If you
view it on an artistic level, it flops more than a fish left on the
dock. Serious questions arose about Dylan's once indomitable
creativity and even though New Morning
came out mere months later to quell a lot of the critical nattering, it
appeared Dylan was in a bit of a mire. Then came a writer's block
period over the next 3 years as Dylan released one protest single
("George Jackson"), four new recordings for his second volume of
greatest hits in 1971 (two of the selections having been written in '67
during his convalescence), plus a soundtrack album to a movie he had a
small role in, Sam Peckinpah's 1973 film Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid. All this generated in the way of classic Dylan moments was "Knockin' on Heaven's Door." This certainly was not much to show for three years work, at least by the standards of the time.
Collaborations with the Band in 1974 seemingly reinvigorated the mercurial Dylan. These LPs, Planet Waves and the double live set Before the Flood, gave the careers of both a much needed shot in the arm. A dispute with Columbia led to Planet Waves
being distributed on Asylum, still the only release to date of Dylan's
not on Columbia/Sony. Once back on CBS, it was the crumbling of Dylan's
marriage that inspired him to head into a New York City studio in
September 1974 to cut a song cycle that became Blood on the Tracks.
The album was test pressed until Dylan had second thoughts about the
sameness of the album, all the songs being recorded with simple acoustic
guitar and bass accompaniment in the unique open E tuning. Dylan has
recounted how his brother, David Zimmerman, convinced him to make the
alterations by giving him constructive criticism along those lines.
After re-recording several tracks back in his home state of Minnesota,
the album in its final form came out in January 1975 and signaled that
once again Bob Dylan had the incomparable creative juices flowing.
The album was a bleak, frank depiction of sorrow, heartache, betrayal and melancholy and towered above nearly everything he'd done since Blonde on Blonde. Riding this momentum, Dylan went for a denser sound on his next project, a sort of harkening to the days of jug bands and hootenanies. Desire was a fine album no doubt, a rousing experience in the face of the tormented Blood on the Tracks - though its final track, "Sara," made an explicit attempt to atone for mistakes and patch up the marriage. Nonetheless, Desire was an album where many tracks sound spontaneous but severely lacking rehearsal. Quite evidently, there
are a lot of band slipups and Emmylou Harris sounds like a lost foal,
as if she wasn't given a run-through of the lyrics before laying down
her harmonies. With the communal mentality he discovered on the recording of the LP, Bob set out for his grand tour throughout 1975-76, an ensemble that became known as The Rolling Thunder Revue.
The RTR consisted of numerous musicians Dylan has associated with over the years not to mention others with a wide divergence of backgrounds- everyone from Joni Mitchell to former David Bowie sideman Mick Ronson! The tour started off big enough, but got decidedly massive as it kept adding guests from show to show, sometimes those guests staying on for further tour stops. The wild party cocktail of drugs, alcohol and ridiculous fanfare was a true sign of the times. It also seemed to sap a lot of Dylan's creativity once the dust had settled. For the tour, Dylan adopted a more theatrical style than ever, donning a "mask" with eyeliner and white face paint (but don't worry, he didn't look like the lost third Jewish member of KISS). He gestured more noticeably with his physical movements and bellowed the songs in a hoarse, energetic voice completely unlike the laid-back, almost laconic Dylan of old. Amidst it all was the filming of one of his newest pet projects, a four-hour dirge of a film that became known as Renaldo & Clara upon its release in 1978.
Work on that ultimately forgettable cinematic endeavour held up Dylan's next release. Amidst the filming of his eventual movie, the Rolling Thunder Revue tour finished in 1976 after generating much publicity and seemingly putting Dylan back on top of the contemporary pop/rock world. But Dylan, now 37 but with a wealth of experience behind him, was really in a crisis period personally. His marriage to Sara officially ended in 1977 despite the many attempts to repair it over the prior five years of cracks in the facade. In 1978, the newly divorced Dylan released the odd Street Legal, an album panned everywhere except in Europe, particularly Holland where for some reason it became seen as one of his most vital works (does this mean it needed Amsterdam marijuana to be enjoyed? Possibly so.) Of the 9 tracks, only "Changing of the Guards," "Senor (Tales of Yankee Power)" and "Where Are You Tonight (Journey Through the Heat)?" were worthy of being on an album issued by a name like Bob Dylan.
Street Legal featured Dylan with a rather generic pro rock unit, equipped by multiple female backing singers- to become a trait of practically every Dylan album until 1989. The rather upfront and beefy saxophone of Steve Douglas added a Vegasy touch but the songs themselves lacked originality and though there were a few good ones, there were many that were truly pedestrian. It seemed an unatural, ill-fitting next step after the highs hit in the mid-70s. With a similar band on the road to the Street Legal tracks, Dylan took to a big world tour through 1978-79 but it was disparaged by most critics for its overblown sound and complete reinventions of old standards that rendered them either unrecognizable, schmaltzy or both. The double LP live document of the tour's Japanese visit was captured by the depressing Bob Dylan at Budokan. The presence of several African-American women backing him on the tour not only gave the music a gospel feel but brought Dylan to a point no one had contemplated was possible: a conversion to Christianity.
The whirlwind of his life and the personal failures led him to converse with these black women about their faith. Bob also credited a Toronto concert where a fan threw a silver cross necklace onstage and the intrigued singer kept it for comfort. Then he apparently had a vision in a hotel room in Tuscon, Arizona, where he claimed to feel the spirit of Jesus joining him. When the tour concluded, he shocked many by becoming a born again Christian, a move many saw as hard to fathom, firstly because he was a Jew and secondly because his lyrics and attitude always seemed too intellectual and knowing to embace religion- at least that's what his secular and atheist supporters contended. Rumour had it that Bob was baptized in Pat Boone's swimming pool, but there's never been any proof of this happening. If true, Boone could've turned it into a museum for a quick buck from Dylanites I suppose. As a born-again, Dylan soon took to airing out his complaints quite heartily and vociferously.
With this new faith, Dylan bravely made it clear and ever present in his live shows that he'd found Jesus, God, belief, etc. and that he was going to let everyone know. But most of the time, all the abundance of faith he acquired made him come across as angrier, more bitter with the world. That streak of outrage hasn't completely left his music to this day but it's more of a soft undercurrent compared to the dogmatic soapbox that was his Christian re-birth period. 1979's Slow Train Coming, produced by Dire Straits' Mark Knopfler, was the forum for these newfound beliefs and while the passion behind the more faith-based pieces equalled some of his 60s highlights, a lot of the blues-rockers were familiar sounding and only served for him to rant about those who were poisoning the world or going to hell. Yet it was one of these, "Gotta Serve Somebody," that strangely enough won him his first Grammy award. Despite the flaws, Slow Train was seen as superior to Street Legal in most circles, and some even claimed it to be better than Desire.
Knopfler's clean, feathery production certainly hit the spot after the rather aimless production jobs done on Bob's previous two LPs. For a minute there in 1980, it seemed Dylan was going to turn it around and perhaps use his Christianity to become sensational once more, even if he had become so ingratiated in it that he was predicting the end times and the return of the Messiah. After all, such a spiritual rebirth had done wonderful things for Van Morrison when he was in danger of becoming stale. But no such acclaim was made toward 1980's Saved, a stiff and joyless effort that was dead on arrival and among his worst albums. Aside from the grandiosity of "Solid Rock" and the touching "What Can I Do for You?" featuring perhaps his best harp solo ever, Saved was a limpid collection of gospel and boring blues-rock with Dylan's singing voice declining to the point where he was almost talking instead of even trying to properly sing anymore. This was a crying shame considering video and audio footage of many of his concerts from around the same period show Dylan's religious vision and new compositions were surprisingly moving when done with the proper amount of passion and care.
The RTR consisted of numerous musicians Dylan has associated with over the years not to mention others with a wide divergence of backgrounds- everyone from Joni Mitchell to former David Bowie sideman Mick Ronson! The tour started off big enough, but got decidedly massive as it kept adding guests from show to show, sometimes those guests staying on for further tour stops. The wild party cocktail of drugs, alcohol and ridiculous fanfare was a true sign of the times. It also seemed to sap a lot of Dylan's creativity once the dust had settled. For the tour, Dylan adopted a more theatrical style than ever, donning a "mask" with eyeliner and white face paint (but don't worry, he didn't look like the lost third Jewish member of KISS). He gestured more noticeably with his physical movements and bellowed the songs in a hoarse, energetic voice completely unlike the laid-back, almost laconic Dylan of old. Amidst it all was the filming of one of his newest pet projects, a four-hour dirge of a film that became known as Renaldo & Clara upon its release in 1978.
Work on that ultimately forgettable cinematic endeavour held up Dylan's next release. Amidst the filming of his eventual movie, the Rolling Thunder Revue tour finished in 1976 after generating much publicity and seemingly putting Dylan back on top of the contemporary pop/rock world. But Dylan, now 37 but with a wealth of experience behind him, was really in a crisis period personally. His marriage to Sara officially ended in 1977 despite the many attempts to repair it over the prior five years of cracks in the facade. In 1978, the newly divorced Dylan released the odd Street Legal, an album panned everywhere except in Europe, particularly Holland where for some reason it became seen as one of his most vital works (does this mean it needed Amsterdam marijuana to be enjoyed? Possibly so.) Of the 9 tracks, only "Changing of the Guards," "Senor (Tales of Yankee Power)" and "Where Are You Tonight (Journey Through the Heat)?" were worthy of being on an album issued by a name like Bob Dylan.
Street Legal featured Dylan with a rather generic pro rock unit, equipped by multiple female backing singers- to become a trait of practically every Dylan album until 1989. The rather upfront and beefy saxophone of Steve Douglas added a Vegasy touch but the songs themselves lacked originality and though there were a few good ones, there were many that were truly pedestrian. It seemed an unatural, ill-fitting next step after the highs hit in the mid-70s. With a similar band on the road to the Street Legal tracks, Dylan took to a big world tour through 1978-79 but it was disparaged by most critics for its overblown sound and complete reinventions of old standards that rendered them either unrecognizable, schmaltzy or both. The double LP live document of the tour's Japanese visit was captured by the depressing Bob Dylan at Budokan. The presence of several African-American women backing him on the tour not only gave the music a gospel feel but brought Dylan to a point no one had contemplated was possible: a conversion to Christianity.
The whirlwind of his life and the personal failures led him to converse with these black women about their faith. Bob also credited a Toronto concert where a fan threw a silver cross necklace onstage and the intrigued singer kept it for comfort. Then he apparently had a vision in a hotel room in Tuscon, Arizona, where he claimed to feel the spirit of Jesus joining him. When the tour concluded, he shocked many by becoming a born again Christian, a move many saw as hard to fathom, firstly because he was a Jew and secondly because his lyrics and attitude always seemed too intellectual and knowing to embace religion- at least that's what his secular and atheist supporters contended. Rumour had it that Bob was baptized in Pat Boone's swimming pool, but there's never been any proof of this happening. If true, Boone could've turned it into a museum for a quick buck from Dylanites I suppose. As a born-again, Dylan soon took to airing out his complaints quite heartily and vociferously.
With this new faith, Dylan bravely made it clear and ever present in his live shows that he'd found Jesus, God, belief, etc. and that he was going to let everyone know. But most of the time, all the abundance of faith he acquired made him come across as angrier, more bitter with the world. That streak of outrage hasn't completely left his music to this day but it's more of a soft undercurrent compared to the dogmatic soapbox that was his Christian re-birth period. 1979's Slow Train Coming, produced by Dire Straits' Mark Knopfler, was the forum for these newfound beliefs and while the passion behind the more faith-based pieces equalled some of his 60s highlights, a lot of the blues-rockers were familiar sounding and only served for him to rant about those who were poisoning the world or going to hell. Yet it was one of these, "Gotta Serve Somebody," that strangely enough won him his first Grammy award. Despite the flaws, Slow Train was seen as superior to Street Legal in most circles, and some even claimed it to be better than Desire.
Knopfler's clean, feathery production certainly hit the spot after the rather aimless production jobs done on Bob's previous two LPs. For a minute there in 1980, it seemed Dylan was going to turn it around and perhaps use his Christianity to become sensational once more, even if he had become so ingratiated in it that he was predicting the end times and the return of the Messiah. After all, such a spiritual rebirth had done wonderful things for Van Morrison when he was in danger of becoming stale. But no such acclaim was made toward 1980's Saved, a stiff and joyless effort that was dead on arrival and among his worst albums. Aside from the grandiosity of "Solid Rock" and the touching "What Can I Do for You?" featuring perhaps his best harp solo ever, Saved was a limpid collection of gospel and boring blues-rock with Dylan's singing voice declining to the point where he was almost talking instead of even trying to properly sing anymore. This was a crying shame considering video and audio footage of many of his concerts from around the same period show Dylan's religious vision and new compositions were surprisingly moving when done with the proper amount of passion and care.
Shot of Love from 1981 was a marginal improvement
and despite two of his worst songs ever - "Property of Jesus" and
"Lenny Bruce"- it contained at least some glimpses into Dylan's once
golden touch, for example "Heart of Mine," "Groom Still Waiting at the
Altar" and "Every Grain of Sand," one of his greatest 25 compositions in
my humble opinion, a spiritual meditation that proved his Christian
ballads could be quite deep and affecting when done well. Thanks to
these two albums, Dylan's formerly strong chart power had all but
disappeared. He could no longer crack the top 30 on the album chart and
Columbia no doubt was worrying, even though for years he had been one of
the only artists on their label they considered immune to getting
dropped (this holds true today, even though Columbia is just a symbolic
label, inherited when Universal Music bought them up).
To combat this, Dylan looked to Knopfler again, whose work had guided Slow Train
to a decent finished product that struck the top 10 on the charts and
impressed, despite being very much a non-secular work. For 1983's Infidels,
Dylan had assembled his strongest studio band in years: Knopfler and
former Stone Mick Taylor providing guitars, reggae duo Sly (Dunbar)
& Robbie (Shakespeare) on drums and bass and the keyboards
provided by Knopfler's Dire Straits bandmate Alan Clark. The songs he
brought to the table were almost uniformly better than anything since Desire. Though Infidels
was his shortest release on quantity of tracks, just eight in all, it
only really had a couple disappointments in "Man of Peace" and "License
to Kill" which was just arranged in a static, boring way despite being
nothing terrible on paper. Plus, Infidels
made the move to forgo most religious discussion and this would end his
born-again period on record, as well as in life where he retreated from
such intense bible-thumping after 4 years of getting to know the ugly
side of Christianity, or so he claimed.
The
spiritual lessons stuck with the man but if anything, it might've led
him to rediscover his Judaism which he did in the late 80's. Infidels
featured a great love song ("Sweetheart Like You") and a couple
effective spiritual songs ("I and I," "Jokerman"). Despite his first
batch of promotional "music" videos, the album wasn't much to crow
about in regards to its chart showing, but it was a bounce back from his
previous two releases that sank without a trace. However, Infidels was
also noted for being a "could have been" masterpiece for excluding two
superb songs, the bitter but fiery "Foot of Pride" and the mysterious
"Blind Willie McTell," a true masterpiece with just Knopfler on acoustic
guitar and Dylan on piano, delivering a standout vocal performance.
After his second best live album to that point- though that's not saying
much considering how average Hard Rain is and how awful Budokan is- in 1985's Real Live, Dylan went even harder for a contemporary buck and a little interest from the youth.
But was anyone really going to go nuts over a 44-year old who could barely wheez out a song... unless it was totally out of character for him and highly mainstream? The answer was no but Bob gave it a shot with Empire Burlesque. For it, he reached out to the cream of the crop of rock session men, writers and producers but namely Eurythmics' Dave Stewart and New York-based dance and hip hop producer Arthur Baker. Despite its slickness, inadequate mixing and aimless electronic accessorizing, a lot of critics enjoyed this album and its songwriting isn't too shabby, even if its production often is. It only falls on its face for unfocused, throwaway cuts like "Never Gonna Be the Same Again" and the misbegotten "Disco Dylan" experiment, "When the Night Comes Falling from the Sky." But this time most of the love songs don't suffer from dullness and though the synthesizer hijinks don't improve a lot of cuts, they don't ruin any either.
The LP even ends on a harkening back to the guitar-and-harrmonica folk days with the short, but memorable ditty "Dark Eyes." 1985 was a busy, busy year in the professional life of Dylan. He showed up on "We are the World," released a fantastic career retrospective "box set" called Biograph and performed at Live Aid in a rather slapdash, trainwreck acoustic set with technical gaffes and the unstable backing of an inebriated Ron Wood and Keith Richards of the Stones.
Then Dylan topped it off by innocently suggesting some of the money raised go to help struggling American farmers, a quote considered the genesis for what became Farm Aid. He even gave his first TV interview in years and when you look at it, 1985 is the last time the man could be seen everywhere in the media. The myriad of sessions Dylan was involved in from 1983-86 formed the basis of his next two albums, a pair of letdowns after Infidels and Empire Burlesque hinted at respectability.
But was anyone really going to go nuts over a 44-year old who could barely wheez out a song... unless it was totally out of character for him and highly mainstream? The answer was no but Bob gave it a shot with Empire Burlesque. For it, he reached out to the cream of the crop of rock session men, writers and producers but namely Eurythmics' Dave Stewart and New York-based dance and hip hop producer Arthur Baker. Despite its slickness, inadequate mixing and aimless electronic accessorizing, a lot of critics enjoyed this album and its songwriting isn't too shabby, even if its production often is. It only falls on its face for unfocused, throwaway cuts like "Never Gonna Be the Same Again" and the misbegotten "Disco Dylan" experiment, "When the Night Comes Falling from the Sky." But this time most of the love songs don't suffer from dullness and though the synthesizer hijinks don't improve a lot of cuts, they don't ruin any either.
The LP even ends on a harkening back to the guitar-and-harrmonica folk days with the short, but memorable ditty "Dark Eyes." 1985 was a busy, busy year in the professional life of Dylan. He showed up on "We are the World," released a fantastic career retrospective "box set" called Biograph and performed at Live Aid in a rather slapdash, trainwreck acoustic set with technical gaffes and the unstable backing of an inebriated Ron Wood and Keith Richards of the Stones.
Then Dylan topped it off by innocently suggesting some of the money raised go to help struggling American farmers, a quote considered the genesis for what became Farm Aid. He even gave his first TV interview in years and when you look at it, 1985 is the last time the man could be seen everywhere in the media. The myriad of sessions Dylan was involved in from 1983-86 formed the basis of his next two albums, a pair of letdowns after Infidels and Empire Burlesque hinted at respectability.
The first of which was Knocked Out Loaded
in 1986 and though it featured several notable guests in songwriting
and instrumentation, one couldn't tell or really be excited about them.
There are some of Dylan's worst tracks of the 80s- which says something-
like the tossed-off "Maybe Someday," a horribly overwrought version of
Kris Kristofferson's "They Killed Him" and even a right cheesy 80s
adaptation of the traditional folk tune "Driftin' Too Far from Shore." The
only good news with the garbage record was the 11-minute "Brownsville
Girl," a winding, stortytelling affair that was co-credited to
playwright Sam Sheperd. Remodeled from a 1984 version that was even
longer, titled "New Danville Girl," Dylan enlisted his backing singers
to do some call-and-response to his spoken word lyrics, not to mention
Western film mariachi horns and vivid stories of a relationship weaved
around trying to recall what Gregory Peck movie he had seen in a theatre
years earlier. It was a departure into chutzpah for Dylan, but the good
kind thankfully.
"Brownsville Girl" was a fleeting moment of excellence in a time of dry wells of creativity. Still, Knocked Out Loaded made Infidels and Empire Burlesque look like chartbusters by comparisons, stalling out at a paltry on Billboard's charts without cracking the top 30. 1988's Down in the Groove arguably made no improvement even if it was an album of more consistency. But unlike Knocked Out, it lacked a true lynchpin track to get jazzed about. There were fewer writings from Dylan and more pointless, bluesy filler like "Had a Dream About You, Baby," "Let's Stick Together" and " At the same time, there was humour ("Ugliest Girl in the World"), stark folk covers to relive his halcyon folk prime ("Shenandoah," "Rank Strangers to Me") and a moving song taken to classic level later by Nick Cave ("Death is Not the End"), and also including a collaboration with vocal group Full Force. But cobbled together through so many sessions dating back so far gives it a giant personnel list and where else are you going to hear Eric Clapton, Steve Jones (ex of the Sex Pistols), Paul Simonon (ex-the Clash), Randy Jackson (yes, the same one of American Idol fame), Sly & Robbie and Kip Winger all on the same album?
Even Dylan's sporadic role in a film in the 80s was a misguided attempt at achieving anywhere close to a decent standard. I speak of 1987's Hearts of Fire, a film that received limited release around the world, was panned by critics everywhere and rightfully so. If it was hard for Bob to figure out where his career was at by this point, it was even harder for audiences to accept. He still enjoyed the high stage musically, enjoying a slight resurgence in concert during a 1986 world tour with Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers as his opening act and collaborators. The Petty tour, according to Dylan in Chronicles Part One, found him regaining his strengths of singing his older tunes in a way where he could reinvent them and find meaning in them again (this just 8 years after forgoing his older material because these songs supposedly weren't sent to him by God to write). Whatever path he was on when discussing this, Dylan surely must have been referencing what prompted him to turn to constant touring starting 2 years later. Out of several collaborations with members of the Grateful Dead, Dylan went out on the road with them for a period in 1987, resulting in the unfortunate Dylan & the Dead, a low point for both well established veteran acts that should best be left forgotten.
"Brownsville Girl" was a fleeting moment of excellence in a time of dry wells of creativity. Still, Knocked Out Loaded made Infidels and Empire Burlesque look like chartbusters by comparisons, stalling out at a paltry on Billboard's charts without cracking the top 30. 1988's Down in the Groove arguably made no improvement even if it was an album of more consistency. But unlike Knocked Out, it lacked a true lynchpin track to get jazzed about. There were fewer writings from Dylan and more pointless, bluesy filler like "Had a Dream About You, Baby," "Let's Stick Together" and " At the same time, there was humour ("Ugliest Girl in the World"), stark folk covers to relive his halcyon folk prime ("Shenandoah," "Rank Strangers to Me") and a moving song taken to classic level later by Nick Cave ("Death is Not the End"), and also including a collaboration with vocal group Full Force. But cobbled together through so many sessions dating back so far gives it a giant personnel list and where else are you going to hear Eric Clapton, Steve Jones (ex of the Sex Pistols), Paul Simonon (ex-the Clash), Randy Jackson (yes, the same one of American Idol fame), Sly & Robbie and Kip Winger all on the same album?
Even Dylan's sporadic role in a film in the 80s was a misguided attempt at achieving anywhere close to a decent standard. I speak of 1987's Hearts of Fire, a film that received limited release around the world, was panned by critics everywhere and rightfully so. If it was hard for Bob to figure out where his career was at by this point, it was even harder for audiences to accept. He still enjoyed the high stage musically, enjoying a slight resurgence in concert during a 1986 world tour with Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers as his opening act and collaborators. The Petty tour, according to Dylan in Chronicles Part One, found him regaining his strengths of singing his older tunes in a way where he could reinvent them and find meaning in them again (this just 8 years after forgoing his older material because these songs supposedly weren't sent to him by God to write). Whatever path he was on when discussing this, Dylan surely must have been referencing what prompted him to turn to constant touring starting 2 years later. Out of several collaborations with members of the Grateful Dead, Dylan went out on the road with them for a period in 1987, resulting in the unfortunate Dylan & the Dead, a low point for both well established veteran acts that should best be left forgotten.
Bob also claimed in that memoir that he'd severely injured his hand in a boating accident and it made him question of he could play guitar again or if he should even bother with music anymore. Some have read into this beyond the ailing hand. One theory is that Dylan's crisis of confidence came from losing his singing voice as well and in his recordings after 1988-89, his voice took an inexplicable turn for the worst, losing range and being resigned to a low, crackled growl. Now it's not as if he could sing well when he had the full capabilities of his voice but since the late 80s, his singing voice has steadily worsened to this very day. As of the late 80s, Dylan craved a role where he could sink into the background and found that when he participated in the celebrated supergroup, the Traveling Wilburies. Though vocally and songwriting-wise his contribution were small, it did do well to boost the fortunes of his sagging career and his goofy "Tweeter and the Monkey Man" was a highlight of the self-titled record that followed late in '88.
With his reputation still artistically shot on his own, Dylan found a temporary reprieve thanks to famed Canadian producer Daniel Lanois. Lanois had made waves in the past 3 years, producing commercial and/or critical smashes by U2, Peter Gabriel, Robbie Robertson and the Neville Brothers. With practically the same studio group as the one on the Nevilles' superb `989 album Yellow Moon, Dylan finally found a producer willing to do unique, breathtaking things with his sound. Lanois pushed Dylan to capture a feel and put some committment into arranging his songs where it had been severely lacking for the better part of a decade. Lanois has since grown tobe pigeonholed as carrying a distinct style, sometimes one predictable and cliched despite its majestic splendor. Heavy on reverb, slapback echo and other atmospheric touches like so many other Lanois works, 1989's Oh Mercy was nonetheless the tonic needed to bring life to some of the simplest, yet genuinely heartfelt collection of songs Dylan had written since Slow Train Coming.
Recorded down in New Orleans, the meticulously crafted Oh Mercy
could have been even strong had it not omitted the marvelous "Dignity"
and "Series of Dreams" and a few others that were carried over to later
albums. There were still clunkers on this
"comeback" disc - "Disease of Conceit" and "Where Teardrops Fall"
particularly - and tracks that could have been more special and
developed than their recordings would present ("Ring Them Bells") but
overall, relatonship compositions such as "Shooting Star," "Most of
Time" and "What Good Am I?" were nearly the equal of his Blood on the Tracks
confessionionals. It is possible he was still singing about Sara in
some form or another, as the songs evoke the heartbreak of long lost
love. Dylan found new ways at painting blackness in song with the
mysterious "Man in the Long Black Coat" and "What Was it You Wanted?"
This foreshadowed how that ability would serve to revive his career.
Heading
into the 90s on a high, it would have been wise for Dylan to have taken
into consideration not releasing an album every year or so which could
allow for backlog of quality. Instead, being the relentless workaholic he was, Dylan soldiered on and followed up Oh Mercy with the confusing Under the Red Sky, an album so wildly inconsistent it led to the belief that Oh Mercy
was a fluke and the brainchild of Lanois moreso than Dylan, even though
that wasn't quite true. This time, Bob let superstar producer Don Was
take the reins, hoping for Was to rub off on him the way he had for
Bonnie Raitt's major comeback hit Nick of Time
the year prior. But Was's adherence to a beefy classic rock sound
wasn't becoming of Dylan at this stage in his career and paramount to
all that, the songs were a weaker batch.
There
was head scratching and dismay over seemingly child-like tracks all
over the letdown LP, but that was alleviated in later years when it was
speculated that this album was his attempt at writing nursery rhyme
songs for his then 4-year old daughter- one the public was unaware of at
the time. The speculation was borne out of the album being dedicated to
"Gabby Goo Goo" in the liner notes. These nursery rhymes were nothing
major though, being the amiable but ultimately mediocre "Wiggle Wiggle,"
"2 x 2," "Cat's in the Well" and "Handy Dandy." At other points Dylan
sang generic blues-rockers but struck a deeper nerve with his more
serious fare, which is actually the only thing preventing Under the Red Skyfrom being worse than Knocked Out Loaded. It's the title track, "God Knows" and "Born in Time" that resemble anything close to what Oh Mercy offered. Otherwise, Under the Red Sky
is a better produced, but ultimately unsatisfying retread of his 80s
mediocrity, filled with similar all-star ensembles (Get a load of this
roster: Jimmy and Stevie Ray Vaughn, David Crosby, George Harrison,
Bruce Hornsby, Elton John, Waddy Watchtel and Slash).
With
all that talent it wasn't much to get excited about considering they
were backing unremarkable Dylan compositions, sung half-heartedly and
rather weakly even for his standards. A year later came the first three discs of The Bootleg Series,
an ongoing, eye-opening insight into how prolific Dylan had been,
revealing even that he contributed some great songs in the 80s but
decided to leave them off his albums. His early folk era was covered by
Volume 1 and just his first couple of years in the industry provided a
dizzying amount of vault material. Volume 2 looked at his formative
electric years right up to Blood on the Tracks. Disc 3 was the biggest revelation of all, showing that in his pre-90s, post-Blood on the Tracks
era of drought, he could still create incredible chestnuts like
"Angelina," "Foot of Pride," "Blind Willie McTell" and "Series of
Dreams," four tracks better than anything on his worst four albums of
the 1980-90.
Throughout
all this, Dylan was touring constantly but often failing to light the
embers of his former masterful artistic fire. If anything though, Bob
was going to work like a dog through whatever doubts people had about
him. 1992
brought a 30th anniversary in showbiz tribute concert thrown by CBS,
Columbia Records' parent company. The show, held at New York's Madison
Square Garden, didn't reveal many top flight performances outside of
Neil Young and Lou Reed and the all-star finale was a letdown especially
with Dylan off-rhythmically mumbling, growling and wheezing through a
verse of "My Back Pages." Its most memorable moment might have been
non-musical as Sinead O'Connor, then embroiled in a controversy for
tearing up the pope's picture on TV, was booed off stage before she
could perform Bob Marley's "War" (and was consoled in her distraught
state by Kris Kristofersson, who quipped "Don't let the bastards get you
down").
Despite
the adulation and respect pouring in from his label and his musician
peers, the consensus with many critics and fans was that his best was
gone, he had nothing much left to give. Facing his first serious bout of
writer's block in 20 years, Bob retreated to his roots for two folk
cover records, 1992's Good as I Been to You and 1993's World Gone Wrong.
Having barely arranged music just for vocal, guitar and harmonica since
the mid-70s, it promised to at least be something different from the
expected. Both were rather lo-fi for the day, merely being laid down by
Dylan on a home four-track recorder with the same guitar and its old,
worn strings. Troughing through his incomparable knowledge and
repertoire of traditional folk and blues, Good as I Been to You
may not have been Dylan at his best vocally or performance-wise but it
was a reminder of the young troubadour, wowing the patrons of the
Greenwich Village coffee clubs. It had plenty of lighthearted whimsy and
grease to it, specifically with "Frankie and Albert," "Sitting on Top
of the World," and even the children's rhyme "Froggie Went-a Courtin'."
But the darker, more harsh realities of love and life were echoed in the best covers of the album- "Little Maggie" and "Black Jack Davey" for instance. It was with this bleaker side that Dylan ran with for World Gone Wrong, a reserved, subtle "fire and brimstone" affair that resembled Dylan's dim worldview of his Christian period, only this time applied to arrangements much less dense and more time honoured. It was hailed as a minor masterpiece, and finds Dylan evoking the dusty roads, plantations, run-down rural scenes and tragic realities of Depression era America. Coming off more like an old, wise traveller than a bitter, God-fearing codger has been Dylan's metier ever since. After World Gone Wrong, Time Out of Mind was the true major comeback that stuck. 2001's Love and Theft stands as the crowned jewel of this renaissance that continues on to this day. As for World Gone Wrong, it brought weary, bluesy, coal-dusted humanity back to Dylan's lexicon and was arguably his best album overall since Desire (where have we hard that before?). With fabulous numbers like the title cut, "Blood in My Eyes," "Love Henry," "Jack-A-Roe" and "Lone Pilgrim," Dylan enjoyed a surprisingly natural album than almost anything he'd done since the 70s.On World Gone Wrong, the organic and satisfying progression up from Good As I Been, Dylan stood like one of the aged, experienced Delta blues giants he had always tried to replicate.
Following this, Dylan began to restore his reputation as a must-see touring act by working for years with a reliable core of musicians. He quit his worrying drinking habit and started writing again, allowing for a freshness not seen in years. Bob still pulls out crazy moves like his recent Christmas album- albeit, done for charity- and he can still confuse and bewilder in concert, but overall he has learned how to hit his senior years gracefully. The middle aged years were no picnic but it took a real time of reflection for Dylan to recover his mantle. He also understands how to spread out his releases, to pile up quality songs, though he was on a real tear by following up 2006's Modern Times with Together Through Life under 3 years later. But if his years on this earth are now down to a mere decade or two, every music fanatic can be grateful that he stepped up his game one last time, for however long it lasted. God willing, he will be providing music for a lot while longer because if he can continue his post mid-life renaissance, the end of his glory is far from near.
But the darker, more harsh realities of love and life were echoed in the best covers of the album- "Little Maggie" and "Black Jack Davey" for instance. It was with this bleaker side that Dylan ran with for World Gone Wrong, a reserved, subtle "fire and brimstone" affair that resembled Dylan's dim worldview of his Christian period, only this time applied to arrangements much less dense and more time honoured. It was hailed as a minor masterpiece, and finds Dylan evoking the dusty roads, plantations, run-down rural scenes and tragic realities of Depression era America. Coming off more like an old, wise traveller than a bitter, God-fearing codger has been Dylan's metier ever since. After World Gone Wrong, Time Out of Mind was the true major comeback that stuck. 2001's Love and Theft stands as the crowned jewel of this renaissance that continues on to this day. As for World Gone Wrong, it brought weary, bluesy, coal-dusted humanity back to Dylan's lexicon and was arguably his best album overall since Desire (where have we hard that before?). With fabulous numbers like the title cut, "Blood in My Eyes," "Love Henry," "Jack-A-Roe" and "Lone Pilgrim," Dylan enjoyed a surprisingly natural album than almost anything he'd done since the 70s.On World Gone Wrong, the organic and satisfying progression up from Good As I Been, Dylan stood like one of the aged, experienced Delta blues giants he had always tried to replicate.
Following this, Dylan began to restore his reputation as a must-see touring act by working for years with a reliable core of musicians. He quit his worrying drinking habit and started writing again, allowing for a freshness not seen in years. Bob still pulls out crazy moves like his recent Christmas album- albeit, done for charity- and he can still confuse and bewilder in concert, but overall he has learned how to hit his senior years gracefully. The middle aged years were no picnic but it took a real time of reflection for Dylan to recover his mantle. He also understands how to spread out his releases, to pile up quality songs, though he was on a real tear by following up 2006's Modern Times with Together Through Life under 3 years later. But if his years on this earth are now down to a mere decade or two, every music fanatic can be grateful that he stepped up his game one last time, for however long it lasted. God willing, he will be providing music for a lot while longer because if he can continue his post mid-life renaissance, the end of his glory is far from near.
