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![]() Bob Dylan (from the album Rough and Rowdy Ways available on Columbia Records) (by Bryant Liggett) Bob Dylan has no bad records. If a dozen respected critics have given negative ink to a handful of his records, there’s nine-dozen die-hard fans that think those albums are gold. He is an elder-statesman of advice and opinion as much as he is a game of roulette, a staunch study of the human experience and still one of the most important, and prolific, songwriter in any genre of music, with his latest in Rough and Rowdy Ways another well-tooled notch in a discography that is its own canon. Peel back the onion that is Dylan and you’ll find multiple layers. Looking behind the curtain won’t reveal just a single shadow; Bob Dylan’s admitting his multiple-character self in the lounge-opener, “I Contain Multitudes”, where Bob is a romantic poet, a Nazi-fighting archaeologist, and a fan of Mick and Keef. “False Prophet” is a swaying, dirty Blues cut where Dylan continues his self-admissions, and the tear-jerker “I’ve Made Up My Mind To Give Myself To You” is a loving ballad driven by his gritty croon. Bob Dylan swings on “Goodbye Jimmy Reed”, using lines like ‘you won’t amount to much, the people all said, cause I didn’t play guitar behind my head’ as a reminder that he has never needed visual theatrics to put on a show. The album closer in “Murder Most Foul” is a near 17-minute epic of bare instrumentation with a spoken word feel. Five verses that start on a Dallas day in 1963 give way to dozens of song references that narrate the world at its best and worst, where ugly news, world-wide critique and drops of iconic pop culture are delivered by a pop-culture icon. (by Bryant Liggett) Listen and buy the music of Bob Dylan from the AMAZON For more information, please visit the Bob Dylan website
1 Comment
7/13/2020 07:29:39 pm
Now that is some classic Dylan! I think it's great. I'm going to find the whole album and give it a listen. I'm sure it'll be awesome. Thanks for the review! :)
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