I took the advantage of my recent visit to Utrecht's Mega Record and CD Fair to buy some of Dylan's worst albums on CD. Why the worst? you ask. Why do you think? Because I already have his masterpieces, his critically acclaimed and his plain good ones. Time to buy the rest to have the complete discography and an overview of the artist's trajectory. Why on CD? you ask. Duh! because it's cheap! This vinyl LP for example is quite pricey since, in the crazy times we're living, the display of a Dylan vinyl in your living room -preferably casually left lying around- is a sign of sophistication, Nobel prize and all! Who cares what "Dylan and the Dead" sounds like when it has such a cool cover? It's not like you're going to listen to it! Incidentally, I read in a study that 40% of vinyl buyers never listen to the albums they buy (I forget where the sample was taken from, it must have been a real hipster place). Sounds unbelievable - yet often people who aren't surprised to see me carrying vinyl LP's ask me after a short conversation whether I actually own a record player. Duh! what did you think? that I just sit and look at them? Well, maybe I do sometimes, but that's none of your business! It's just that, just by looking at records, the music comes alive in my head. But of course I play them regularly too.
Back to the subject of Dylan's less loved albums - specifically the
live ones. For some reason, his
official live releases gain only fair-to-bad reviews while every new installment of the Bootleg Series is hailed like a lost treasure. I always wondered what is the reason. Was Dylan so
daft that he released the sub-par recordings and kept the good ones on his shelf? Or were the expectations at the time of their release too high, resulting to bad or mediocre reviews? Can't trust reviewers, I have to listen for myself. For example, I happen to love one of Dylan's most maligned live recordings "Live At Budokan". The way he reinvented his songs in that set was a source of amazement, even if the new versions were not as good as the originals. So I had high expectations of his cooperation with The Grateful Dead. How would it affect the songs? And how can the pairing of America's greatest songwriter and a band that has consistently proved capable of onstage magic possibly produce a bad result? Well, first of all, together with Dylan the songwriter you get
Dylan the singer. Never a great vocalist, his performance here is particularly weak. I saw him live around the same period (with his regular band) and he also sounded bored and disinterested in his own songs. The Dead take a back seat, following Dylan's lead instead of feeding off each other's energy like they usually do in their own concerts. As a result, on tracks like "Queen Jane Approximately" and "Joey" they sound asleep and playing on autopilot. Nobody's favorite Dylan songs, their inclusion would be justified only if the performance was especially strong. Unfortunately that's not the case. Jerry Garcia's fluid guitarwork is probably the record's only redeeming feature - save of course for the songs. Even so, a classic love song like "I Want You" is sung by Dylan as if he wants to punish his older self by butchering his songs. The band plays it a bit too fast, but that's the least of its problems. On the bright side the two songs from his "Christian" period "Slow Train" and "Gotta Serve Somebody" roll along with a relaxed country funk rhythm, almost J.J. Cale-like, while "All Along the Watchtower" is given an energetic hard rock twist that suits it well. The record closes with crowd pleaser "Knockin' On Heaven's Door" which, while not actually bad, is inferior to other versions - even Guns 'n' Roses did a better job with it. And
that's all - just
7 songs of which only 3 or 4 are any good. I know they played more than 20 songs in that tour, some multiple times and some only once or twice. So the compilers had
a lot of material to choose from, I just
can't believe this is the best they could do. I mean there's stuff off that tour on youtube that would sound way better than what's in here, if properly cleaned and processed - so
yes, maybe Dylan
is so daft (or such a
sadist) to keep the good stuff on the shelf and release anything he fancies for whatever reason. I mean, if there's
one musician whose mind is impossible to fathom, that's Dylan. Maybe it's time for another installment of the Bootleg Series to restore the reputation of this line-up. Until then, this is a tour souvenir that will
not satisfy the fans of either Dylan or The Grateful Dead. Even if, like me, you're prepared to acknowledge
some virtues, it is at best an unnecessary record.
*** for Slow Train, Gotta Serve Somebody, All Along The Watchtower, Knockin' On Heaven's Door
** for I Want You, Queen Jane Approximately, Joey
