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Bob Dylan, still rollin'

By Maxwell Webster | The News Record (University of Cincinnati)

Published: Thursday, November 5, 2009

The standing room only crowd was a mixed up bunch. Burnt out hipsters looking for that one last hit of nostalgia, glossy-eyed college students, mop-headed teenagers, clusters of oxford clad businessmen, haggard old groupies and the just plain curious. The delegates of three generations crammed together on the floor of Columbus' Lifestyle Communities Pavilion Tuesday, Nov. 3, waiting for Rock and Roll's poet laureate to step onto the stage.

When Dylan finally emerged dressed in a black suit with a pink shirt, tie and tuxedo stripe and a wide-brimmed black top hat, the crowd erupted and Dylan wasted no time diving straight into a 17- song tour de force.

It becomes obvious when he begins that this isn't the Bob Dylan of the '60s - alone on a stage strumming an acoustic guitar, whining out folk songs. For one thing, Dylan's voice has become so faint that it's impossible for him to hit the notes that trademarked his early sound. You can see right away that the band's hardline blues drive is meant to work with Dylan's vocal regression.

The days of Dylan playing guitar through an entire set are also gone. Only a few times did he venture out from behind his keyboard and only once did he pick up a guitar.

With that said, the performance was nothing short of spectacular. Dylan might be 68, but he plays like a man possessed: jerking, grimacing, stomping, twisting and grinning with every note he pounded on his keys. It isn't the unbelievable stage raving antics of Mick Jagger, but Dylan is still sharp enough to work the crowd with every move he makes.

And although Dylan's voice now is something like marbles rattling inside a tin can, he's done a fantastic job rearranging his songs so they'll work with his vocal range. Classics like "All Along the Watchtower" and "Like a Rolling Stone" may be altered, but in such a way that their power is not lost.

Like any good show, though, the performance was a reflection of the crowd and they couldn't have been better. It's a peculiar thing, but somewhere in the middle of the set you are forced to realize that the crowd is just full of love and appreciation for this man. Shouts of, "Bobby D we love you!" and "Anything for you Bob!" seem to fall on deaf ears during the performance, with Dylan hardly lifting an eye in the crowds direction. But by the time the encore rolled around he couldn't help but smile back and the crowd's clamoring was finally answered when he said, "Thank You friends."

And let's not forget about the band, on their own they would be a show worth going to. Lead guitarist Johnny Sexton's fingers danced over the fret board and he squeezed every last drop out of his solos.

With the last round of "How does it feel," as Dylan took a bow and blew a kiss to his adoring fans, I was forced to wonder what has made this man the preeminent voice of American music for 50 years. The answer has to be that in every song the listener can see themselves: their own reality and their own dreams reflected and immortalized in a way that they could never communicate before.

An A+ to Dylan and to us, the fans, together through it all.

From Daily Gleaner

by Wilfred Langmaid

There will surely be people who hear the news that Bob Dylan's 47th and latest album is a Christmas offering and be filled with amusement and disbelief.

These people will then listen to Christmas In the Heart - a blend of 15 secular and sacred pieces done up in a pre-rock-era style and featuring Dylan's gnarly bleat of a voice front and centre in the mix - and be even more turned off.

These people just don't get it.

At its core, Christmas In the Heart is simply the latest of Bob Dylan's albums of the last dozen years which strip off all the veneer of being current and timely, harkening back instead to the very roots of music of the pre-war era. That his lived-in voice really is a perfect fit for the loose, limber, spare, and ably executed spin on roots music, which is Dylan of the last many years, is a bonus.

In the process, Christmas In the Heart is a perfect time capsule for the Christmas album/holiday season song phenomenon of the last 60 years - at least for my time capsule.

The central premise is that Dylan is the single-most significant musical figure of his lifetime. He revolutionized and popularized two musical idioms - first folk and then rock - in the first decade of his career.

If anything, this last decade of a 50-year career has been his most consistent decade since those halcyon days.

By its very nature, lacking the self-penned lyrics which are the diamonds among Dylan's jewelry, this album must be seen for what it is. It is certainly not the masterwork of his trilogy of comeback albums - 1997's Time Out Of Mind, 2001's Love And Theft, and 2006's Modern Times - or even the great collaboration with lyricist Robert Hunter, Together Through Life, from earlier this year.

At its very core, this album displays Dylan's sense of whimsy. However, it is anything but a contrived kick at the commercial can for a late-in-his-career nostalgia act. In fact, royalties from the sales of Christmas In The Heart will be donated to Feeding America in perpetuity.

So, yes, Christmas In The Heart is in substance and structure one of many yuletide albums by a veteran artist that will be coming out in these next few weeks. However, it is most accurately and tellingly understood as a cover album in the same seminal vein of fusing the roots of pop, rock, folk, blues, and related idioms of North American popular music of Dylan since Time Out Of Mind.

Granted, some of the moments work better than others; the actual carols are the most wobbly entries.

However, the best moments - rollicking treatments of songs like Here Comes Santa Claus and Must Be Santa, spare crooners like Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas and I'll Be Home For Christmas, and the cover most akin to his originals of the last dozen years The Christmas Blues - are wonderful.

All in all, this is a fun experiment that always charms and often dazzles.

Fredericton-based freelance writer Wilfred Langmaid has reviewed albums in The Daily Gleaner since 1981, and is a past judge for both the Junos and the East Coast Music Awards. His column appears each Saturday.