Newsletter
Subscribe to our
FREE newsletter now!

Find out more...

30/01/2006

Dylan and Gospel

by Mike Ollier:

The ‘gospel years’ are much maligned; there is some classic Dylan in amongst it. This period is generally accepted to feature the albums “Slow Train Coming,” “Saved” and “Shot Of Love”, but there are also echoes on his secular albums either side of this triumvirate, “Street Legal” and “Infidels.”

“Slow Train Coming,” like most latter-day Dylan albums, has some very good and some equally bad material, but CD programming was invented for this! Side one of the LP version is very good, and features a couple of tracks that are way up there in Dylan’s canon, if you care to ignore the sermonising. Opener “Gotta Serve Somebody” is a decent track, but is spoiled by the heavy sermonising which doesn’t bode well for the rest of the album. Next up is “Precious Angel” which is as good as it gets, not overtly religious - it could just as easily be about a lover in a ‘conventional’ world. One of Bob’s top tracks. It’s even bettered by the following track, “I Believe In You.” Again, it’s obviously a hymn to his God but could just as easily apply to a woman; the track is one of Dylan’s most beautiful love songs.

The title track is a corker as well. It has some of his most passionate lyrics and some great performances from all involved. Most people dismiss it as ‘God bothering’ but it’s actually a protest song with Dylan’s ire cast at the world at large for allowing famine, death and hypocritical world leaders. An outstanding performance.

Turn the platter over and it takes a turn for the worse, not a sausage worth listening to here, but you can amuse your children with “Man Gave Names To All The Animals.”

The worst of the three so-called gospel albums followed, as Dylan delved deeper into his faith. “Saved” had an awful cover, matched by the songs inside. Only the very good “Solid Rock” and perhaps the acceptable “In The Garden” are worth a listen. It should be in the Guinness Book Of Records as probably the biggest selling album that only had one listen before being filed away. Forever!

“Shot Of Love” could have been worse, and fans were probably expecting it to be after the much-maligned gospel shows and “Saved”. However it was, as they say, a return to form. Like “Slow Train”, it features many good songs and some rubbish, but the good is well worth having.

The cover artwork was, again, pure garbage, but it held some pearls. The title track, a raw, blistering gospel blues with a hefty backing vocal from Clydie King, may not be one his great songs but it does have a passionate, and very listenable, performance.

A cover of The Drifters classic, “Heart Of Mine”, was notable for its guests: Ringo, Ron Wood, Duck Dunn and Willie Smith. It’s a pleasant listen, played with real joy and spirit. The next three tracks are instantly forgettable (including the eponymous, abysmal tribute to Lenny Bruce). The CD adds the rocking “Groom Still Waiting At The Altar,” a driving blues with a great snarling Dylan vocal.

Miss the next track and programme the next three to finish the album. A relaxed “In The Summertime” is a lovely, lazy blues-based song with some perfect Dylan harmonica, and it is matched by the tougher blues swagger of “Trouble” with Dylan spitting the lyric.

But the bin lid is put on all three albums with Dylan’s best song of the decade - “Every Grain Of Sand.” This piano ballad is lyrically superior to anything he had written since “Desire”, has been covered by many artists (most notably Emmylou Harris) and led to the inclusion of an interesting outtake on the first Bootleg album.

So please don’t dismiss the gospel period, there are a clutch of classics in there which stand up with the best of Dylan’s work, and he’s made worse albums than these (hello “Knocked Out Loaded” ~ though even that contained the stone-wall classic, “Brownsville Girl”). You could actually make one superb album out of the gems of the gospel period.

[Archives]

[The Dylan Daily Update]

Search entries:

[Daily Update]

[Archives]

Previous entry:
[Gospel Dylan]

Next entry:
[Gospel Dylan again]