Man, I so did not get Dylan when I was growing up. Pegged him with all the clichés, primarily the “dude can’t sing” dismissal. And I found him a little boring. Now mind you, we’re talking mid 70’s here, so when set against, say, Kiss, Elton John and Aerosmith, Dylan came off as a tad, well, not that. His dandy days were well behind him at that point and this suburban kid wasn’t in a place where, at 15, I could truly appreciate and assimilate “Blood On The Tracks”. Now, Kiss’ “Destroyer”? Different story.
Anyway, all you really need to know when it comes to a Dylan compilation is what the track listing looks like. It looks a little somethin’ like this…
Side 1
1. Things Have Changed
2. A Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall
3. It Ain’t Be Babe
4. Subterranean Homesick Blues
5. Positively 4th Street
Side 2
6. Highway 61 Revisited
7. Rainy Day Women #12 And #35
8. I Want You
9. I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight
10. Quinn The Eskimo (The Mighty Quinn)
Side 3
11. Simple Twist Of Fate
12. Hurricane
13. Changing Of The Guards
Side 4
14. License To Kill
15. Silvio
16. Dignity
17. Not Dark Yet
Yep, that’s a pretty great track listing. This is either a UK or Dutch pressing, but not exactly sure of the origin. Again, this is pretty tough to turn up, especially sealed. So hence the lofty $100 price tag.
Musicstack…http://bit.ly/wvzeKN
Gemm…http://bit.ly/yeWjyN
If you repeat that “dude can’t sing” argument long enough, it will eventually hold some water. Why, just last year I witnessed Dylan grunting and groaning his way through a performance at the Ryman Auditorium. If the acoustics in that place can’t make his voice sound good, nothing can.
Yeah, I should have placed some parameters around that statement as, these days (or years…or, well, likely the last decade), I would probably agree that the “dude can’t sing” statement is true. I don’t remember exactly when I last saw him (been at least five years, maybe longer), but I declared then it was my last Dylan show. Now a gig at the Ryman may have drawn me back in. But yeah, if you don’t sound good in that room, you don’t sound good.