Bob Dylan's latest track from an upcoming album

Bill McCloskey · Post by **Bill McCloskey** » 14 May 2014 5:00 am

Apparently Dylan is working on an album of covers. Here is the first track released. Lots of pedal steel on it:

http://www.bobdylan.com/de/home

Joachim Kettner · Post by **Joachim Kettner** » 14 May 2014 5:24 am

The link didn't work for me, so here's another one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNy4CPyFbIs
The steel playing reminds me of B.J. Cole.

Andy Volk · Post by **Andy Volk** » 14 May 2014 7:47 am

With all due respect to Dylan for his seminal cultural role and his songwriting, I despise his singing. A friend and I used to joke about a hypothetical "Dylan on Broadway" album where he would do tunes like Maria, The Lonely Goatherd, and I could have danced all night. This is frighteningly way too close to that gag.

Alan Brookes · Post by **Alan Brookes** » 14 May 2014 9:22 am

Back in 1961 I bought Dylan's first album, and it was one of the most electrifying albums I had ever heard. The next few albums were also good. Then he started drawling his way through his numbers, destroying the tunes, and showing such contempt for his old numbers that it was an insult to his fans and the audience.
Nevertheless, I've kept buying his albums, and they've gotten progressively worse.

This recording is awful. Where he gets the idea that he can become a 40s crooner is anyone's guess, but he's no Frank Sinatra.

Bill Hatcher · Post by **Bill Hatcher** » 14 May 2014 6:19 pm

actually i think he sounds better on this than some of the live boots i have heard lately. the track is very interesting too. if he is going to cover songs like this...sure is good he is not smaltzing them out like rod stewart. i give dylan a thumbs up.

Jim Cohen · Post by **Jim Cohen** » 14 May 2014 7:30 pm

Wonder what he'd sound like on Autotune...

BTW, who's on steel?

Joachim Kettner · Post by **Joachim Kettner** » 15 May 2014 2:07 am

The "Self Portrait" album featured a few Country covers, later he made two cd's, one of them is "Good As I Been To You", that featured old Folksongs.

Off topic, here's Easy Listening Bob with "Wigwam":
Number nine in Switzerland!
http://www.myvideo.de/watch/9254594/BOB ... nd_version

Andy Volk · Post by **Andy Volk** » 15 May 2014 6:36 am

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUIhVPdwcRA

Mark Eaton · Post by **Mark Eaton** » 15 May 2014 8:02 am

I like to say that having thumbs up or thumbs down on discussions of Dylan's voice is a little bit like baseball fans still arguing about the merits or shortcomings of the designated hitter rule.

The rule was adopted by the American League in 1973, and is long water under the bridge, but I'll be in a sports bar having a beer and some pretzels while a game is on one of the televisions and there will be guys discussing the rule and how it takes strategy out of the game and so on.

People have been either ragging on, or defending Dylan's voice prior to the DH rule, going back to the '60s. It's obvious that Bob doesn't have a voice that the typical college music professor would grade very highly during a vocal recital. But he's still Bob Dylan, an entity unto himself.

In this one sample from the new covers album he seems to have harnessed some control over the "croakiness" he has exhibited so often in the past 10 to 15 years.

My wife and I saw him about 1 1/2 years ago at the Greek Theater in Berkeley. Sometimes it would take about 30 seconds into a song before you recognized what it was he was singing. We would look at each other and laugh! But he was still great, and he hasn't lost the songwriting gene. There are some gems on albums from fairly recent recordings and going back to the '90s.

And his band - those guys are a crack outfit. Man can they play.

I'll have to hear more of the new album before I decide if it's going to join "the cast of thousands" on my living room CD racks.

Pete Finney · Post by **Pete Finney** » 15 May 2014 11:43 am

I'd bet it's Don Herron on steel; he's been touring and recording with Dylan for years, playing steel, fiddle and banjo.

Sounds like him too. Great guy, great musician, formerly a member of BR549 with Chuck Mead.

Mark Eaton · Post by **Mark Eaton** » 15 May 2014 12:01 pm

Yeah Pete, and Donnie is great with Dylan. He and Charlie Sexton on electric guitar pack a serious one-two punch.

That band can really bring it.

Erv Niehaus · Post by **Erv Niehaus** » 15 May 2014 12:17 pm

I wonder who ever told Dylan that he could sing.

Ken Pippus · Post by **Ken Pippus** » 15 May 2014 12:26 pm

Woody Guthrie, Erv.

Erv Niehaus · Post by **Erv Niehaus** » 15 May 2014 1:56 pm

Barry Blackwood · Post by **Barry Blackwood** » 16 May 2014 9:16 am

With all due respect to Dylan for his seminal cultural role and his songwriting, I despise his singing. A friend and I used to joke about a hypothetical "Dylan on Broadway" album where he would do tunes like Maria, The Lonely Goatherd, and I could have danced all night. This is frighteningly way too close to that gag.

I wonder who ever told Dylan that he could sing.

This recording is awful. Where he gets the idea that he can become a 40s crooner is anyone's guess, but he's no Frank Sinatra.

Wonder what he'd sound like on Autotune...

It's obvious that Bob doesn't have a voice that the typical college music professor would grade very highly during a vocal recital.

Y'know, I feel the same way about Willie Nelson singing standards like "Stardust" etc. yet nobody ever seems to publicly rank him and the Stardust album sold grillions and won awards. I don't get it..

$:\$

Alan Brookes · Post by **Alan Brookes** » 16 May 2014 9:48 am

Ken Pippus wrote:Woody Guthrie, Erv.

Woody was a captive audience at the time.

He was glad to have visitors to chat with, and he's hardly likely to have discouraged a young guy who was such a fan of his.

Joachim Kettner · Post by **Joachim Kettner** » 16 May 2014 11:07 am

Would you want Bob to sing like them?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmkdDnKzKfQ

Tom Margulies · Post by **Tom Margulies** » 16 May 2014 7:43 pm

I love this thread.

Lane Gray · Post by **Lane Gray** » 17 May 2014 2:57 am

Joachim, even though Tom laid out on it, I like the way Buck did that one, we're using it next Saturday

https://youtube.com/watch?v=gHnpJJ_4FC0

Joachim Kettner · Post by **Joachim Kettner** » 17 May 2014 3:30 am

Lane, I didn't know that he recorded that song, thanks.

Pete Finney · Post by **Pete Finney** » 17 May 2014 7:56 am

...even though Tom laid out on it, I like the way Buck did that one...

A minor detail, for what it's worth:

By the time Buck Owens cut that Dylan song Tom Brumley had been out of the Buckaroos for several years, Jaydee Maness had also come and gone, and it was after the handful of records that Buddy Emmons played on. There wasn't much steel on any Buck records at that point.

Lane Gray · Post by **Lane Gray** » 17 May 2014 8:09 am

I'd seen something implying it was 64. But it did sound kinda later.

Mark Eaton · Post by **Mark Eaton** » 17 May 2014 9:07 am

I have that Buck Owens album on vinyl though it's buried out in my series of vinyl records boxes in the garage, but I did find the information on line. It's from Buck's album of mostly pop/rock covers in 1971 entitled Bridge Over Troubled Water.

No steel player listed in the personnel, not really a Buckaroos effort though Don Rich is on there.

Dylan released "Love Minus Zero/No Limit" on Bringing It All Back Home in 1965.

scott murray · Post by **scott murray** » 17 May 2014 10:00 am

Y'know, I feel the same way about Willie Nelson singing standards like "Stardust" etc. yet nobody ever seems to publicly rank him and the Stardust album sold grillions and won awards. I don't get it.. $:\$

oh Willie gets it too:
http://steelguitarforum.com/Forum10/HTML/002569.html

i love em both, and they seem to have done alright for themselves despite the criticism

Barry Blackwood · Post by **Barry Blackwood** » 17 May 2014 11:57 am

I have no issue with Willie or any other singer until they go "out of genre." Kind of like Beverly Sills sings Kitty Wells...