History (continued)
At this point in Bobs' his career, his albums became more country influenced which through a number of his fans. The albums John Wesly Harding and Nashville Skyline, (which includes a duet with counry legend Jonny Cash) are distinctly country compared with his previous offerings. His songs were mainly pure love songs, not love/hate or even remotely ironical, they were just love songs. These albums were his reation to the Likes of Sgt Pepper and other highly pyschedelic albums. The like of which he didn't enjoy.
Around this time, Bob suffered a motorcycle accident and almost went into hiding with his young family. The injuries he suffered have never been known and are surrounded in myth. Some say he injured a few vertibrae and some even say that he broke his back. What is clear is that Bob went into deep seclusion in Woodstock and was very rarely seen in public in the next few years.
His neighbours in Woodstock were a band called The Band, and they got together and recorded some material in the basement of Dylans house, which was released some years later (1975) as The Basement Tapes. These were more closly related to The Band than Dylan in terms of sound. It was the sound of six musitions having fun.
Bobs' next 'album', Self Portrait is poorly rated by many of his fans and critics and many of them were loosing faith in his abilities. However thing improved with the release of New Morning. His music the took a slight nose dive with his next two albums Dylan and Planet waves (the only full album recorded with The Band in a studio). Then in1975 came the release of Blood On The Tracks. A classic album in anyones book. The main subject of this album was his split from his wife, and it was filled with passion. Its' one of the best albums ever released by any artist let alone Dylan. I urge anyone who doesn't own it to go and buy it NOW. You'll wonder how you lived without it.
Also released that year apart from The Basement Tapes was Desire, another great album. It included a tribute to Rubin 'Hurricane' Carter, who was wrongly imprisoned for murder and other great songs such as Isis and Sara.
The next twist in the Bob Dylan saga can be heard in his 1979 offering Slow Train Coming. Yes, you are listening to a 'born-again' Dylan. This time however, he's a born again Christian! He certainly doesn't keep things simple does he. This period included another two albums Saved and Shot Of Love, the highlight of which being Every Grain Of Sand from the latter, (an alternate version can be heared on The Bootleg Series Volume Three).
I don't think any artist could move so comfortably from Folk, to Rock n Roll, to Christian music. That is one of the reasons that Dylan is such an original.
Bobs' career took another little dip in the eighties according to the critics (I confess that I have no eighties Dylan albums. I'm only nineteen and so I haven't had time to get any yet, but don't let me put you off, go and buy an eighties Dylan album and judge for youself), but the standard came back up in the ninties. His last offering of the nineties was Time Out Of Mind, which is highly rated, and could rival any of his prvious albums. However, the most important Dylan release of the nineties was probably The Bootleg Series. "If these are the songs he was leaving out, imagine how good the ones he used are!". It's a great chance for any fan to see how his writing and performances have developed over his four decade carrer.
He still hasn't finished though, the 'Never Ending Tour' is thankfully still going, and I've had the chanec to see him twice in the lasy three years. He has recently released a new song Things Have Changed, off the soudtrack for The Wonder Boys. A new 'best of' has recently been released called Essential Dylan or something like that.
The new millenium has started well, and his lastest release Love And Theft keeps up the tradition. The fact that Bob is releasing superb albums at the age of 60 is, like the rest of his life, incredible. Long live Bob
Now I'm pretty much up to date for the moment but please come back in the future to see how this little sight is developing. I'm hoping to get a sort of question and answer thing going so if you have any questions, know any (interesting) trivia about Bob, or have heard any latest new, please email me.
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