All along the watchtower (Bob Dylan) (LP 2452 - 2456)

Bob Dylan  Infidels (Vinyl, CBS Records, 1983) ****  

Bob Dylan  Real Live (Vinyl, CBS Records, 1984) **** 

Bob Dylan and The Grateful Dead  Dylan & The Dead (CD, CBS Records, 1989) ****   

Bob Dylan  Time Out Of Mind (CD, CBS Records, 1997) ***

Bob Dylan  Rough And Rowdy Ways (CD, CBS Records, 2020) ****  

Genre: pop rock 

Places I remember: Marbecks Records, Record Fair (Real Live), JB Hi Fi, Lindsay Hope collection (Time Out Of Mind).

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Jokerman (Infidels) 

Gear costume: Tangled Up In Blue (Real Live); Knockin' On Heaven's Door (Dylan & The Dead); Crossing The Rubicon (Rough and Rowdy Ways) 

Active compensatory factors: Dylan's eighties albums are spotty. I loved Infidels and it survived a cull as I weeded out things like Empire Burlesque.

Infidels has great support from Mick Taylor, Sly and Robbie and Mark Knopfler. So, it sounds good, has melodic songs and, in Jokerman, a Dylan classic. It was the video that alerted me to it in the first place, but most of the album holds up - I and I, Don't Fall Apart On Me Tonight and License To Kill are all good songs.

The Real Live album came from the tour supporting Infidels and Mick Taylor stayed onboard for it. Most of the album comes from a Wembley date and the rest from UK gigs. 

It includes muscular versions of songs as far back as Masters Of War and songs from Highway 61 Revisited, plus some fine acoustic renditions - Tangled Up In Blue being a most excellent version.

By the end of the eighties Dylan was on tour with The Grateful Dead supporting and then backing him. Critics didn't like it much but I really do.

It helps that I like both artists. I like the slower pace and Grateful Dead touches to songs we all know and love (all seven songs on the album come from the sixties or seventies albums).

Into the nineties with Time Out Of Mind. I used to have a copy but sold it, then I inherited a second copy from Lindsay's collection. It's okay but his voice is hard for me to take. It does have some good moments - Love Sick, Cold Irons Bound, Not Dark Yet, But overall it doesn't excite me. Plus, I'm not a huge fan of Daniel Lanois' production style.

That was it for me and Dylan I thought, but then I heard Crossing The Rubicon on a Mojo sampler and thought it was brilliant. So, I decided to grab a copy, even though I didn't think much of Murder Most Foul. when I first heard it - it's grown on me since.

His voice is terrific on Rough And Rowdy Ways - deep and resonating, echoing down through the years, back to a nineteen-year-old folk singer who was wise and old before his time. He contains multitudes!

The backing is also brilliant - sympathetic, sparse, deep and resonating. 

Where do they all belong? That concludes the Dylan collection. Next up: Edward Bear. Yes, I have that kind of collection.