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.

New morning (Bob Dylan) (LP 2437 - 2446)

Bob Dylan   New Morning (Vinyl, CBS Records, 1970) ***  

Bob Dylan   Pat Garrett & Billy The Kid (Vinyl and CD, CBS Records, 1973) ****  

Bob Dylan   Planet Waves (Vinyl and CD, Asylum Records, 1974) ****  

Bob Dylan/ The Band   Before The Flood (Vinyl, Asylum Records, 1974) ***** 

Bob Dylan   Blood On the Tracks (Vinyl and CD, CBS Records, 1975) *****  

Bob Dylan   More Blood, More Tracks - The Bootleg Series Vol 14 (CD, Columbia Records, 2018) *****  

Bob Dylan   Bob Dylan Live 1975 - The Bootleg Series Vol 5 (2CD, Columbia Records, 2002) *****  

Bob Dylan   Bob Dylan - The Rolling Thunder Revue: The 1975 Live Recordings (14CD, Columbia Records, 2002) *****  

Bob Dylan   Desire (Vinyl, CBS Records, 1976) ****

Bob Dylan   Live In Colorado 1976 (CD, EMC Music, 2011) ****

Genre: Pop rock

Places I remember: Marbeck's Records, JB Hi-Fi

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Shelter From The Storm (Blood On The Tracks)

Gear costume: Tangled Up In Blue (Blood On The Tracks); The Water Is Wide, Oh Sister (Live 1975)

Active compensatory factors: I was back on board for 1970's New Morning after the dire Self-Portrait and the country croon of Nashville Skyline. New Morning isn't great but it's back to familiar style for me and a lot easier on the ear.

It starts off with If Not For You which is also on George's All Things Must Pass album. I also have Olivia Newton-John's excellent version on a single. After that great start comes some nice songs but nothing brilliant.

His soundtrack for the Sam Peckinpah movie, Pat Garrett & Billy The Kid, is mainly instrumental music but it also contains the brilliant Knockin' On Heaven's Door. 

This is one of my favourite albums. The music perfectly evokes the right atmosphere and has lasted a lot longer than the film (which I've only watched once).

When Bob reunited with the Band, they collaborated on Planet Waves. It's a fun, playful collection. First track is a standout (again). This time it's On A Night Like This that gets the juices flowing.

Unlike the previous couple of albums that had only one really strong song, Planet Waves has a few - apart from On A Night Like This there is You Angel You, and the two different versions of Forever Young.

Dylan was obviously well and truly back as the live album Before The Flood, also from 1974, showed. The album has Dylan in cahoots with The Band again for a live tour and the strong relationship and sympatico arrangements are a feature 0f this landmark double album.

The bonus is that along with Dylan songs, The Band's signature songs are also peppered strategically throughout the set. 

Dylan's acoustic bit in the middle of the set is a standout as well, with a righteous version of It's All Right Ma, I'm Only Bleeding worthy of particular note.

Blood On The Tracks is my favourite Dylan album. I fell for it big time in the late seventies when I borrowed it from the Auckland Library and got Dylan for the first time. That led to borrowing all those early albums.

It's a stunning, perfect album - I could have put any of its tracks in my highlight sections above. Full of passion and full of real Dylan, or as real as we're ever going to get. He's denied they are autobiographical songs but I don't believe him.

Sure, there are elements of invention in Idiot Wind, but its twists and turns, and reference to his sweet lady, ring true for the estranged Sara. As do other songs like If You See Her Say Hello.

The Bootleg Series Vol 14 album provides acoustic versions/takes from the sessions that produced Blood On The Tracks. I've got the double album version - less is more.

It's as stunning as the 'real' album, which goes to show - the songs are the real stars, and that this was a true purple patch.

The Rolling Thunder Revue years (1975 to 1976) are a favourite period for me. Actually, I'm pretty obsessed with the revue and have already mentioned the single album Hard Rain in my blog already.

The double Live in 1975 album is a classic as well, with Joan Baez's duets a stunning highlight.

I also have the 14 disc set which includes all of the performances on that tour during 1975. It's remarkable how consistently brilliant each night is. Dylan is on form every time!

There's also the Netflix documentary (Rolling Thunder Revue - A Bob Dylan Story) that Martin Scorsese put together. It's great too!

That whole revue tour is Dylan in prime condition - enigmatic, masterful, playful, poetic, searching.

Desire contains many of the songs he was singing during the Rolling Thunder Revue. So, Desire includes Hurricane, Oh Sister, Romance In Durango, and Sara (who was still his wife at this point, they would divorce in 1977).

His last great studio album until...(insert your own choice here - mine is Infidels).

Bob Dylan Live In Colorado documents the 1976 part of the Rolling Thunder Revue. Joan appears again, on three tracks, adding her distinctive colouring to Bob's delivery. 

The ragged, jagged delivery of songs like A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall is again the feature, and again - I love it!

I didn't collect any of his other seventies albums at the time. I'm not sure why, and I haven't back tracked to buy Street Legal, Slow Train Coming, Saved, or Shot Of Love.

Where do they all belong? Next up is the post 70's material.

Baby, let me follow you down (Bob Dylan) (LP 2424 -2434)

Bob Dylan  Bob Dylan (Vinyl, CBS Records, 1962) *****  

Bob Dylan  The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan (Vinyl, CBS Records, 1963) *****  

Bob Dylan  The Times They Are A-Changin' (Vinyl, CBS Records, 1964) *****  

Bob Dylan  Another Side Of Bob Dylan (Vinyl, CBS Records, 1964) ***** 

Bob Dylan   The Bootleg Series Vol 6 - Bob Dylan Live 1964 (2CD, Columbia Records, 2010) *****  

Bob Dylan  Bringing It All Back Home (Vinyl, CBS Records, 1965) ***** 

Bob Dylan  Highway 61 Revisited (CD, CBS Records, 1965) *****  

Bob Dylan  Blonde On Blonde (Vinyl and CD, CBS Records, 1966) **** 

Bob Dylan  Bootleg Series Vol 4 - Bob Dylan Live 1966 (2CD, Columbia Records, 1998) *****  

Bob Dylan  Bootleg Series Vol 11 - Bob Dylan and The Band - The Basement Tapes Raw (2CD, Columbia Records, 2014) ***  

Bob Dylan  John Wesley Harding (Vinyl, CBS Records, 1967) *****  

Genre: folk, pop/rock 

Places I remember: Marbecks Records, Real Groovy Records, JB Hi Fi

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Song To Woody (Bob Dylan)

Gear costume: Motorpsycho Nightmare (Another Side Of Bob Dylan); I Don't Believe You (Live 1964); Ballad Of A Thin Man (Highway 61 Revisited)

Active compensatory factors: I've divided my Dylan collection up into decades for this run through. Kind of. The eighties onwards will form one post.

By far the biggest cache comes from his sixties period I see - which tells you a story about my Dylan collection and the fact that I don't count Dylan among my obsessions. Buying Self-Portrait cured me of any such thoughts (I no longer own it!)

I don't even own everything he put out in the sixties, but it's close.

It was borrowing a number of his album from the Auckland Central Library while I was an undergraduate at Auckland University that started the ball rolling and woke me up to his genius.

Another Side of Bob Dylan, Freewheelin', The Times They Are A-Changin', and Blood On The Tracks (which we'll get to in the seventies post) formed my initial education.

From there I backtracked to buy these and his other sixties albums, starting with the debut.

I love that cover image to Bob Dylan. He's got that twice shy, vaguely knowing but faraway look in his eyes right from the off. That helps when you're singing songs like Man Of Constant Sorrow, See That My Grave Is Kept Clean, My Time Of Dyin' and Gospel Plow. Songs that it takes some experience to carry off with conviction. Dylan recorded it in 1961, when he was only 19 years old! Remarkable.

Most of the album is made up of covers of folk songs but two originals shine for me - Song To Woody and Talkin' New York.

The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, his second, is remarkable for being mostly original songs (only Corrina Corrina is by someone else), and for those original songs being brilliant. Blowin' In The Wind, Masters Of War, A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall, Girl From The North Country, Don't Think Twice It's Alright... ridiculous right!

Two quotes from its liner notes bear repeating: 'He's so God-damned real it's unbelievable' (Harry Jackson) and 'Dylan can't stop searching and looking and reflecting upon what he sees and hears' (Nat Hentoff). Absolutely right.

Third album, The Times They Are A-Changin' continued the parade of riches - apart from the title song: With God On Our Side; One Too Many Mornings; North Country Blues; Only A Pawn In Their Game; When The Ship Comes In and The Lonesome Death Of Hattie Carroll are on this album.

Not a lot of humour though (unlike Freewheelin'), this one is a solid wall to wall protest song album. A lot of it is chilling to the bone. The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll for instance is a remarkable work of economy and judgement without being too preachy.

The humour and smile was back from the first track onwards on his fourth album in two years - Another Side Of Bob Dylan. Yes - four classic 5 star albums in two years. Has anyone else ever done that, other than The Beatles and Dylan?

The other side is clearly the light-hearted, casually brilliant side. Again, it's guitar, harmonica, vocals. Simple and devastating!

The Bootleg series will make an appearance throughout these posts when we get to the relevant year. Volume 6 was the 1964 concert and its good humour is a carry over from Another Side Of Bob Dylan.

Again, it's just Bob with his guitar and his harmonica rack doing devastatingly clear versions of songs he's just released, or ones that were yet to be recorded. Another 5 star must have!

Among many great moments is his muffing the intro to I Don't Believe You. He has to ask the audience for help and they do! And then he's off as if nothing happened. Love it!

Another highlight is Joan Baez appearing to duet on some songs at the end of the concert.

Those new songs from the live set would appear on his next studio album - Bringing It All Back Home. Unusually, Side 1 was Bob with a band (not The Band), and Side 2 was acoustic.

It's yet another 5 star classic album - his run would extend to 6 in a row by the end of 1965. Great songs continued to flow, seemingly without too much effort: Love Minus Zero/No Limit; Maggie's Farm, Mr Tambourine Man; It's Alright Ma; It's All Over Now, Baby Blue. 

Not done with all that, for his next trick he produced a song that many believe is the best of all time - Like A Rolling Stone. The lead off song to another magnum opus - Highway 61 Revisited.

The rest of the album lives up to the lead off song. There's Ballad Of A Thin Man, Queen Jane Approximately, It Takes A Lot To Laugh It Takes A Train To Cry, Desolation Row, plus the title track. Another extraordinary set of songs.

In hindsight, each of the sixties albums make progressive leaps forward. Blonde On Blonde is a double album, so has a few songs that I'm not all that keen on, but it still has three sides of brilliance.

The 1966 live set is of historical value. It seems quaint now that anyone should get upset at the band/electric side of Dylan in 1966. I do prefer the acoustic first disc but there is no denying the power and force that hits hard on the second disc.

The basement tapes saga seems overblown to me. I've never understood the fascination with these rehearsal tapes and I defy anyone to listen to the complete tapes on Spotify without skipping. Again, there is the historical value but I don't listen to this CD these days (my copy is the Raw condensed version not the one pictured btw).

Much, much better is the proper album of 1967 - John Wesley Harding. This is brilliant in feel and execution. Darker elements are proposed without compromise. It's almost like he needed to get those basement tape songs and hijinks out of the way before getting down to business.

Where do they all belong? The seventies will follow after a brief return to the jazz CDs.

Not alone anymore (Traveling Wilburys) (LP 873 - 874)

Traveling Wilburys  The Traveling Wilburys Vol. 1  (CD and Vinyl, Wilbury Records, 1988) *****  

Traveling Wilburys  The Traveling Wilburys Vol. 3  (Vinyl, Wilbury Records, 1990) *** 

Genre: Beatles pop/rock (filled under Harrison in my collection)

Places I remember: Marbecks Records; Record store in Nelson for Vol 3.

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Handle Me With Care (featuring Nelson Wilbury)

Gear costume: Not Alone Anymore (featuring Lefty Wilbury)

Active compensatory factors: Growing out of George's need for a B-side following his Cloud Nine album - Handle Me With Care kicked off the whole Traveling Wilbury's schtick. 

The subsequent album called Volume 1 from this multi-national supergroup (Dylan, Petty, Harrison, Orbison, Lynne) was a delightful surprise when it emerged in 1988.

Undisputed star turn of the bunch was Roy Orbison (Lefty Wilbury). His vocals lift every song he approaches on the album. The over-riding feelings throughout are ones of spontaneous joy/happiness/fun/brotherhood (hence the Ramones style names).

They probably had a lot of fun singing and playing together on Volume 3 (there was no Volume 2 from these cheeky chappies) but, compared to Volume 1, it doesn't quite sound like that.

Maybe the fact Roy O had passed away (Lefty had left the building), or maybe because the songs weren't as strong, or maybe second album syndrome or maybe it was because George's songs weren't the lynchpins this time. Maybe all of the above. Who knows. But it wasn't a patch on Volume 1.

Where do they all belong? A lot more than a footnote on their careers - Traveling Wilburys fashioned a really distinctive group sound. That said, it sits at the end of the George Harrison section in my collection.

Awaiting on you all (George Harrison) (LP 811)

George Harrison and Friends  The Concert For Bangla Desh (Vinyl, Apple Records - NZ pressing, 1971) *****  

Genre: Beatle pop/rock

Places I remember: DJ Records (Otahuhu)

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: It Don't Come Easy (Ringo et al)

Gear costume: Here Comes The Sun (George and Pete Ham)

Active compensatory factors: Along with the triple All Things Must Pass, this was easily the most lavish purchase I made as a young teenager back in 1971.

It came in a box for one thing! Wowsers. A triple record set! And it had a big colour 63-page booklet. Ecstasy. And it was on Apple Records! Oh boy! 

It seemed impossible that I could actually own it but yet here it was playing on my Garrard SP 25 Mk 3 turntable in my bedroom at 18 Korma Ave., Auckland, New Zealand.

It's an expansive set that shows George's generosity of spirit - not only for the people of Bangla Desh (that almost goes without saying) but he allows Bob Dylan and Ravi Shankar a third of the triple album, plus Ringo, Leon Russell, and Billy Preston also feature. No hogging the limelight for George - the supposed quiet Beatle who put out two triple albums in the early seventies.

The set itself weaves a certain type of magic over its six sides. It seemed vast to me in 1971 and I was staggered when the film of the concert came out on DVD and they were shown all playing close together on a small stage.

Where do they all belong? It's a landmark benefit concert and although I seldom play it these days, it is a lavish bedrock of my collection.

There but for fortune (Joan Baez) (LP 406)

Joan Baez Joan Baez/5 (Vinyl, Vanguard, 1964) ***

Genre: Folk

Places I remember: Chaldon Books and Records (Caterham on the hill)

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: There But For Fortune




Gear costume:  It Ain't me, Babe, I Still Miss Someone 

Active compensatory factors: When Joan is on form - There But For Fortune, there is no one to touch her. This record is worth whatever I paid for it (actually I know it was seven pound 50p) just for that one song.

Within that one interpretation, there's sincerity, clear vision, pathos, expressiveness without sentimentality.

Langston Hughes in his liner notes to this album says: when something is arty, it is held in the hand and looked at with conceit. But when something is art, it is the hand.

I think he'd just heard There But For Fortune when he composed that pithy remark.

The rest of the album has huge variety, with Joan taking on Dylan and Johnny Cash (successfully) and some old English ballads and a Brasileiras (less successfully to my ears). 

In the middle ground are songs like Stewball (daft song about a horse that The Hollies also had a go at) and Richard Farina's Birmingham Sunday.


Where do they all belong? In the end, it's There But For Fortune that wins the day.

I threw it all away (Bob Dylan) (LP 324)

Bob Dylan Hard Rain (Vinyl and CD, 1976) *****

Genre:  American pop/rock 

Places I remember: Marbecks Records (Auckland)  

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Shelter From The Storm




Gear costume:  Everything else.

Active compensatory factors: Hard Rain is from 1976's Rolling Thunder Revue. Compare this to the fuller Rolling Thunder Revue concert found on the Bootleg series Vol 5 (Live 1975) and experience the difference. 

The light and airy atmosphere from 1975 is replaced by brooding malevolence in Hard Rain. The face makeup, cool hat and feathers have been replaced by scraggy beard and gypsy scarf! 

Stripped back from the artiface, the single version is raw power (and  that gets dissipated over a double CD anyway). 

The versions here are well chosen - there's a snarl, snap, crackle about Idiot Wind that is largely kept in check on the studio version from Blood on the Tracks. Each song has been deconstructed, rearranged and then punk'd up into a rolling thunder menace. 

This is the Dylan album I want! It sits alongside John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band, Neil Young's Tonight's the Night in the honest emotion charts.

Where do they all belong? Less is more. We now have a multi CD pack with a variety of RTR concerts to experience, but I'll be sticking with the brutal Hard Rain.

Forever Young (Bob Dylan and The Band) (LP 112)

The Band The Last Waltz (CD - Warner Brothers, 1978) *****

Genre: Canadian pop/ rock

Places I remember: The Warehouse CD copy replaced the cassette tape that (I think) Greg Knowles gave me.

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Who Do You Love (with Ronnie Hawkins) gets the set off to a storming start after the haunting Theme from The Last Waltz. Big time Bill! Big Time!




Gear costume: Plenty of other gear highlights - maybe the best Band moment is one of my favs - Life Is A Carnival. At the time, Greg and I were very taken with Van the man's spots as well.

Active compensatory factors: G.K. and I went and saw the movie in Queen Street while we were at Auckland University. I had the tape for years, thanks to him, but when I saw it going cheap at The Warehouse, I couldn't resist an upgrade. It is a classic, after all! 

The set shows off the best of both The Band as The Band and how great they were as a band, backing other talented individuals.

The special guests are very very special and his Bobness is in prime form. 

All that and Levon Helm has surely one of the best voices in rock and roll.

Only down point (still) for me is Neil Diamond. Levon was right, Robbie - you shoulda nixed that one.

Where do they all belong? As a high water mark for the seventies, it's pretty much untouchable. 

Endless Highway (The Band) (LP 88)

The Band Live At Watkins Glen (CD - Capitol, 1995) **

Genre: Canadian rock

Places I remember: Kings Recording - Abu Dhabi.

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Up On Cripple Creek - Levon Helm in fine form!




Gear costume: Don't Ya Tell Henry

Active compensatory factors: I've deducted a point for the fraudulent nature of this collection. A few tracks are from the actual concert but the vast majority are studio outtakes with an audience noise super imposed over them.

Crazy! The music is okay and my two featured tracks are the pick of the bunch but really...how cynical are Capitol records?

Crappy cover too! looks like someone has shot up the sign, which would be appropriate.

Where do they all belong? In a completist Band fanatic's collection (which I am not).