T A B L E__T A L K

World music: Do you love it? Sing international praises in Table Talk

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R E C E N T L Y

John Lee Hooker
The Complete '50s Chess Recordings (2CDs)
MCA Records
(01/29/98)

Oasis, Cornershop
Bill Graham Civic Auditorium, San Francisco
January 26, 1998
(01/28/98)

John Dowland
Complete Lute Works, Vols. 1-5
Harmonia Mundi
(01/27/98)

16 Horsepower
Low Estate
A & M
(01/26/98)

Freakwater
Springtime
Thrill Jockey
(01/23/98)

BROWSE THE
MUSIC ARCHIVES

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V O W E L L

Sound Salvation
By Sarah Vowell
Survey says ...
Give the people what they want
(12/12/97)

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F E A T U R E

Carl Perkins 1933 - 1998
By Gavin McNett
Bronze those blue suede shoes: Carl Perkins dies
(01/20/98)

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"Please Do Not Disturb"
Juliana Hatfield -->

He was joking, of course, but only to a point. For decades, deep thinkers have pontificated on the enigmatic Dylan, who remains the most significant individual songwriter of the rock era. But their musings do little to explain why this 56-year-old man holds his guitar as if it were his best friend in the world. Not just like a woman, but like the one woman who will never leave.

What a year it's been for Bob Dylan. In the spring, he nearly died of a viral infection. Then he released the already-completed "Time Out of Mind," a death-rattle collection of folkie blues that was his best album in decades, and that went on to dominate the year-end pop polls and become the sentimental favorite of the upcoming Grammy Awards. Back on the road, Dylan sang "Knocking on Heaven's Door" and "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall" for the pope, collected a financial windfall from the Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize Trust for making "an outstanding contribution to the beauty of the world" and went to Washington, D.C., to be lauded by the establishment with the Kennedy Center Honors.

This for a man who's been the butt of more jokes than most any performer this side of Elvis Presley -- indeed, when he was ill, Dylan was said to be afraid that he was "going to meet Elvis." Unlike other aging pop stars, however, Dylan has never complained about not getting enough respect. Many were puzzled by two recent Dylan albums, "Good As I Been To You" and "World Gone Wrong," which featured the sort of folk and blues standards that Dylan played on his way to Greenwich Village those many years ago. But it's the rich songster tradition evoked by those collections that clearly inspired the frankly personal "Time Out of Mind."

"I'm walking through streets that are dead," sang Dylan in Poughkeepsie, encoring with one of his latest greatest hits, "Love Sick." Cynics have long wondered why Dylan mounts endless tours that focus not just on major markets but on the hinterlands. The reason is simple: He's a musician who likes to make a racket with a road-hardened rock quintet. Dylan takes genuine pleasure in the accomplished rave-ups of guitarist Larry Campbell and pedal-steel player Bucky Baxter, and he's quick to grab a solo for himself. He finds joy in the jam, and that's why his audience has expanded beyond old fans to include a younger contingent of Deadheads who recognize in him a kindred spirit, and who dutifully post each night's ever-shifting set list on the Internet.

During "Tangled Up in Blue," the kids rushed the stage, and for the rest of the show clogged the aisles with their free-form dance. Dylan scarcely acknowledged the hubbub. Singing a country-blues standard, "Cocaine Blues," Dylan snapped the strings of his acoustic guitar like the Reverend Gary Davis, and in that moment, he was not just a singularly gifted artist, but a living link to a grand history of pickers tangled up in the blues.
SALON | Jan. 30, 1998