The Albums of Bob Dylan, Part One

By Russell Shortt

Bob Dylan, where to begin, all the superlatives have been used; the man dominates, simply dominates, all are in awe of Old Zimmy, the Eternal Trickster. Eternally inscrutable, he is what a musician should be, known for his sound rather than his life, something that has being forgotten somewhere along the line, doused by lazy journalism, the public's juvenile fascination with artists' paltry affectations and the dumb editorial policies of the rags to feed them, indeed they even make them ravenous for it.

Last year , we saw the release of his thirty-third studio album, Together Through Life (2009), how apt, The Old Wizened One has been around longer than most anyone playing, criticising or indeed listening to rock and roll. Reviews of the record have likened it to being quite similar to a Chess Record from the Fifties and that is Dylan - timeless.

Howlin' Wolf and Muddy Waters are as much Dylan's bedfellows as Springsteen, Arcade Fire, Robert Johnson, Neil Young, Woody Guthrie, Nick Cave, Patti Smith, Tom Waits, Joni Mitchell, The Clash ... the list is as endless as it is diverse. But that only is the tip of the iceberg, comparisons go further, centuries further in fact, back to Keats and Tennyson, this isn't being in the slightest bit reckless, Dylan has being nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature more than once; and so rubs shoulders with the likes of Pablo Neruda, Eugenio Montale and Saul Bellow. Of course, many may disagree, detesting the overly dramatic tag of Messiah that are so often ridiculously planted upon him.

The dissenters point out his warbling voice, his many weak offerings and his unwavering acoustic and harmonica routine and ergo state that Dylan the prophet is a result of self hype, that the man behind the curtain is nothing more than the curtain.

Russell Shortt is a travel consultant with Exploring Ireland, the leading specialists in customised, private escorted tours, escorted coach tours and independent self drive tours of Ireland. Article source Russell Shortt, http://www.exploringireland.net
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