Bob Dylan - Together Through Life (Deluxe Edition) CD + DVD
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Free Music Notes for Together Through Life (Deluxe Edition) CD + DVD
Free Music Review: A surprising Dylan album, loose and relaxed...
Hit: 4 Stars
It takes its time, but Together Through Life is a great Dylan album. It's a bit strange, but the album is a bit off putting at first. The album was written and recorded very quickly, and has a deliberately unfinished feel to it. It feels like an unforced, natural jam session, music that you would have heard in honkytonks during the Depression, cantinas along the Mexico-Texas border, or down in a brothel in New Orleans during the jazz age. Eventually, these songs really stay in your head, and they keep haunting you. It's a remarkable achievement.
This album doesn't reach the depths of its immediate predecessors (Time Out of Mind, Love and Theft, and Modern Times), and lyrically, it's good but not great, but it's still immensely enjoyable. It's better musically than lyrically. The opener, Beyond Here Lies Nothin', is really awesome. A great guitar riff, and the ubiquitous accordion (courtesy of David Hildago, from Los Lobos), really gives this song (and the whole album) a true Tex Mex feel. Dylan channels Tom Waits and Willie Dixon on My Wife's Home Town. Dylan is really pissed off on this song, growling each line with ferocity and passion. If You Ever Go To Houston is one of my favorite tracks off the whole album. It's a gentle, loving, beguiling song, with a simple but beautiful melody and great lyrics by Dylan and Robert Hunter (who co-wrote all but one song on this album). Shake Shake Mama has a booming guitar line, and also has some great lyrics. The most moving, loving song is This Dream of You (the only song Dylan wrote himself). It has the depth and sadness that Nettie Moore and Ain't Talkin' do off Dylan's previous album, Modern Times. The closer, It's All Good, really kicks ass, and it's awesome to hear Dylan laugh a bit during the song. Dylan rips the world a new one on it, and it's a great way to end the album.
Dylan is pushing 70, but he's still a vital artist. Some have compared this album to New Morning, and that it's minor Dylan, good but not great. I would agree that its good but not great. Together Through Life (great title) is much better than New Morning. Together has more passion and power than New Morning. This may be more along the lines of Desire, Dylan's 1975 album and one of his most unique albums as well. On Desire, 7 of the 9 tracks were co-written by Jacques Levy, and 9 out of the 10 tracks here are co-written by Robert Hunter, the Dead's long time lyricist who colloberated with Dylan on two songs from Down in the Groove, Ugliest Girl in the World (a bad song), and Silvio (the best song on the album and one Dylan still does in concerts). Desire also had a violinist, Scarlett Rivera, and she gave the album a unique sound, and David Hildago's accordion does the same here.
All Dylan fans have to pick this one up, and even minor Dylan fans should dig this one. Dylan still brings it, and brings it like nobody else.
Free Music Review: Not at all what I expected from the reviews, but still pretty good.
Hit: 4 Stars
I am generally pleased with this set (the deluxe edition) but it's just a bit less impressive than the previous Dylan albums going back to "Time Out of Mind." My initial sense of mild disappointment was due to the pre-release hype and certain odd trends in the early criticism that appeared in various magazines - the writers who reviewed this raised some expectations in me that were not realized by the actual music. It's good enough (I never felt like I wanted to hit the skip button) but not what I expected. They were constantly referring to a "Tex-Mex" and "Southwestern" sound and mentioning Dylan's earlier work where this was apparent. This album doesn't strike me that way at all. Hidalgo's accordion is not as omnipresent as I thought it would be (which some may find to be a good thing, depending on their attitude towards that particular instrument) and rarely evokes what I consider to be a "Southwestern" or even "Tex-Mex" feeling. "If You Ever Go to Houston" is about the only thing here that comes close. Maybe I have a different idea of what that kind of music should sound like, but I'm not hearing it here. The accordion usually sounds more like a strolling musician at a sidewalk cafe in Paris or maybe New Orleans. In fact, if the album had been released as "some out-takes from the recording sessions from Love and Theft, with some different approaches and a couple of changes in the musicians" I'd have been more prepared for it than I was, but that's just me. After hearing the variations on the songs and music in "Tell-Tale Signs" I could have believed that quite easily. (By the way, if you like "new Dylan" at all, and if you haven't already done so, BUY THE TWO-DISC SET OF "TELL-TALE SIGNS" NOW!!!!)
Another critic said something to the effect that your listening would be frequently interrupted because you would have to keep getting up to dance, but only two songs on this album even remotely approached that effect on me, and considering that I once felt compelled to dance to "Highlands," that's saying a lot. Most of these songs are fairly slow; a few resemble a waltz and one even reminds me of a polka.
I really liked the "Theme Time Radio Hour" disc, never having heard his justly-famous and very entertaining commentary and patter before, and the songs on it were all pretty good, well worth the few extra bucks this set cost me over the album CD by itself.
The "Lost Interview" DVD could be considered a freebie and you aren't missing much if you haven't seen it, mostly just his first manager relating some rather generic initial impressions of Dylan as a youth and how he lost him to Albert Grossman.
Free Music Review: Together Through Life (and its changes)
Hit: 4 Stars
I listened three times to Bob Dylan's new album, "Together Through Life" yesterday. I have concluded that I'm enjoying it more than "Modern Times" right out of the gate and I love that album. But, overall, I love having a collection of consecutive albums where his basic musical idea is as consistent as listening to his earlier mid 60's and mid 70's works. Not in retrospect, more so in the sense that the vibe of the music is buried in raw blues, folk and traditional forms. His extremely effective vocal is right where it should be for his road worn age. On that point, I am amazed at how people think that Bob is going to sound differently than he has since basically 1988. He is getting older, he smoked(s) for most of his life and enjoyed his fair share of alcohol over the years. I personally really love his voice today. It is perfectly suited to the sound of his band. Which on this album features Mike Campbell ( from Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers) and David Hidalgo (from Los Lobos). The addition of these players is a great choice for these tunes.
This is an excellent album. It is 45+ minutes in length. Perfect.
The "deluxe edition" also features a poster of the album artwork, a disc of one of Bob's Theme Time Radio Hour shows. A lost interview disc and a sampler of important artists that have influenced Bob along the way. That disc is particularly important. Because any younger people buying this album need to hear these artists and hear the foundation of everything that has come from them. Bob is still one of the messengers. A legend, An artist, and a creator of some of the most important music through all of our lives. Those who are willing to listen. Really listen.
Free Music Review: Typically enigmatic, fascinating...
Hit: 4 Stars
...I'm still coming to terms with this one. I can't say it outright blew me over like "Love and Theft" did. Nor do I see it slowly gaining hold of me like "Modern Times." It's a curious album -- one that sounds almost like a casual, trashy throwaway until a lyric slides from Dylan's lips that totally unhinges the meaning of a song; the record is peppered with existentialist bon mots. I won't rattle them all of, although among favorites is: "The door has closed forevermore/ If indeed there ever was a door."
So I'm a bit mixed about this, but there are so many intriguing little byways in the songs that I can see it slowly coming up in stature over time. What puts it over the top for me is the sound. Dylan is becoming a very good producer, creating an undulating sheet of throbbing sound somewhere between the classic Chess blues sides and old swamp pop 45s. The band is nifty...sounds like Dylan himself playing the guitar solo on the opening cut...
As usual with Dylan, a slightly frustrating but fascinating experience.
Oh...one last thing -- while this isn't my favorite album design job of the year by far (that would probably go to the new King Wilkie -- "King Wilkie Presents: The Wilkie Family Singers"), it is nice to see Geoff Gans removed from his position as Dylan's default designer. His stiff, blocky designs were getting old...
Free Music Review: Good Times
Hit: 4 Stars
I really like how Bob is exploring Americana through the filter of blues-rock. Modern Times was more northern blues-centric, Love and Theft was traveling-man blues, this one is border blues, the additions of Mike Campbell and (I apologize if I get his name wrong) David Garza(?), Los Lobos' accordionist, really add to this session, I've long been a fan of the Heartbreakers and Mike's guitar work is always stellar, he is meticulously sparse here, but his selectivity proves his worth. He is an unexpectedly great blues player. Bob's voice is finally getting honestly to the point he used to fake, now it is a well-worn instrument, finally living up in truth to his early 60's Woody-wannabe voice (don't get me wrong, I love Bob, I just kind of yearn to know which is his true singing voice--I think "I'm Not There" really defines my question in video). I think the songs are a little light here, but the sheer joy heard from Bob and the band shines through to make this a really good record. I bought the $25 edition, and I think it is worth every dollar, dime, and cent. There's my two cents. It's good, buy it.