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Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan - Bob Dylan Audio CD

A fair review of the Bob Dylan "Bob Dylan" Audio CD. Please note that the below review is the views of the authors, and authors only. You can get a complete list of all Bob Dylan reviews here, or go back to the Bob Dylan tabs.

Band: Bob Dylan
Title: Bob Dylan
Rating:

Release Date: 2005-06-21
Media: Audio CD

Tracks: 1: You're No Good 2: Talkin' New York 3: In My Time of Dyin' 4: Man of Constant Sorrow 5: Fixin' to Die 6: Pretty Peggy-O 7: Highway 51 Blues 8: Gospel Plow 9: Baby, Let Me Follow You Down 10: House of the Risin' Sun 11: Freight Train Blues 12: Song to Woody 13: See That My Grave Is Kept Clean

Excellent Album!
I own several of Dylan's albums, but many are just compilations which don't include the overlooked songs on this CD. I am so glad I purchased this album.

Some of my favorites:

'Talkin' New York' is an outstanding song chronicling Dylan's impression of the city.
'Gospel Plow' has an amazing harmonica piece all throughout it.
'House of the Rising Sun' - I had always only heard 'the Animals' cover of this song, so it was nice to hear Dylan's take on it.

I downloaded the CD to my computer and started listening to it and found the sound quality was excellent. I recommend this album to any Dylan fan or anyone who loves music period.

5/5.

Surprisingly Powerful
As a loyal fan and follower of Bob Dylan's for over 40 years, I know him primarily through his own compositions to be a tremendous song-writer. Whenever I listen to this disc, it always comes as a pleasant surprise. Because his voice can take some getting used to, it is easy to overlook the fact that Dylan is a remarkably powerful interpreter of his own songs and of the songs of others. On this, his first album, Dylan's set list is comprised almost entirely of staple items from the folk-catalogue, and he interprets each and every one with subtlety and power. If you enjoy Dylan as a singer-songwriter, you owe it to yourself to explore this early work in which he performs selections from the popular folks-song catalogue. And if you do enjoy this disc, you may also want to consider two later albums, "Good as I Been To You" and "World Gone Wrong" in which an older, more ragged-voiced Dylan, returns to his folk roots. .

Not a bad album of folk music. Not his best. Not his worst. 7/10

I'm not exactly sure what version of this cd I have. . perhaps not the remastered version. . . my cd would have been cheap. In any case, I have found that there is not a lot of discernable difference with remastered versions of Dylan's accoustic cds, in some cases. Guessing that that would be the case here too. I did find that the sound in this cd was of the faux stereo kind. . . i. e. you'd get vocals in one speaker and the guitar in another speaker, which isn't ideal, but is to be expected for releases produced around this time.

Anyway, in his debut album, Dylan pretty much covers traditional folk songs. For a man who would gain a stellar reputation for songwriting, it's a pity that in some cases he didn't change a word here or there, to agree with his gender, so that he makes the song absurd.

Anyway, I think that the best tracks on this cd are:

Talkin' New York - an original composition which seems autobiographical. Vocals and harmonica in the left speaker and the guitar on the right, which is how the first song was arranged. Good harmonica in this song.

In my time of dyin' - features a steel string accoustic guitar, I think, with a twangy intro to the song. It's a bluesy, negro-spiritual type of song. Not sure, but I think that my notes say that Dylan sounds like a black singer or something.

House of the risin' sun - I watched a documentary a while back which informs my comments on this song. . . I'm using the entry for this album on Wikipedia to source my information - in the documentary "No direction home", fellow folk artist Dave Van Ronk claims that Dylan used his arrangement of this song and recorded it before he had a chance to. To me, this speaks ill of Dylan, although I can understand his motivation. . . he was a nobody, and would step on a peers head to get ahead. In any case, this is a nice song, but unintentionally funny as Dylan neglects to change the gender terms in this song, like I mentioned previously, meaning that Dylan is singing about a hard life, with himself as a girl! In any case, it's a pity Dylan stooped this low for this song. . . I feel sorry for Van Ronk.

That's pretty much the best of this album, in my view. For some of the rest:

You're no good - has some humour and unintelligible lyrics as well.

Man of constant sorrow - having heard a different version of "Man of constant sorrow" in the movie "Oh brother, where art thou?", I think, Dylan might have been smarter raiding someone else's arrangement for this song. It does have good harmonica playing though, but he does hit a bung note on his guitar!

Fixin' to die - mentions Jesus multiple times in this song. The Bob really lets rip, vocally, on this song. I don't think he has ever sounded so wild.

Pretty Peggy-0 -Features the vocal "hoo" which will appear in his later albums.

Highway 51 - sounds like he uses the riff from The Everly Brother's song "Wake up little Suzie".

Gospel plow - more Jesus talk. Has frenetic harmonica playing.

Baby, let me follow you down - has a chatty intro and some nice harmonica playing.

Freight train blues - The Bob near yodels in this song and he must sing the longest note ever!

Song to Woody - an ode to his musical influence.

See that my grave is kept clean - The Bob varies his guitar playing techniques in this song.

I can't say that I am a huge fan of Dylan or consider him to have written lots of classic albums or songs, but I like this album for its listenability.

My favourite Dylan album is "The freewheelin' Bob Dylan". His bleak "The times they are a changin'" is also a good listen.

Both the above two albums offer a different mood for the man. In a similar vein, I'd recommend his "Blood on the tracks" album for offering up something different again. . . in this case, easy listening music. "Blonde on blonde" is also a good album.

For a left-field suggestion, Aussie protest pop-rockers Midnight Oil did a rootsy kind of album in "Place without a postcard" which they had never done the likes of before or after. It's a more European kind of folk influence, I think. Not a favourite album of mine, but I like some of the songs, and fans of folk might like it more than I did. My favourite Midnight Oil albums are their more traditional pop/rock albums in "Diesel and dust" and "10,. . . . ,1". They have a very good arty pop/rock protest album in "Red sails in the sunset". Definitely worth exploring for fans of protest music.

Unjustly forgotten diamond from the master....
The copy that I had bought was warped, so I had another incentive not to play it. I had bought this album a long, long time ago, and I swear I've only played it twice, maybe three times. So why did I decide to buy it on CD?

This is a pretty awesome album. Dylan was a mere 21 when he recorded it, and he sounds like a veteran. His voice is remarkably strong and angry, and he sings the 11 traditional tunes with a bravado unmatched by any of his contemporaries at the time. His choice of material is exemplary, with such great blues/folk classics as Jesse Fuller's You're No Good (which is one of the best songs on the album), House of the Risin' Sun, In My Time of Dyin', and See That My Grave is Kept Clean. His two originals, Song to Woody and Talkin' New York, are nice. His guitar playing is phenomenal along with his harmonica. Many dismiss this album because there's only two Bob Dylan originals on it. I think that's shortsighted and silly. Dylan did two albums of standards in the 90's (Good As I Been To You and World Gone Wrong), and those are both excellent albums. This album can stand up with them easily.

Dylan's debut album is an unjustly forgotten album that needs to be rediscovered. It's a great album that is filled with great blues songs and a harbringer of the brilliance to come. .

Inauspicious beginning
There is really nothing about this record that gives away anything of what Dylan would become, even just 12 months hence. It could reasonably be said that this, Bob Dylan's debut LP, was like any other artist's (or band's) first LP. Even Bob's appearance--faux-sheepskin jacket and fisherman's cap--is borrowed from influential contemporaries (in this case, Ian Tyson of Ian & Sylvia). And, like so many other newbie folksingers during the revival of 1958-64 (a period during which rock 'n' roll was laying low and waiting for the British Invasion which would revitalise it and even influence the folkies to some degree, even bringing some of Britain's own folksingers to these shores), Bob packed out his debut album with covers and traditional songs.

Even so, we have two originals on this album--"Talkin' New York," in the talking-blues style that some have blamed for the eventual rise of rap (although there are many differences which I won't go into here), and "Song to Woody," Bob's tribute to the older folksinger then resident at Greystone Hospital in New Jersey, suffering from the Huntington's Disease that would ultimately be the cause of Guthrie's demise. Bob pursued the talking-blues form further on his next album, The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan (although only a couple results of that would actually appear on the record, the rest left as outtakes that would be bootlegged heavily until 1991 and Sony's inception of the Bootleg Series); similarly, his Woody-influenced stylings would appear in greater detail on his next few albums.

The other tracks here borrow from other singers as well--Dylan's arrangement of "House of the Risin' Sun" is, by his own admission, lifted directly from the late Dave Van Ronk (who was outraged at the time, but later forgave Dylan and took great amusement when Dylan was forced to retire the song from his repertoire after the Animals had a hit single with it in 1964); "In My Time of Dyin'" (covered by others, most famously by Led Zeppelin on their Physical Graffiti album), "Fixin' to Die," "See That My Grave is Kept Clean," and "Highway 51" bear resemblance to the singing styles of such as Blind Lemon Jefferson, Howlin' Wolf and perhaps a touch of John Lee Hooker (for whom Dylan opened in his first major gig in the Village--Dylan's first gig, that is, not Hooker's).

So this debut album is really Dylan's formative recording; for those of us, like myself, who weren't there for one reason or another (I wasn't born yet), this is a little slice of Bobby's beginnings. It's really not bad, either. It's not hard to believe that this album sold only 5,000 copies on its initial release--or that John Hammond, who discovered Bob and produced this album (as well as Freewheelin'), when told that Columbia was prepared to drop Dylan from their roster as a result of the album's disappointing sales, heatedly told the exec who gave him this news that "You'll drop him over my dead body!" And it's a good thing Columbia acceded to Hammond's wishes. . . who knows if we'd have heard what Bob had to offer in the coming years?.

You can see a complete list of all Bob Dylan discography, or go back to the Bob Dylan tabs. There is also a good guide on how to read guitar tabs here.