After
Bob Dylan's 1975 masterpiece Blood on the Tracks he
recorded album
after album of mixed successes and peculiarities, many full
of raucous, not terribly rehearsed live takes, backup singers, and changing
lineups. Slow Train Coming was his first record after converting
to Christianity, a phase which lasted through Shot of Love. This
strange Christian period yielded a lot of very good and under-appreciated
music. Knocked Out Loaded brought him back to the hard driving
bluesy Americana that incluenced him when starting out, Down in the
Groove took this further, which eventually resulted in two cover
albums of traditional and folks songs, Good as I Been to You
and World Gone Wrong.
These thirteen albums, as uneven as they might
seem, are full of surprises, nuggets, and "The
Old, Weird America" that Greil Marcus wrote about in his
book subtitled, "The World of Bob Dylan's Basement Tapes." These
records show a musician constantly returning to and working with his folk
and blues roots to take part in the folk continuum, and making music that,
despite its hits and misses, is far beyond what almost any other singer/songwriter
in the folk/blues/rock vein, with the exception of Neil Young, could even
begin to accomplish.
The thirteen drawings represented here, square
in format, just like an LP jacket, borrow colors from the original album
art. I did not attempt to re-represent the album art or alternately represent
the music. This series acknowledges a musician who is certainly recognized
and valued, but not as fully or completely as I maintain he ought to be
based on the evidence in this strange middle period.
- Desire, 1976
- Street Legal, 1978
- Slow Train Coming, 1979
- Saved, 1980
- Shot of Love, 1981
- Infidels, 1983
- Empire Burlesque, 1985
- Knocked Out Loaded, 1986
- Down in the Groove, 1988
- Oh Mercy, 1989
- Under the Red Sky, 1990
- Good as I Been to You, 1992
- World Gone Wrong, 1993
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