"I can write you poems that'll make a strong man lose his mind/I'm no pig without a wig, I hope you treat me kind. One of the highlight tracks of the album, however, is the banjo-laden "High Water." It's as if Dylan, who wrote and arranged all of the songs, has found his way back through the flatlands from Texarkana to Chicago. Yep, Dylan has followed up the Grammy Award-winning 1997 album "Time Out of Mind" with a musical mosaic that takes on the blues, rock and folk in 12 nifty little packages.Īll of the songs from the opening roller-coasting "Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum" to the East-Texas blues of "Lonesome Day Blues" to the fading album closer "Sugar Baby" are all quaint little snapshots of the restless life throughout the Midwest. The album is nearly flawless, even with Dylan's scruffy voice - which actually gives the songs a subtle sense of urgency. Judging by his latest album, "Love and Theft," that might be true. In fact, some would like to believe he's the Bard of Folk. The singer/songwriter, who dared to "plug in" the folkies at the Newport Folk Festival back in 1965, is a word man. That wasn't and will not ever be Dylan's style. For those younger than 25, he's the father of Jakob Dylan, who was leader of the Wallflowers.īob Dylan was never one of those squeaky clean tenors who could hit melodic high notes like Steve Perry of Journey or Peter Cetera of Chicago. John Fogerty is one, especially during his Creedence Clearwater Revival years, and Pantera's Phil Anselmo screeches the right notes on all of his band's albums - from "Far Beyond Driven" to the present. To be fair, there are other artists whose throaty voices sound good no matter what they do. However, both those singers followed up those hits with some cool songs - "Total Eclipse of the Heart" and "Draw of the Cards," respectively, which featured their gravelly voices with fitting musical arrangements. That song irritated me almost as much as Kim Carnes' "Bette Davis Eyes." I remember when I first heard Bonnie Tyler's "It's a Heartache" back when I was in fifth grade. (My voice sounded that bad.)Īfter I hung up I started thinking about raspy voices and how they sometimes grate on my nerves. It was one of my editors, who apologized for waking me up. My voice sounded like I had taken a mouthful of sand and tried to swallow, with a couple of jagged rocks thrown in for good measure. I was lounging on the sofa watching "Vampire Hunter D" on DVD when the phone rang. On Wednesday, I was home sick with a sore throat, fever and lots of aches and pains.
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