Bob Dylan - "Rough and Rowdy Ways" Vinyl, Album, 2020 (Columbia)

 

The album has been released for a year now, and still, I just now got the vinyl edition of Bob Dylan's Rough and Rowdy Ways. Without a doubt, this is my favorite Dylan album. I'm in the school of Dylan admirers but not a full-strength fanatic fan. Some of his recordings I can hear once, and that's enough. However, Rough and Rowdy Ways is a different type of work compared to his other albums. I feel it may have taken him 79 years to make a record like this collection of songs. What appeals to me, of course, are his words, which are masterful with the remarkable juxtaposition of images thrown together like a master bartender. 

For the past twenty years, the sound of Dylan's recordings has become more fascinating to me. Admittedly, they remind me of old recordings from the 1940s and 50s, but that is an illusion. Dylan, if nothing else, is the master illusionist behind the red velvet curtain. The design work on the record label itself is a throwback to another era, but it's more of a memory or a Twilight Zone episode. There is something scary, eerie, odd when you listen to the record while thinking of the album's design work. Sometimes his images don't work for me, but I think he does think these things out, and I don't believe they are thrown together in such a state. Anyone who has an announcer saying "Columbia Recording Artist Bob Dylan" before appearing on the stage is a very well-thought-out song and dance man. 

The first five songs on this album are one of the great sequencings of music. "Goodbye Jimmy Reed" breaks the mood for me a bit, and it's OK where it is placed on the record, but I adore the soft balladry of songs like "My Own Version of You" and "I've Made Up My Mind To Give Myself To You." At 79 (at the time of the recordings - I think), Dylan is a superb crooner. The band behind him is excellent, and the ambient touches of space allow the blending of instruments behind Dylan's voice is simply magnificent. 

The track that leaves no prisoners behind is, of course, "Murder Most Foul." It almost feels like a separate afterthought or a bonus cut on an album. At the very least, an excellent B-side is the longest Dylan song ever recorded, yet it only seems a few minutes while listening to "Murder Most Foul." I'm an American of a certain age, and the death of Kennedy has numerous layers of feelings and dread, and this song captures that angst, fear, and the dark humor of the assassination. Nothing to laugh about, except it's absurd in such a classic American manner. Somehow Dylan brings up the feelings I had when I was nine, and Kennedy died. It was a cultural turning point, and some who are still here can feel that day on November 22, 1963. Without hesitating, this is clearly Dylan's best album.