Bob Dylan: Another Self Portrait - The Bootleg Series Vol. 10
I've never quite understood the collective opprobrium shoved up the ass of Bob Dylan's 1970 Self portrait album by many often po-faced music journalists. Surely, after John Wesley Harding in late 1967 and 1969's Nashville Skyline they knew in which direction Dylan was now heading? I have also never quite bought into the popularly-circulated idea that Dylan recorded and released the Self Portrait material deliberately to deconstruct his own myth. Why would he do that. wasting the time of many respected musicians in the process? No, I think he was simply putting his foot down even more trenchantly, as if to say "I'm going to do country rock so like it or lump it - here's a load more". Furthermore, the sheer volume of unreleased outtake and unused material from this period on show here would hardly show an artist casually tossing off twenty sub-standard songs for an album he didn't care about, would it? There are fifty-three songs here, from the sessions for Self Portrait and New Morning - as well as a few from the Nashville Skyline sessions - and their existence throws new light on the perceived wisdom.
It is a gently appealing collection, possessing a nice, warm sound quality and, in many cases, the alternative versions, particularly of the New Morning material, are superior to the ones eventually used. Compared to the damn awful lo-fi horrors of The Basement Tapes: Complete, this is an absolute pleasure to listen to, having an understated beauty throughout. The Basement Tapes stuff is supposed to provide a real pointer to Dylan's direction and a real influence but I feel this one does the job eminently more successfully.
I guess the Bootleg Series compilers were taking a chance by releasing a bunch of unreleased material from a roundly-lambasted album, weren't they? But it works and, for me, is a most pleasurable listen, giving the original album a much needed shot in the arm and inspiring a re-assessment.
My favourite track is the big, punchy horn-driven version of New Morning. Check out the Joe Cocker-like rock version of Time Passes Slowly too.
Incidentally, the three disc version contains the complete set from the 1969 Isle Of Wight Festival, which was notorious for a supposedly sub-standard performance from Dylan that disappointed the crowd. Listening to it now, it sounds fine to me. Maggie's Farm is particularly vibrant.
With re-assessment/looking through new windows in mind, here are my reviews of the other albums in question -
