Track Listing

1. Frankie And Albert
2. Jim Jones
3. Black Jack Davy
4. Canadee I O
5. Sittin' On Top Of The World
6. Little Maggie
7. Hard Times
8. Step It Up
9. Tomorrow Night
10. Arthur McBride
11. You're Gonna Quit Me
12. Diamond Joe
13. Froggie Went A Courtin'

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #9099 in Music
• Released on: 1997-02-10
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: Import

Customer Reviews

He knows what he's doing the critics don't
What I like about Dylan is that he does plenty of covers.Self Portait and its still-not-issued-on CD sequel DYLAN was Dylan playing the covers game-which at least proved he wasn't big headed enough to keep doing his own songs.
I also liked the way he walloped other peoples' songs and passed them off as his own-though mainly this came from the common stock.
The recent Theme Time Radio Hour indicates what's always been there-that Dylan is a Human Jukebox just waiting to be plugged in.
He's covered songs no one else would have touched but may I suggest he now does a version of Dust my broom

So bad it's good!
Leo Kottke is celebrated as having described his own voice as "goose farts on a foggy day". A reasonable description balanced by the simple fact that he plays unbelievably wonderful guitar. Bob Dylan however has a voice (more evidently than usual on this album) that sounds like the cries of a particularly vocal and constipated goose being slowly tortured to death with a petrol powered brush-cutter. Furthermore his guitar playing is so excruciatingly bad (again as usual) as he butchers this selection of English and American folk songs that, were he unknown, he would be forcibly ejected from any half-decent folk club.

Why then do I award this 4 stars? Because it just sounds great!! I can't explain it - you just have to listen for yourself. At the price it sells for nowadays you can afford to take the chance and, if you do, it'll creep up on you for sure - trust me.....

Bob goes back to his folk roots
I got round to listening to this album after Frank Black sardonically called it the best album of the last 15 years in a special edition of Q a few years back (he also added that he was currently listening to Self-Portrait). This is an undistinguished, but enjoyable collection of stripped-down folk standards, recorded during a time when Dylan's creative muse had more or less deserted him. As such, its best not to come to this album with high expectations. Its not that there's anything wrong with it, its just that this is Bob Dylan, and one expects a bit more than Bob going through the motions, even if he is doing so quite competently. Nonetheless there may be some justice in seeing this album as a prelude to his return to form with Time Out of Mind and Love and Theft, going back to his roots to get some inspiration. So its certainly worth a look if you're a Dylanologist. For the casual listener, to pick this album up instead of one of Bob's more celebrated albums would be, at the very least, perverse.