Track Listing

1. Nashville Skyline Rag
2. To Be Alone With You
3. I Threw It All Away
4. Peggy Day
5. Lay Lady Lay
6. One More Night
7. Tell Me That It Isn't True
8. Country Pie
9. Tonight I'll Be Staying Here With You

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2678 in Music
• Released on: 2004-03-29
• Number of discs: 1

Customer Reviews

Dylan goes country
"Nashville Skyline" was released in 1969, a country-rock album before country rock.
It is a warm, pleasant record, not one of Dylan's classic albums, excactly, but a great record by almost any other standard. And the songs are unusually short and tight (all of them clock in at less than four minutes), literate, low-key love songs about as far away from Dylan's usual surreal imagery as you can imagine.

On the quiet, wistful "Girl From The North Country", Dylan duets with one of the few men who can just about match his own reputation is the music business, the late, great Johnny Cash.
And those who are usually turned off by Dylan's nasal whine of a voice should pick up this album right away...he delivers in a much gentler, softer voice, almost a baritone, employing a little bit of the technique of an opera singer to produce a pleasant low croon which threw many listeners for a loop (and enhanced Dylan's AM radio appeal).

Highlights include "I Threw It All Away", the almost Eagles-like "Tell Me That It Isn't True", and of course the classic "Tonight I'll Be Staying Here With You". That song has been cited more than once as one of Dylan's own personal favorites, a gentle mid-tempo shuffle in traditional country format (a I-IV-V chord progression), and one of Dylan's best and most sensitive vocals. It has been reinterpreted live as a raucous rock song, but this simple original version has so much charm...the song features some wonderful rolling piano and some fluid steel guitar by Pete Drake.
The gently rolling "Lay Lady Lay" is another classic, perhaps the most memorable song here, highlighted by Dylan's "new" voice and a rock n' roll-flavoured bridge with some brief, bluesy guitar licks.

"Nashville Skyline" is not the greatest artistic achievement in Bob Dylan's catalogue, but it is a highly skilled record with several excellent songs at its core. Very enjoyable.

A Slice of Country Pie
It's been traditionally easy to dismiss this album as a lightweight experiment in country that Dylan wandered in to on his way from the fun of the Basement Tapes to the dark place of Blood on the Tracks, but that would be to dismiss it too lightly. Dylan's sabbatical after the supposed motorcycle accident in 1967 gave him time and space to reassess his music and his direction, and as the Beatles and Stones zonked into Overdub land with Sgt Pepper and Satanic Majesty's, Dylan upset the psychedlic apple cart with the Biblical starkness of John Wesley Harding, and then followed it up with this little gem before dissapearing up his own amp socket with Self Portrait. Here we have a defining album in the history of country music and the lodestone of all that becomes alt.country. Often overlooked is the superb musicianship and the beautiful production values that perfectly suit Dylan's brand of relaxed and intimate songcraft. Tonight I'll Be Staying Here With You and Lay Lady Lay for example, provide a luscious soundscape that oozes contentment and peace. But as usual, with Dylan, it is a double edged sword: the pedal steel is used to saddening, lachrymose effect on the more downbeat tracks and the overall tone and flavour is one of precarious contentment, the country pie maybe cheesecake, but the lemon is sharp and acerbic!

Another Dylan classic
It might be hard to believe, that Dylan could write another bunch of classic tunes, this time in a country style, but that's exactly what he did on this record.

The best thing about it is the concise, pop/country nature of the record that simply does what it's supposed to do, deliver quality pop tunes with his usual lyrical dexterity. There's a tremendous comment from Johnny Cash on the sleevnotes that says all you need to about Dylan. A master at work.