Bob Dylan: Love
and Theft
(Columbia CK 85975. Jack Frost, prod.; Chris Shaw, eng. DDD.
TT: 57:30.)
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At the age of 60
and with some 42 albums under his belt, Bob Dylan -- rock's poet laureate and trickster
king -- has pulled off the ultimate prank: Confounding those who have written him off for
dead or spent, he has released the best sounding album of his career. In terms of
piss'n'vinegar, this is the most exciting record the man's put out since plugging in his
guitar; in terms of songwriting, it's the logical successor to Blonde on Blonde --
and musically, this just might be the pinnacle of his career.
Yes, after Time After Mind's dark ruminations on
aging and mortality, Dylan has created his juiciest, liveliest, most youthful album in
decades. Part of this is the band. Recorded with his touring band of Larry Campbell and
Charlie Sexton on guitars, Tony Garnier on bass, Augie Myers on organ, and David Kemper on
drums, Love and Theft ticks along like a Swiss watch, ranging from raucous blues to
strutting swing to Tinpan Alley songcraft without missing a step. It's a rockin' ensemble
-- Dylan's never been better supported.
It's been said that Dylan recorded Love and Theft in
three days and it does have the excitement and force that typifies first takes --
or at least of songs captured before repeated takes sap the juice from them.
Dylan has never been noted for having a great singing voice
-- although I've always thought he was unjustly accused of being unable to sing -- and
he's managed to blow it out at some point along the way. Here he croaks and rasps along
with renewed authority. It's a ruined husk of a voice, but strangely expressive for all of
that.
The songs run the gamut of American song styles without
ever straying too far from the blues. On "Highwater (For Charlie Patton)," he
returns once again to a favorite topic, the cataclysmic flood. "I got a craving love
for hopped-up speed/I got a Mustang Ford/Jump into the wagon love/Throw your baggage
overboard/I can write you poems make a strong man lose his mind/I'm no pig without a wig/I
hope you treat me kind/Things are breakin' up out there/High water everywhere."
But lest you mistake his liveliness for optimism, he adds,
"'Don't reach out to me,' she said/'Can't you see I'm drowning, too?'"
In the album's hardest rocker, "Be Honest With
Me," he growls, "I'm stranded in the city that never sleeps/Some of these women
give me the creeps/I avoid the south side the best I can/These memories I got could
strangle a man…"
But even in this bleak landscape "I'm not sorry for
nothin' I've done."
"Sugar Baby," the album's final song, takes Dylan
even further into the dark underworld he's created on Love and Theft. "Some of
these memories you can learn to live with and some of them you can't…/Every moment of
existence seems like some dirty trick/Happiness can come suddenly and leave just as
quick/Any minute of the day your bubble can burst/Try to make things better for someone
and you just end up making it a thousand times worse."
Yet, Dylan sounds more bemused by these circumstances than
depressed. As long as he's capable of greeting the world with the joyful yawp of Love
and Theft, I can't believe that he really thinks things are as bad as all that. And
somehow, as long as he's around to deliver the gruff asides and sly allusions he brings to
his latest album, I can't believe that things are as bad as all that.
Besides, you've just got to wonder what the man will do
next.
...Wes Phillips
wes@onhifi.com
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