Album of the Week
After the autumnal flowering of Time Out of Mind, “Love and Theft,” and Modern Times (and the Oscar-winning track “Things Have Changed”), it was probably inevitable that Bob Dylan would suffer something like an artistic lag. Never the most consistent album-maker, Dylan made a remarkable show of revitalized artistic engagement with his 1997-2006 work.
During this period, he also evidenced a greater comfort with his own celebrity: He issued the first volume of his autobiography Chronicles Volume One, appeared prominently in Martin Scorsese’s documentary No Direction Home, and became the dry, jocular host of the delectable Sirius/XM radio show Theme Time Radio Hour with Bob Dylan.
So one is inclined to be forgiving about Dylan’s new record Together Through Life. On its face, the collection lacks the intensity of feeling that characterized his last three albums. Sonically, this self-produced work is so laid-back that at times it threatens to recline entirely. But, accepting the fact that it is not top-shelf Dylan, the deceptively simple set still gives up its share of relaxed pleasures, some of which don’t instantly leap out of the speakers.
It is, like much of 2006’s Modern Times, a blues album at its heart. Dylan has been pillaging the form since his first album in 1962; blues buffs will bristle over some of the “borrowings” here, which at times verge on outright theft. Perhaps realizing there was no way he could get away with it, Dylan shares authorship with Chess Records’ late in-house writer Willie Dixon on “My Wife’s Home Town,” a blatant lift from the Dixon-penned Muddy Waters standard “I Just Want to Make Love to You.” The album-opening “Beyond Here Lies Nothing” is a straight cop from Otis Rush’s 1958 Cobra classic “All Your Love (I Miss Loving).” “If You Ever Go to Houston” uses a lyric from Leadbelly’s “The Midnight Special” as its springboard. “It’s All Good” bears a family resemblance to Junior Parker’s “I Feel So Good.” “Jolene” is a stop-time shuffle that calls up memories of Dixon’s “I’m Ready.” And “Shake, Shake Mama” is a punchy 12-bar of uncertain provenance.
The joints and nails that hold together these songs are altogether visible. The familiarity of the grooves is complemented by an at times elusive lyrical voice. This may be a matter of authorship: Nine of the album’s 10 tracks were co-written by the Grateful Dead’s long-time lyricist Robert Hunter. Together Through Life is thus Dylan’s most sustained collaborative effort since his work with Jacques Levy on Desire in 1975.
The most effective of the new tunes are the regretful, low-key ballads. “This Dream of You,” a Tex-Mex-seasoned number driven by button accordion work courtesy of Los Lobos’ David Hidalgo, is a slumberous number that bears comparison with the more propulsive “Mississippi,” a highlight of “Love and Theft.” None too different in style or substance is “Forgetful Heart.” The similarly rueful, mandolin-flecked “Life is Hard” finds Dylan working old-school Tin Pan Alley moves.
The other tracks mix mutated blues clichés (cf. the bounding “Shake, Shake Mama”) and irony-laden drollery. The strolling “Feel a Change Coming On” is the most curious entry; its laugh-out-loud couplet “I’m listening to Billy Joe Shaver and I’m reading James Joyce/Some people tell me I’ve got the blood of the lamb in my voice” is at odds with its tone of straightforward introspection. “It’s All Good” is similarly original, tossing Dylan’s tart proclamation of cheerful sang froid amid calamity into a churning boogie rhythm. “Beyond Here Lies Nothing” may be best described as a rhumba for nihilists.
The rest of the album, while by no means as lively or affecting, is seldom less than diverting. You have to chuckle at Dylan’s designation of Hell as “My Wife’s Home Town,” at the footloose country blues playfulness of “If You Ever Go to Houston,” at the good-humored lust of “Jolene.”
Dylan croaks the songs in his hoarse latter-day catarrh; in the main, the band -- Hidalgo, the Heartbreakers’ Mike Campbell and Donny Herron, Tony Garnier, and George Recile of the touring group -- keep things on a low burner, as if they’re afraid to turn things up too loud.
Together Through Life gives up its obvious bluesy pleasures quickly; after more than half a dozen spins, it became apparent that its deeper resonances come more slowly. It still feels like second-tier Zimmy, but, once these genre-based songs begin to sink in, one begins to understand that there’s more here than immediately meets the ear. Pick it up, and keep listening.
