'Gotta Serve Somebody: The Gospel Songs of Bob Dylan': some thoughts

Date: Sun, 25 May 2003 21:36:55 +0200
Newsgroups: rec.music.dylan
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Some quick initial thoughts about the various artists CD 'Gotta Serve
Somebody: The Gospel Songs of Bob Dylan' (Columbia, COL 511126 2, 2003) -
which I admit I've only just acquired ...
Among the multitudes of Dylan tribute albums, this new addition is surely
something of an exception. AFAIK it is the first such album to concentrate
exclusively on Dylan's gospel material (consisting of 5 songs from 'Slow
Train Coming' and 6 from 'Saved'). It is also something of a rarity in that
it is an official Sony/Columbia release (the only precedents I can recall
are the 30th Anniversary Concert album and the CD 'United Artists for the
Poet' released by Columbia Italy, again for Bob's 30th anniversary). I am no
gospel expert, and my comments on the new CD will be largely Dylan- rather
than gospel-attuned. However, as far as I can judge it comes over as a
perfectly decent example of the genre. The performers are AFAIK all bona
fide gospel acts, the best-known being Mavis Staples (who duets with Dylan
on 'Gonna Change My Way of Thinking'), except for one more 'mainstream'
contributor, namely Aaron Neville - who has covered Dylan before ('With God
On Our Side' and 'Ballad of Hollis Brown' with the Neville Brothers) and
whose trademark quivering vocals on 'Saving Grace' fit perfectly with the
rest. Many of the performers operate on Bob's songs with a considerable
liberty of improvisation, adding intros and outros and rewriting sections of
the lyrics (Lee Williams and the Spiritual QCs give 'When You Gonna Wake
Up?' a rather severe rewrite; Neville's, conversely, comes over as the
closest to Dylan's original); but this is, I presume, all part and parcel of
the gospel tradition and its performers' approach to their source material.
However, if we consider this CD more closely from Bob Dylan's angle, a
number of surprises manifest themselves. The 'official' character of this
release suggests that it must in some way have Dylan's personal imprimatur.
He appears in the inner booklet's black-and-white photo in his raffish,
bemustachio'd '"Love and Theft"' guise; the Dylan/Staples contribution is
self-produced, credited like L&T to 'Jack Frost Productions', with Dylan
backed by his faithful touring band; and 'Gonna Change My Way of Thinking',
with its lyrics almost totally rewritten, is presented to the world less as
Dylan covering himself than as, virtually, a brand-new Bob Dylan song.
All this rather strongly suggests that Dylan is offering this CD as some
kind of commentary on his own gospel songs and, indeed, an affirmation of
their continued relevance. He has revived 'Solid Rock' and 'Saving Grace' in
recent concerts; while on this CD, the absence of anything from 'Shot of
Love' (often considered Dylan's 'third gospel album', but far less
unambiguously Christian in its content than its two predecessors) may point
to a concern not to dilute the religious message. Most intriguingly of all,
the booklet brackets each of the 11 songs with a single chapter-and-verse
reference to the Bible (three to the Old Testament and eight to the New) -
e.g. 'Are You Ready?' / Matthew 25:10; 'When He Returns' / Proverbs 18:12. I
have provisionally checked all eleven citations, and most, if not at all, do
throw immediate light on the songs, and those connections which seem more
obscure could no doubt be illuminated by closer biblical scrutiny (Michael
Gray please note!). Is Dylan himself the source of these helpful scriptural
glosses?
All in all - and whatever the nature of Bob Dylan's private religious
beliefs today - my guess is that by approving and participating in this
project he is challenging the more sceptical and secular among his listeners
to accept the songs of his 'Christian period' as an integral and
indestructible part of his oeuvre - a body of songs not to be cast off but
to be swallowed whole, however bitter the pill may be to some
unreconstructed leftists. Or to put it another way, in this 'Slow Train
Coming' and 'Saved' material, as reinterpreted for 2003 by a bunch of
artists to whom the songs' religious message means something, we hear Dylan,
himself the author of some of the founding texts of the 60s, paying tribute
to the very founding text of Judeo-Christian culture …
--
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"All history is contemporary history"
Benedetto Croce (1941)
Christopher Rollason, M.A., Ph.D., Metz, France
Language Editor, The Atlantic Literary Review (Delhi) -
www.geocities.com/atlanticliteraryreview
Editor and contributor, Atlantic Publishers (Delhi) - see
www.vedamsbooks.com
Co-editor, Bob Dylan Critical Corner site:
www.geocities.com/Athens/Oracle/6752/magazine.html
Bibliography of writings: www.seikilos.com.ar/biblio.pdf
VISIT the Walter Benjamin Research Syndicate site:
www.wbenjamin.org/walterbenjamin.html
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