Bob Dylan

Good As I Been To You (1992)

 

  1. Frankie and Albert
  2. Jim Jones
  3. Black Jack Davey
  4. Canadee-I-O
  5. Sitting on Top of the World
  6. Little Maggie
  7. Hard Times
  8. Step it Up and Gol
  9. Tomorrow Night
  10.Arthur McBride
  11.You're Gonna Quit Me
  12.Diamond Joe
  13.Froggie Went A-Courtin'
  

It had now been thirty years since the first Bob Dylan album, and Bob sounds....well.....thirty years older. He's reverted back to the one man and one guitar style of recording (throw in a harmonica now and then), yet rather then a bunch of punchy originals, he's devoted this album to cover old folk songs. Some are familiar, most are probably not.

This is an extremely well done, well crafted, immaculate piece of work. Yes, there are a couple of brushes with a wrong guitar string, and maybe a few missed notes, but that is part of what was always appealing about this artist. The fact that he sang like an everyman was always one of his biggest strengths. An album like this can't really claim any "stand out" songs, because the songs are so consistent. It's a big pleasure to just listen to, or maybe have in the background whilst doing light duties around the house.

A few of the songs go on for about six minutes, and that's a bit long for this style of music, yet as mentioned, the album sounds best as a whole since the pieces are very generic. You wish he would do more like this, but there weren't that many people around that were buying albums like this in droves, so it's not completely mysterious that recordings such as this one are, indeed, rare.

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