Dylan is a recent rescue from Katrina, however, and I found it surprisingly easy to listen to.  The album is entirely cover songs, many of them quite familiar; and if Dylan’s performance of Joni Mitchell’s “Big Yellow Taxi” leaves no impression at all, that is not true of the lesser known songs. 

The opening track, a traditional folk song called “Lily of the West” is beautifully performed; and the album is well worth owning for that song alone.  Personally I am at least as big a fan of Bob Dylan as a folksinger as I am of Bob Dylan as a rocker, and this song was a welcome return to the performances that I remember so well from his early albums. 

(August 2014)