#385 - Bob Dylan - Love and Theft (2001)
MUSIC HISTORY WRITTEN BY HEAD WRITER DJ MORTY COYLE:
Released on September 11th of 2011 on Columbia Records and self-produced under the pseudonym Jack Frost this is the 31st studio album by the American singer/songwriter and unofficial voice of his generation.
We just did Dylan’s 30th record, “Time Out of Mind” with Rita Wilson so I’ll keep the history brief because this is the follow up and not a lot changed.
Producer Daniel Lanois did both 1989’s “Oh Mercy” and 1997’s “Time Out of Mind” which were huge records for Dylan while the albums in between really bombed.
“Time Out of Mind” won the Grammy for Album of the Year and in 2000 Dylan won the Academy Award for the Best Original Song for “Things Have Changed,” from the movie “Wonder Boys.”
So with this solid career resurgence this next album would be highly anticipated.
But despite the twice-winning formula of those hit albums with Daniel Lanois and likely due to their often strained relationship, Dylan chose to again self-produce under the name Jack Frost with engineer Chris Shaw.
With Dylan on vocals, guitar and piano and his touring band of multi-instrumentalist Larry Campbell, guitarist Charlie Sexton, bassist Tony Garnier, drummer David Kemper, percussionist Clay Meyers, and added keyboardist “Augie” Meyers all the songs were recorded in only twelve days.
His engineer, Chris Shaw was surprised at how quickly Dylan would try and then abandon an arrangement on his way to what would fit the vocal and lyric.
According to Shaw, Dylan would say “‘What’s the tempo? Let’s do it in F and drop the tempo down and do it like a Western swing tune, and I want the drummer to play brushes, not drums.’ And suddenly the song was completely different. Nothing was set in stone until he found that key, tempo and style that fit that vocal and that lyric.”
As in the past Dylan borrowed lines, lyrics, characters, and themes from anywhere that interested him.
In describing this album Dylan said, ”Basically, the songs deal with what many of my songs deal with - which is business, politics and war, and maybe love interest on the side... The whole album deals with power. If life teaches us anything, it's that there's nothing that men and women won't do to get power. The album deals with power, wealth, knowledge and salvation - the way I look at it."
And at sixty-years-old Dylan expressed those views like a travelogue through America’s pre-Rock and Roll musical history including Chicago Blues, Country Swing, Ragtime, Rockabilly, Tin Pan Alley Torch songs, and the stuff of Vaudeville, Burlesque, and Minstrel shows.
And it’s from a book about that racist, 19th century, musical, art form that Dylan got the album’s title.
Despite the unfortunate release date of “Love and Theft” it was well received and reached #5 on the Billboard 200 chart.
It was another critical success and topped the year’s best records in many publications including The Village Voice and Rolling Stone Magazine.
And won that year’s Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Folk Album.
He followed this with eight more studio albums and a bunch of greatest hits collections, live albums, and official bootleg releases and is still going strong.