Dylan Revisited

I got to watch the first half of Martin Scorsese's excellent documentary last week on Bob Dylan ("No Direction Home: Bob Dylan" on PBS) and that prompted me to reevaluate my opinion of Mr. Bojangles. When I was younger I couldn't stand Dylan -- his (IMHO) nasal, toneless voice just absolutely grated on me. I've noticed that most folks have very polarized opinions regarding Bob Dylan. Either they venerate him and his music or they can't stand him. This documentary made me realize that my judgment of him has moved to somewhere in the middle of those two extremes. While I still don't care for his singing that much, I do respect him as a songwriter, particularly for his work in the '60's. He certainly was one of the few artists of that time who truly captured the zeitgeist of the era. His influence on other artists during that time was enormous. His lyrics, during his folk period especially, were nothing short of poetry.


But I think I'll always prefer hearing his music sung by someone else. :-)
Jose'