Album: The Gospel Songs of Bob Dylan

Gotta Serve Somebody: The Gospel Songs of Bob Dylan, Columbia

Bob Dylan is not best celebrated for his gospel output. Quite the opposite, in fact: the songs that made up his early Eighties Christian trilogy (Slow Train Coming, Saved and Shot of Love) are among the least impressive in his considerable catalogue. Uncoupled from the sardonic iconoclasm of his Sixties material, the hectoring tone of some of these songs resembles instead the blustery complaints of a retired Tory colonel – even when delivered, as here, by bona fide gospel singers.

Aaron Neville's "Saving Grace" is one of the better performances, and The Fairfield Four make a pleasant call-and-response chant out of "Are You Ready?". The overcooked choral arrangements of Sounds of Blackness on "Solid Rock" and the Chicago Mass Choir on "Pressing On" are simply enervating, however. Elsewhere, Lee Williams delivers "When You Gonna Wake Up" in the manner of Bill Withers rewriting the song and putting his own spin on the song's message. The other rewritten number is "Gonna Change My Way of Thinking", a duet between Mavis Staples and Dylan himself, in which a raggedy-voiced Bob rolls through the first verse before stopping to welcome Mavis to California ("You got a nice view!" "Yeah, it is – you can sit on this porch and look right straight into Hawaii!") and offering to go "knock off" a few chickens and "fry 'em up" for her. "Bizarre" doesn't come close.