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 Bob Dylan at his Best Jan 25, 2010
Recorded with a set of Nashville musicians, this is one of Bob Dylan's best albums. The music is superb and the lyrics draw you right in. These are songs with a story, with a purpose. and there is even a love song thrown it, "Down Along the Cove" and to my way of thinking its one of the best love songs ever written. Coming out after his long hiatus after "Blonde on Blonde" (supposedly because of his motorcycle accident) the way it did, his fans were probably starving for music and they snatched this one right up (or so I'm told). Still, it must have been a little bit of a shocker to his fans, you know, the direction his music was taking. A few years later they would be shocked even more, because Dylan is not your basic static musician, he's ever growing, ever changing and this incantation of the never the same Bob Dylan is truly one of the best.
1 of 1 found the following review helpful:
"There Are Many Here Among Us Who Feel That Life Is But A Joke" Dec 05, 2009
In December of 1967 Bob Dylan released his long awaited follow up to the legendary Blonde On Blonde album. For more than a year Dylan was holed up in West Saugerties, New York with a band of Canadians and a drummer/singer/mandolin player from Arkansas. They called themselves The Hawks, (later re-named The Band). Bob was recouping from a motorcycle accident and writing songs that suited the juke-joint feeling they provided as a back-up unit. But what Bob really wanted to do was to head down to Nashville and record with the great session players Charlie McCoy, Ken Buttrey and Pete Drake. The songs he had written were naratives of characters from the old West, Frankie Lee, Tom Payne and John Wesley Harding. There were also figures like Judas and St. Augustine, names familiar to the New Testament. And there were anonymous characters Landlords, Hobos, Immigrants, Gamblers and Drifters, all faceless and nondescript, but worthy of great fear, unfathomable pity and deep respect.
The audience was slow to react to this quiter, gentler Bob Dylan. Teens and young adults who were weaned on the likes of Highway 61, Subterranean Homesick Blues and Like A Rolling Stone felt betrayed. Like the "folkies" at Newport who wanted more of Blowin' In The Wind and The Times They Are A Changin'. They couldn't recognize him and didn't want their hero to change. Just who was this stranger surrounded by weird looking figures on the album cover? And what exactly was Bob saying about "plow-men digging my earth" and "Immigrants who wished that they had stayed home"? What was this "Watchtower" inhabited by princes, thieves, bare-foot servants and Jokers? And who was this "fairest damsel that ever did walk in chains"?
The following year Bob released Nashville Skyline, a more mainstream country album. Fans and critics alike were unanimous in their approval. Lay Lady Lay became a top forty hit. Why even country icon Johnny Cash engaged in a heart felt duet with Bob on "Girl From The North Country". The Byrds too had gone country with Sweetheart of the Rodeo and a new genre called "country rock" was born. So John Wesley Harding was largely forgotten and reduced to a footnote. It's the record Bob released between two landmark albums, Blonde On Blonde and Nashville Skyline. John Wesley Harding never gained traction with hard-core Dylan fans and never got it's due. But I strongly believe it contains some of Bob's greatest songwriting. Yes, "John Wesley Harding was a friend to the poor"....And anyone who cares to listen and give him a fair shot. Don't pity him or fear him. Don't send him "Down Along The Cove" with that "Wicked Messenger". Just listen and take the time to hear his story. Remember "There are many here among us who feel that life is but a joke"..."But let us not talk falsely now. The hour is getting late".
0 of 1 found the following review helpful:
cd Nov 29, 2009
Reminds me of how much influence Dylan had on Country music in the mid sixties.
1 of 3 found the following review helpful:
 John Wesley Harding Oct 10, 2008
John Wesley Harding being Dylan's 1967 release and his 8th studio album is one of Dylans most accessible albums to date. The lyrics are simple and to the point and does not included many strange allusions as he sometimes does on other albums. Songs such as I dreamed I saw St. Augustine, All along the watchtower are great tracks that just happen to follow one another on the album. All along the watchtower was covered by Hendrix in 1968. The book-let has a cover photo of Dylan with a bunch poorly dressed men. I like the photo on back with Dylan singing. It looks so nice and natural. Inside we have a strange little story. I have no idea what it is about. 4/5.
3 of 4 found the following review helpful:
A change of pace, but an enjoyable one Oct 04, 2008
Was anyone ready for this album from Bob Dylan, in 1968? A folk-rock album with some occasional country touches, filled with parable-like lyrics? With arguably the world's most unpretentious album cover, just four guys standing in a forest? Even for Dylan, a guy best known for messing with his fan base, for never making the same album twice, for always defying people's expectations of him, this is quite the change-up.
It's also the only Dylan album I'm aware of when the melodies and singing are more memorable than the lyrics. It's by far the most melodic of Dylan's career. Pretty much every song here is flat-out beautiful - "I Dreamed I Saw St. Augustine" and the piano-fortified "Dear Landlord" (later done by Joe Cocker) are fantastic tearjerkers, while the minor-key "As I Went Out This Morning" is nicely spooky, and there's something menacing about the simple four or five-chord sequence of the classic "All Along the Watchtower." A quick aside about "Watchtower" - it's better known for Hendrix's version, but I think both takes of the song are equally fantastic. Dylan's original take sure doesn't have the jaw-dropping guitar pyrotechnics of the Hendrix version, but the harmonica wails do the same thing equally well. Plus its mood of intimate despair is just as efficient as Hendrix's apocalyptic rage. In other words, Hendrix picked a fantastic song to cover, and he did an equally fantastic cover version. "Drifter's Escape" (also done by Hendrix, although his version of this song isn't half as famous as "Watchtower" - it's on South Saturn Delta and it's good, check it out!) also manages to convey that sense of dread through the power of melody almost as well as "Watchtower" does. So does "The Wicked Messenger" (later covered by Patti Smith), which also adds a captivating riff. The only song without a good melody is "The Ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest," which runs itself into the ground because of that and its five minute running time, despite some cool lyrics. I'll get to the lyrics, don't you worry about that.
Not only do the melodies rule, but Dylan's in great voice here. Not only do "St. Augustine" and "Dear Landlord" have winning melodies, they also have heartbreaking vocals. The musical menace of "Watchtower," "Messenger," and "Drifter's Escape" is also conveyed through Bob's singing, and I love his rambling storyteller vocals on the opening title track. I think this is his best album as a singer by a very long shot. Who'd have thought it? Dylan, the crazy hippie who can't sing (other people's words, not mine!), singing and singing well!
My biggest problem with JWH lies in the lyrics. There are some real winners - everything on "Watchtower," "His tongue it could not speak but only flatter" on "Wicked Messenger," "It's not a house, it's a home" from "Frankie Lee," "Where someone else's life begins, that's where mine ends" (or something to that effect) from "I Am a Lonesome Hobo," but on a whole they strike me as an afterthought. Some of them are downright annoying, like the "I told her with my voice/but you have no choice" rhyme on "As I Went Out One Morning," but most of them are just mediocre preaching.
On top of that, a couple of these songs don't really get off the ground. "The Ballad of Robert E. Lee and Iron Maiden" or whatever it's called doesn't really get off the ground, and neither does "I Pity the Poor Immigrant." And the closing country duo is hit-or-miss - I like "I'll Be Your Baby Tonight" plenty, but "Down Along the Cove" is no great shakes.
This album doesn't really grab me the way other Dylan albums have, and it seems a lot of people like it a lot more than I do. But in a lot of ways it's fascinating, and it sure is a change of pace.
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