Click on the title for a link to the best website on the web about Bob Dylan's music. It is actually the official website and it has a great discography of Bob Dylan's music. It has each album listed and if you click on the album it will show what songs are on it and you can listen to them. You can register on the site at no charge and can then listen to all the songs. You can't download them but it has a link to Amazon.com where you can purchase a song for $.99 each or buy the entire album. It has an alphabetical listing of all of his songs which has the lyrics and will tell you on what albums the song can be found. Many of his songs are on more than one album often in different versions. If you are someone like me who likes some of his music but not everything it is helpful in determine what albums to buy and which ones to avoid. The ability to buy and download one or two songs from an album is a great advance from the days when you had to buy an entire record album even if you only liked only one or two songs. Quite frankly I am not a big fan of his music from the 1970 through the mid 1990's. I was able to use this site to listen to every song on every album in this period and found about 15 songs I like not on "The Essential Bob Dylan" album and purchased them individually from Amazon.com and "burned" my own CD I called "More Essential Bob Dylan"
To date I have collected all of his studio albums from 1962 to 1969 (9 albums) and have his Greatest Hits I,& II and "The Essential Bob Dylan 2 disk compilation. I have also purchased and downloaded online much of 1997's "Time Out of Mind" and 2008's "Tell Tale Signs". I have the 2006 "Modern Times" and the CD of his 1964 live concert at Philharmonic Hall in New York City on Halloween night. In addition, I just recently acquired "The Bootleg Series Volumes 1-3," a three Cd set of outtakes and other music that did not make it into his studio albums. Much of it is often better than the album versions. I particularly like "disc one" that has his very early music from 1961 to 1963 while in the Greenwich Village "scene" in New York City. The real folk era.
I know it is hard to believe that a conservative Republic like me would enjoy Bob Dylan but in the music area I am able to separate the artist's personality and politics from his music. I didn't particularly like Frank Sinatra or Barbra Streisand but I like their music. My wife hates Bob Dylan's voice since it is not "pretty" but I believe it has "character." like Louis Armstrong and Jimmy Durante. I like his "acoustic" introspective folk music much better than his "electric hard Rock" or "Blues" sound. I have acquired a taste for his country/Nashville sound.
During the holidays our son asked me if I was this "into" Bob Dylan during the 1960's and I said "No." I was always interested but had a lot of other things I was interested in and involved in . I did purchase his 'Greatest Hits" I & II on record back then. Now that we are "empty nestor's" I have more time to explore those things I didn't have time for in the past such as Bob Dylan. Oh, it's cheaper than golf which I hate!
