Dylan is no stranger to cover albums. We’ve had albums of folk traditionals in the early 90s. There’s the rare 1973 Dylan album that’s still not available on CD. A lot of Self Portrait and most of his 1962 self titled debut is made up of covers. The same goes for Knocked Out Loaded and Down In The Groove from the late 80s. I’m a big Dylan fan, but it’s been ages since I’ve listened to any of these albums.
Therefore I wasn’t that enthusiastic when this album was announced last year. It wasn’t just because it’s a covers album and that Dylan’s cover albums usually are not very good. It’s also because I thought Dylan and songs from Frank Sinatra’s repertoire was a weird combination. After all Dylan’s voice was pretty shot on recent albums and the slow blues songs that have been his trademark for the last 20 years are a million miles away from the standards sung by Sinatra in the 50s and 60s.
So how is it? Well much better than expected, but maybe not as great as it could have been. Dylan and great American songbook standards turn out to be not such a weird combination at all. Actually this really doesn’t sound that much different from Dylan’s recent work. On the songs which aren’t that familiar it sounds like you’re just listening to a ballad from a new Dylan album. There’s no up tempo material, but his band still sounds like it always does on his slow ballads. A quiet, laid back rhythm section with some nice steel guitar from Donny Herron and some fine Charlie Sexton guitar where the song needs some tension.
Dylan sings better than he did on his last few albums. Still not great, but more than good enough for the material he has chosen here. A lot of them are familiar and of course one might wonder whether we really need another version of “I’m A Fool To Want You”, “That Lucky Old Sun” or “Autumn Leaves”. Still, with the treatment that Dylan gives them here the songs are right for his voice and right for his band. If there’s a problem with the album it’s that with every song getting the same treatment it all pretty much sounds the same. The slow tempo gives the album a feel that it goes on and on without a lot of it happening. But fortunately the album is over in 35 minutes, long before it becomes boring.
I guess in the end this is just Dylan being Dylan, like on his last albums. The album’s shorter, there are only ballads and he didn’t write the songs himself. Certainly not the big change in style I was expecting when I first read about the album. Like all of his other cover albums, this is not essential Dylan. But if you’ve enjoyed the albums he recorded in the new millennium and you don’t mind an album of ballads that he didn’t write himself, you’ll most likely find this an enjoyable listen. It’s also worth noting that the sound quality is very good by today’s standards, there’s not a lot of compression or pro-tools going on.
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