Self Portrait - Bob Dylan

When Bob Dylan released what was originally a double LP set (now a single CD) in June 1970, such was his British fan base that it entered the album charts at No. 1, dislodging the almost unstoppable mega-selling Simon & Garfunkel ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’ for a week. This was despite almost uniformly bad reviews, notably one from Rolling Stone magazine headed, unusually for those rather staid days, ’What is this s***?’

I grew up loving the Dylan of ‘Blonde On Blonde’ and ‘John Wesley Harding’. I hated the next album, the country and western croonfest ‘Nashville Skyline’, and when I first heard ‘Self Portrait’ I was one of those who could hardly believe what was coming out of the speakers. Forty-odd years later it is revealed as a heavily flawed curiosity, but not without its redeeming features, and some reviewers speak much more kindly of it now than they did then.

Dylan has put out several reasons for his motives in issuing this extremely uneven collection consisting partly of cover versions, traditional songs and instrumentals, and four live cuts. One was that bootleg records of material he had recorded over the previous few years but not intended for release were in circulation – quarter of a century before the internet, when you had to know the right people to ask and the right places to look, so he thought he would release his own bootleg. Another was that he was fed up with being seen as the spokesman for a generation, and thought he would astonish everybody with a pop, yes a pop, album. He certainly did.

The music

‘All the Tired Horses’ is a weird way to open. A song consisting of merely two lines sung over and over again by a couple (or so it sounds) of two female vocalists, accompanied by Mantovani-like strings, it then fades out without going anywhere...very avant-garde, but why? After that odd diversion it’s into more familiar Dylan territory with the folksy acoustic guitar-driven ‘Alberta #1’, plus trademark harmonica break, a traditional number and not a very interesting one at that. The same song is reprised in a longer version at the end of the record, with a slight change in tempo – but why he needed to do it twice, with not much difference between either, your guess is as good as mine.

If you like Dylan the country crooner of ‘Nashville Skyline’, you’ll enjoy the easy-on-the-ear waltz ‘I Forgot More Than You’ll Ever Know‘ with its lush steel guitar, piano, and rather cheesy backing vocals. Taking the other tracks out of order, the same can be said of ‘Let It Be Me‘, a ballad originally co-written and sung by Gilbert Becaud in 1955 and recorded by many others, notably the Everly Brothers, in the ensuing years. Ditto ‘Belle Isle’, another traditional number, soaked in sickly strings. Otherwise, you'd do better to skip these.

Likewise, are you ready for his version of Rodgers & Hart’s ‘Blue Moon’? Taken at a slower pace than the Marcels’ early 1960s version, with the backing vocalists’ ‘oooh-oooh-ooohs’ going into overdrive, at least it has a minor surprise with the fiddle break at the end. Likewise two songs written by Felice and Boudleaux Bryant, ‘Take Me as I Am (Or Let Me Go)’ and ‘Take a Message to Mary’. They’re all very middle of the road songs, with Dylan trying to sound like a rather less tenor or baritone version of Jim Reeves or Roger Whittaker. Close your eyes and you can almost picture him in a tuxedo, sitting on a stool with mic in hand, appearing on something like the Royal Variety Show. For me, it doesn’t represent the real Dylan. Maybe that was his idea all along.

Thankfully it’s not all as bad as that. Some of the cover versions are satisfactory, once you can get your head round the fact that a few years ago he was writing such good songs that it was other people who were falling over each other in order to cover them, instead of the other way round. Gordon Lightfoot’s ‘Early Mornin’ Rain’, with trademark harmonica and a lightly picked acoustic guitar lead, is harmless enough, even OK. I also quite like ‘Gotta Travel On’, although his country crooner voice takes the edge off it for me, but at least it has some energy. Paul Simon’s ‘The Boxer’, which is much shorter than the original, I’m in two minds about. On one hand I think it’s a complete mess, and wonder if the vocal double-tracking throughout was really necessary, but in a way it’s so odd it’s quite interesting. The folk ballad ‘Copper Kettle’ is pretty dreary and not worth more than the occasional listen.

There are three more traditional songs. ‘It Hurts Me Too’ is a rather uninspiring ballad which seems to bear no resemblance to the old Elmore James blues number. ‘In Search of Little Sadie’ is weird, with odd things happening to the melody and tempo, almost as if he is making it up as he goes along. I can almost imagine him laughing after the tape has been switched off. The same song appears a few tracks later on, retitled ‘Little Sadie’, but this time much faster and only using two chords.

‘Living The Blues’ is in a class of its own. One of Dylan’s compositions, it sounds very late 1950s rock’n’roll, with Elvis’s Mess Of Blues’ and ‘Singing The Blues’ coming to mind. Once you can get past the idea of Dylan singing rock’n’roll with utterly cheesy female backing vocalists supplying the ‘ahas’ at intervals, it’s quite fun. Having said that, I found a clip of him on Youtube performing the song with acoustic guitar, and a band out of camera (or a backing track) on a Johnny Cash TV show. I think it sounded better without the backing vox.

Next, two more-or-less instrumentals, credited to him as writer. ‘Wigwam’ is a slow and rather appealing chant, as Dylan la-la-las along to a majestic brass tune. Inexplicably it was released as a single, but nobody took any notice. Far, far better is ‘Woogie Boogie’. Only a pinch over two minutes long, this is a wonderfully infectious boogie piano-led 12-bar, with lead guitar, drums and brass following, finally a sax solo. Frankly it could be almost any other band with that instrumental line-up, and there’s more than a passing resemblance to ‘Honky Tonk Train Blues’, the old standard which gave Keith Emerson a solo hit in 1976 – but no denying that it’s well done.

Finally there are four tracks, also his own compositions, recorded live at the August 1969 Isle of Wight festival with The Band. As far as I can establish, these are the only IOW cuts ever officially released on record. ‘The Mighty Quinn (Quinn the Eskimo)’ sounds quite spontaneous if not under-rehearsed, threatening to fall apart at the end but somehow just remaining on its feet. Taken at a more boisterous pace than the more familiar Manfred Mann version the previous year, it may be very rough at the edges but is still probably one of the best tracks here. ‘Minstrel Boy’ promises great things, especially with that accapella opening, but the song itself is rather forgettable. ‘She Belongs to Me’ rocks quite spiritedly with piano, guitar and drums, but ‘Like a Rolling Stone’ fails to ignite. I adore the original; the ferocious live version from 1966 recorded at Manchester (known to posterity, thanks to a mistake along the way, as the ‘Albert Hall’ concert version) which he spat out at the audience after one of them shouted ‘Judas!’ at him is wonderful; and another concert recording, on 1974’s ‘Before The Flood’, is great too. But on this one, he sounds as if he’s just giving the crowd what he thinks they want to hear without putting heart or soul into it.

Packaging

The front cover includes a not terribly elegant self-portrait in oils. If I had a copy, I certainly wouldn’t hang it on my wall. Inside and on the back are a few photos of a relaxed, less intense-looking Dylan sporting trimmed hair and a neat beard, one taken onstage at the Isle of Wight.

Overall

I think the man looked in the mirror and decided he was going to have a bit of fun by teasing his audience, by putting out something they didn’t expect. It definitely sounds better with age. Some of it’s quite good, some of it’s weird, and occasionally it’s awful – but you will rarely find fans who agree on which are the worst tracks. It’s that kind of record. If you’re unfamiliar with Dylan, it’s definitely not the one to start with. If you know his other stuff well, give it a try but preferably at budget price if you can find it cheap enough, which you almost certainly can.

The Amazon page has a ‘preview all songs’ facility.