My brief spell of eBay buying in 2004 coincided with one of my Bob-fests, which come in cycles, every two to three years. Having exhausted all the original Bob recordings, I developed a fascination with different interpretations of his work. I haven't got Is It Rolling Bob? A Reggae Tribute to Bob Dylan
Anyway, these two CDs, originally covermounts for Uncut cost me £4.99 on eBay. You'd expect them to be a mixed bag, but somehow you'd also expect a few more remarkable versions than the relatively safe and uninspired — closer to Steve Gibbons than Barb Jungr or Tim O'Brien. The two halves of Sonic Youth line up against each other, one on each CD, and Thurston and Kim win over Lee and Steve, whose reading of Visions of Johanna is too reverential. Echo & the Bunnymen are back again, this time covering Them's cover of It's All Over Now, Baby Blue. Steve Harley can't be blamed for reverential as he does take the guts out of Love Minus Zero/No Limit and rebuild it. Ditto with The Nice on their She Belongs to Me. Sadly, though, the impact of their rebuilding is interesting, but not revelatory. Generally speaking it's the women — Mary Lou Lord, Cassandra Wilson, Thea Gilmore and Cat Power — who give the songs a new spin. That may just be because women's voices can't help but recast the songs — though even then Emmylou Harris and Ani DiFranco leave me wondering why they bothered.
Some of the songs were released elsewhere, but a minority were "recorded exclusively" for this compilation. The latter are generally the more perfunctory ones. Overall it feels as though the compilers, Allan Jones and Roy Carr, both august figures in their field, have been a bit perfunctory about the whole exercise. Could have done better with more time and budget, no doubt.
MusicBrainz entry for Vol 1, Vol 2
Rate Your Music entry for Vol 1, Vol 2
Listen to Vol 1 in part at Last.fm, Vol 2
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