Regardless, Oh Mercy is a landmark album.ĭylan's 2004 autobiography, Chronicles Volume 1, devotes an extremely long chapter to the making of the LP, though many Dylan experts have questioned the validity of some of the anecdotes.īob Dylan took a long break from recording new material after the release of 1990's rather subpar LP Under the Red Sky. The result was his strongest album in nearly a decade – though in a typical Dylan move, he jettisoned two of the best tracks ('Born in Time' and 'Series of Dreams') to make work for a couple of clearly subpar songs. For the first time in years, Dylan seemed to truly care about the quality of his work. They spent months working on the record in New Orleans, carefully crafting each song and often radically reworking the material until it was just right. In 1988, he began his Never Ending Tour (which is still going), and he took advice from Bono and teamed up with producer Daniel Lanois for a new album. Thankfully, Dylan realized he needed to completely rethink his career. In what seemed to be an ominous sign, most of the songs on those discs were either covers or tunes he wrote with others. His last two albums, Knocked Out Loaded and Down in the Groove, were arguably the two worst works of his career.

It's since been covered by countless artists, and Dylan himself has performed it over 2,000 times – more than any other song in his catalog.īy 1989, many Bob Dylan fans were convinced that Dylan had completely lost his songwriting muse. Dylan did virtually nothing to promote the disc and it didn't spawn any hits, though the following year, Jimi Hendrix released a cover of 'All Along the Watchtower' that became a smash all over the world.

It was recorded during the course of three relatively quick sessions spread over a month.

John Wesley Harding is a low-key folk-rock album cut with a tiny crew of Nashville pros. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, the Summer of Love and the Monterey Pop Festival. Psychedelic music was everywhere and many expected Dylan to further stretch his boundaries with his next release.Īs usual, Dylan completely defied expectations. A little over a year after a motorcycle accident removed Bob Dylan from the public eye, the singer-songwriter headed down to Nashville to record his long-awaited follow-up to Blonde on Blonde.

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