The 13th volume of Columbia's Bob Dylan "Bootleg" series, called Trouble No More, focuses on his Christian period - 1979 through 1981.
There is every reason why I should HATE Dylan's Christian era, but I don't hate it, I love it. (I definitely DO hate his Sinatra period, i.e. Now).
There was some speculation that the next official "bootleg" release would be the first official release of the 1969 Bob Dylan-Johnny Cash sessions. Long prized as an unofficial bootleg by fans, it has never been officially released. Are there out-takes we haven't heard yet from the sessions?
Recorded in Nashville on February 17th and 18th, 1969, it features Dylan, Cash, and Carl Perkins on guitar doing Cash and Dylan songs as well as some classics and standards. It's great and perhaps it will come out next year on the 50th anniversary of the sessions. (Although fans like these recordings, word is that Dylan, Cash, Columbia Records, Bob Johnston, and others at the time thought they were too amateurish to release at the time. I think many would say the "laid back" attitude was more authentic than a highly polished result would have been)
Then we heard that they would be presenting the Gospel years. You could almost hear a collective groan. The three albums considered the Gospel trilogy - Slow Train Coming, Saved, and Shot of Love (all three beginning with a "S") - were disrespected on release and have never been taken seriously by many Dylan fans, much less the general public.
At the time, Dylan was widely derided as "selling out" to a more Conservative time. One fan, Ron Rosen, said he was "disappointed by it" and "lost some respect for him" but that it seemed it was just "a passing phase" and he was "happy he didn't stick with it".
Although I was born into a Christian family, I am no longer a practicing Christian. Actually, we wouldn't have called ourselves "Christians", we called ourselves "Catholics". My Irish, Eastern European, and Italian ancestors have been Roman Catholics for centuries, which meant we went to Church every Sunday, celebrated the hell out of Christmas and Easter, but didn't read the Bible much, and didn't trust Protestants much. We saw the Bible-studying, Bible-quoting Protestants, especially the Evangelical, Pentecostal, Born Again-types, as self-righteous holly rollers and fanatics.
It only got worse circa 1979-1980, when fundamentalism seemed to take over the entire world - Reagan in America, Thatcher in Britain, Khomeini in Iran, John Paul II in The Vatican. In The U.S., Reagan declared it was "Morning in America" and much of his support came from so-called "Christians", notably a preacher named Jerry Falwell who started a group called The Moral Majority who railed against the LGBTQ communities with a vitriol that seemed quite un-Christ-like. Indeed, many of the Born Again Christians of the late 70's and early 80's seemed to be white, Southern, rural, racist, sexist, homophobic redneck gun nuts and worse.
This was hardly the moment for a hero of the counter-culture to go to the Dark Side. Reagan and his crew seemed to relish the opportunity to bash the 60's, the hippies, and the ideals of the counter-culture. If the hippies, Black Panthers, feminists, Civil rights and anti-war protesters, and LGBTQ activists were a revolution, Reagan and the Yuppies were the counter-revolution, the contras, much like the counter-revolutionaries in Nicaragua that Reagan supported in their effort to overthrow the Socialist government of the Sandinistas.
I had gone from going to Church every Sunday and going to Catholic elementary, middle, and high school to not going to Church at all, adopting a small "c" catholic Spiritual point of view, studying Sufism, Gurdjieff, and Tibetan Buddhism, but insisting on a secular, non-sectarian, agnostic stance in political and social matters.
That was my mindset when it Dylan came out as a Born Again Christian. Nonetheless, I was a teen-aged Dylan fan and I immediately bought Slow Train Coming on vinyl in Philadelphia and I immediately loved it! Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits provided the guitar, which was amazing.
I also loved Saved. Around this time, I was staying in London with my friend Mary. She had taught a French friend English using Dylan lyrics and had been doing deep digs into Street Legal (Dylan's divorce album, widely disparaged, released right before he converted) and Dylan's Christian albums, studying the lyrics line-by-line, finding a plethora of meaning, whether intended or not.
I came to think of Dylan's Christianity in the same way many people who struggled with addiction, depression, crisis by jumping head first into a religion, cult, gang, or other group membership which filled the void. I eventually dubbed it the Phoebe Snow Rule. "Whatever gets you through the night, it's alright, it's alright..."
Around this time, I ran into Beat poet Gregory Corso in London to participate in something called "The Poetry Olympics" near Poet's Corner at Westminster Abbey. We joked that Americans were meant to be boycotting Olympics that year (1980, the U.S. boycotted the Russian Olympics) and I asked him about Dylan.
"Oh Bobby Dylan! He fell for the oldest con in the book!" He couldn't believe it. Nobody could.
It helped some that Dylan's Christian lyrics didn't actually call for gays to be discriminated against. He didn't seem to be a Moral Majority right-wing Born Again-type. Some of the lyrics are indeed judge-y... but nothing too reprehensible.
Although I believe in a secular society, my free form spirituality was vital to me at the moment. I was determined to not be a materialist. The way Mary and I interpreted Dylan's Christianity, he was a merely being an uncompromising spiritual person in a cynical, materialist world.
So I could forgive the worst of the Christian lyrics. And "Every Grain Of Sand" from Shot of Love is one of Dylan's best songs ever from any period.
By 1983's Infidels, Dylan was back to a more vague spirituality. But. Did any Dylan fans fail to notice his deep spirituality previously? Check out 1970's "Father Of Night" from New Morning. There are sprinkles of Judaism, Christianity, Wicca, New Age, and more through all of Dylan's materials from the very beginning to the present day.
It was a relief for most of us when Dylan relaxed with the finger-pointy Christian stuff.
But I was more than ready to take a fresh look in the present day at the Dylan Gospel material to re-evaluate it.
In the intervening years, I have listened to tons of Gospel, both white and African-American. (Check out the box-set Goodbye, Babylon! for a great overview.)
It's been a blast to check out the Gospel stuff. There is a deluxe version with 8-CDs and a DVD of a Gospel concert. So far, I've heard the 2-CD version of Trouble No More as well as a November 28, 1979 Dylan Gospel concert from San Diego. The music is great. The music rocks much more in concert than on the albums. I especially like Fred Tackett's guitar.
I was afraid that only Mary and I would be interested in Trouble No More. It seems from what I gather online that actually there is wide interest and appreciation in this period now, which at the time no one was prepared to listen to with unprejudiced ears.
My take-away is that I wish I believed in something (anything!) as strongly as Dylan believes in these songs.
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