Bob Dylan: Modern Marvel

Modern Times
Bob Dylan
Columbia

Thirty years after his last appearance at the top of the Billboard Top 200 Albums Chart, Bob Dylan hit No. 1 this week with his latest, "Modern Times."

I knew this disc would hit No. 1 not long after I cued it up for the first time. Why? Because it's a masterwork by a master of American music? No, though it is and Dylan is, too. Because I instinctively know what's going to be hot in the marketplace? Anybody who checks in here every Thursday knows better; I'm still waiting for Tim Easton and Will T. Massey to get their due. No, my hunch that "Modern Times" would be a best-seller was based on an irrefutable, simple-yet-scientific fact.

My wife liked it. Or at least she liked the second track, "Spirit on the Water."

Yeah, I know that sounds a little too simple. And it is, if you know my wife. Even if you don't, you know someone like her. Sharon is one of those people that can't stand the sound of Dylan's voice. We fans like to call it an acquired taste. Non-fans liken it to nails on a chalkboard, finding that it gives them all the comfort of grinding their front teeth on a cinder block.

My dear wife and I have been able to preserve the domestic harmony for nearly five years for two reasons: One, I've learned to accept the fact that I'm usually wrong. Two, she's more than willing to admit that Dylan has earned his place in history and then some. Furthermore, she generally loves Dylan songs ... sung by other people. To each her own.

This brings me back to the point from where we started. Specifically, her reaction and hence my feeling that "Modern Times" would rocket to the top of the charts, leaving Danity Kane, Young Dro, Christina Aguilera and � almost unbelievably � Jessica Simpson in its wake.

There have been about a bajillion reviews written about this album, so it certainly is debatable as to whether you need one more. They run the gamut from scholarly to full-of-shit, and I'd humbly rate this one as somewhere in between. But it's built on a simple premise: Dylan's first album in five years, recorded with his touring band and produced by Dylan under the alias Jack Frost, is not only great, but palatable to non-fans such as my wife because his musical evolution and voice finally are in perfect synch. The acquired-taste factor isn't part of the equation this time. That craggy voice fits like a glove.

Forty-four years after baby-faced Dylan peered out from the cover of his debut album, he's grown into that old blues singer he was trying to be. Now he's at the top of the charts, and on the cover of the Rolling Stone, his skin wrinkled but his blue eyes still piercing. His thin moustache makes him look at once debonair and a tad diabolical; part Ray Price, part Vincent Price. He's not scary, though, except in the most excellent, Howlin' Wolf kind of way.

Dylan's weathered pipes fit his music better than ever because it's made for the old jazz, blues and pop stylings served up on "Modern Times" and its predecessor, "Love and Theft." That 2001 disc hinted at the extent of early to mid-20th century music's influence on Dylan. That influence was revealed further in his 2003 memoir, "Chronicles Volume 1," and has been more apparent still on his weekly XM radio show, "Theme Time Radio Hour."

Dylan's doing his own thing with traditional music, though. These are old styles but not old songs. For starters, there's the much-written-about mention of Alicia Keys in the Chuck Berryesque "Thunder on the Mountain," which opens "Modern Times." As a modern usage of the Berry style, it's perfect; I keep waiting for the band to break into a chorus of "Little Queenie" every time I hear it. But instead of "Well she looks like a model / On the cover of a magazine / But she's too cute / To be a minute over seventeen," we get "I was thinkin' 'bout Alicia Keys, couldn't keep from crying / When she was born in Hell's Kitchen, I was living down the line / I'm wondering where in the world Alicia Keys could be / I been looking for her even clear through Tennessee." Plus, "Thunder" rolls like "Highway 61 Revisited," presumably away from a vengeful God, down off the mountain, through a post-apocalyptic Washington from which all the ladies are heading for the hills and finally up north, where Dylan can reside as a gentleman farmer.

Early rock and roll is far from the only roots style displayed on "Modern Times." The borrowed lines and tunes turn it into a sonic-found art project. These are by no means all-inclusive, but "Rollin' and Tumblin'" uses the tune to the Muddy Waters hit of the same name. "Workingman's Blues No. 2" could easily be a tribute to Dylan's recent touring mate Merle Haggard. "When the Levee Breaks" borrows from Carl Perkins with the line "Put your cat clothes on." And the whole toothache-in-his-heel business from "Old Dan Tucker" turns up in the closer, "Ain't Talkin'." Between Dylan and Bruce Springsteen, that old lyric is getting some mileage this year.

Even the harmonica solo in "Spirit on the Water" seems to contain a melodic quote from Bruce Channel's one-and-only hit, 1962's "Hey Baby," which last entered the public's consciousness via the "Dirty Dancing" soundtrack in 1987.

None of this things makes "Modern Times" an homage or derivative ripoff. Rather, it's a reminder of the oral traditions in our music. It's folk music in the sense of music played by the people for the people, but even more so because it's organic rather than part of a chambray-clad movement to revive the old songs. Dylan was part of that '60s folk movement, but these songs are part of the fabric of his being, and they are worked seamlessly into "Modern Times."

"Rollin' and Tumblin'" is a perfect example of Dylan taking the form and applying his inimitable touch to it with the line, "The landscape is glowin', gleamin' in the golden light of day." No knock on Muddy Waters, himself a giant in the American music landscape, but that's a lyrical upgrade. Still, it would be cool to still have Mud around to hear him chew on Dylan's line, "I got troubles so hard, I can't stand the strain / Some lazy slut has charmed away my brains."

But it's not all nubile young singer-songwriter-soulstresses and lazy sluts. On a fair number of these tracks � "When the Deal Goes Down," "Beyond the Horizon" and the tender ballad "Nettie Moore" � Dylan is a lovelorn crooner, albeit a little rough around the edges. In the very song that kindled my dear wife's attention, "Spirit on the Water," he sings to that special lady, "You think I'm over the hill / You think I'm past my prime / Let me see what you got / We can have a whoppin' good time."

The sound and sentiment are as old as the hills, and as fresh as this morning's dew. "Modern Times" is a modern classic, a lifetime of learning shared by a master. At 65, when new heights can be harder to scale, the synchronicity of song and voice seem to have assured Dylan even greater esteem among those that adore his work as well as those who grant it grudging respect.

Thanks to Dalton Fleming for two brief but illuminating conversations about this album.