Profits from this 4-disc CD go towards human rights organisation Amnesty International, which celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2011, also the year that Dylan played his first gig. To paraphrase Bill Bryson writing about his recent book `African diary', think of this as a donation to a very worthy cause, with a free CD! Most people in this country would have first been aware of Dylan in the early 60s as a songwriter rather than a performer, with his songs being performed by artists such as Peter, Paul and Mary, the Byrds and Joan Baez.
This is an interesting collection of artists, with 60s veterans like Joan Baez, Kris Kristofferson and Pete Townsend; people who came to prominence in the 70s - Sting, Elvis Costello, Patti Smith and newer acts like My Morning Jacket, Queens of the Stone Age and the Dave Mathews Band. There are also many acts who are completely off my radar - Cage the Elephant, The Belle Brigade and Zee Avi?? Also, some people have suggested that the pop performers featured here -such as Miley Cyrus, Natasha Bedingfield and Kesha - are out of their depth but Dylan doesn't only write difficult wordy political and surreal allegories but also songs of whimsy and straightforward love songs and ballads which anybody can sing. We get the full gamut of Bob's oeuvre here from the early classics like "Blowing in the wind" and "Mr. Tambourine Man" to mid-period songs like "Most of the time" and "Gotta serve somebody", more recent songs like "Love sick" and obscurities such as "Seven curses".
There is a lot of music here, lots of variety - folk, rock, jazz, blues - some of it works fine, others don't work so well - with the main fault being too respectful to the original version of the songs. Everyone will have their own ideas what works and what doesn't, I don't intend to criticise any of the acts, who have all contributed to a worthy cause.
My own personal highlights were Mark Knopfler's Celtic take on "Restless farewell", Elvis Costello's very individual version of "License to kill", Sinead O'Connor's "Property of Jesus" and Maroon 5's "I shall be released". I particularly liked the one-off special combinations like Paul Rogers and Nils Lofgren's "Abandoned love" and Seal and Jeff Beck's "Like a rolling stone" and Steve Earl and Lucia Micarelli's "One more cup of coffee". I also really enjoyed performances by two artists I hadn't heard of before, Charlie Winston's "This wheel's on fire" and Blake Mills "Heart of mine" - with its marvelous slide guitar. We also get two serial Bob-botherers - Bryan Ferry and Mick Hucknell, as well as Taj Mahall who the law decrees has to appear on every tribute album. It was also good to hear the great Pete Seeger, the excellent Bettye Lavette, 60s survivors Marianne Faithfull and Eric Burden and even Adele's recent hit with ""Make you feel my love". It was also a nice touch to finish with Bob's own version of "Chimes of Freedom".