BOB DYLAN
Shadows In The Night
Columbia/Sony
While recording an album of songs from ‘The Great American Songbook’ might seem like an unusual tangent even for the unpredictable Bob Dylan, he has apparently wanted to do it since first hearing Willie Nelson’s Stardust in the late ‘70s.
There is a touching warmth to all of the songs on Shadows In The Night. Aside from three tracks featuring horns (I’m A Fool To Want You, The Night We Called It A Day, That Lucky Old Sun – all rendered world-wearily and quite beautifully) it’s Dylan’s five-piece touring band covering all bases, and if you saw them perform in the intimate climes of the Riverside Theatre last August, it’s not hard to imagine that unit revelling in the light, the shade and the quiet of these standards.
Dylan’s grating whisper entirely suits these songs, too. When he opines, ‘Once you have found her never let her go’ on Rodgers And Hammerstein’s Some Enchanted Evening it really sounds like it’s coming from someone who knows it for a fact. When the album reaches it close with That Lucky Old Sun Dylan has taken you on a journey through the journeys of others, finding new paths along the way.
BOB GORDON
