Together Through Life (Deluxe Edition)

Performer: Bob Dylan
Distributor: Sony Music Distribution (

Notes: After two decades of outsourcing the producing and arranging of his records to everyone from Mark Knopfler to Daniel Lanois, Bob Dylan stopped phoning it in in the '00s and began directly shaping their sound and feel. As producer of TOGETHER THROUGH LIFE, he elevates the near-cliche material with a beautifully crafted latticework of breathy border-town accordion and smoky guitar riffs (courtesy of Los Lobos's David Hidalgo and Heartbreaker Mike Campbell respectively), steel guitar, mandolin, and brushed drums. Initially intended as a soundtrack of an Olivier Drahan movie, the album finds a pleasantly off-hand bard building on the wistful romanticism of recent ballads (like MODERN TIMES's "Beyond the Horizon") with a cycle of songs (nine of them co-written with legendary Dead lyricist Robert Hunter) about dreaming, hoping, and good love. Indeed, the change in "I Feel A Change Comin' On" is not of the apocalyptic hard rain variety, but portends a potential tryst as Dylan chimes "life is for love" with uncharacteristic sweetness. Via languid slow burns ("Forgetful Heart"), sensual grooves ("If You Ever Go To Houston"), and loping blues walkarounds ("Jolene"), TOGETHER THROUGH LIFE plays like a great date night in a Texas dancehall--perfect for lovers tired of talking, who just want to grab hold and sway.

Spin (p.88) - "TOGETHER THROUGH LIFE resides in that sepia-toned world; the biggest flourish is the omnipresent accordion, courtesy of Los Lobos' David Hidalgo, which only adds to the air of dusty antiquity." Q (Magazine) (p.116) - 3 stars out of 5 -- "[I]ts musical touchstone is his radio programme, 'Theme Time Radio Hour.' As on the show, here he's reconnecting with the uncluttered blues-based music he grew up with, the music he loves." Blender (Magazine) - 5 stars out of 5 -- "[A] strikingly simple -- and strikingly excellent new album....He revels in how banged-up and gruff his voice is with a lifetime of road dust corroding his lungs." Paste (magazine) - "[The album] finds him plowing the same American furrow he's been working for the past 12 years, but with a distinct border-town edge suited to the record's reflective, riotous and emotionally rugged turns." Record Collector (magazine) (p.83) - 4 stars out of 5 -- "Rather than the sophisticated country-jazz of MODERN TIMES, here's a raw rock'n'roll cacophany with a Cajun twist, Los Lobos' David Higaldo driving virtually every song with his accordion." Uncut (magazine) - 5 stars out of 5 -- "The lyrics allude frequently to sinking suns, chilly winds, eternal loneliness, twilight reveries, final voyages to unspecified destinations, the seeping away of the day's last light."

Bob Dylan began as a Woody Guthrie acolyte, imitating the dust-bowl balladeer as faithfully as a baby boomer from Hibbing, Minnesota, could. It wasn't long before he found his own voice, spearheading the early-1960s folk revival as well as the singer-songwriter movement, and introducing poetry into pop music. Through countless changes in sound, image, and even religion, he retained his unique artistic vision even when his popularity occasionally waned. By the 21st century, he was enjoying an upsurge of critical and popular interest based on a series of powerful late-career albums that crystallized his aesthetics and unique world view.

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