roxy54---I have just finished reading the chapter in Bob Dylan In America in which Sean Wilentz discusses Dylan’s "Love and Theft" album. Bob is so productive I haven’t been able to keep up with all his releases (plus the nature of some of them doesn’t interest me. Dylan sings Sinatra? Uh, I’ll pass.). But "Love And Theft" I loved from the instant I heard it, moreso even than Time Out Of Mind. Whereas TOOM was produced by Daniel Lanois, Dylan himself produced "LAT" (under his Jack Frost alias). I’m no fan of Lanois’ production in general, and really dislike the sound he created for TOOM, plus some of his musical choices and decisions. Dylan felt the same way---the two butted heads throughout the making of the album.
"Love And Theft" is now one of my all-time favorite Dylan albums. The songs are great, and Dylan seems to be in unusually high spirits (perhaps from having survived almost dying immediately following the completion of TOOM?). There is a lot of humor in the lyrics and their delivery---he sounds like he’s having a lot of fun. And he has one of the best bands he ever worked with, perhaps the best outside of The Hawks/Band. Certainly far better than The Grateful Dead and Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, two ill-advised choices as accompanists/collaborators.
Wilentz has deepened and expanded my appreciation of the songs on "LAT". He has a vast knowledge of both music and literature (a rare combination), and cites the sources for a lot of the songs on the album, both musically and lyrically. The sources?! Dylan is what Wilentz calls a "troubadour", an old term for the tradition of songwriters "borrowing" from the work of those who came before, appropriating their ideas and incorporating them into their own. Have you noticed the title of the album is not Love And Theft, but rather "Love And Theft"? You will learn why if you read Bob Dylan In America, the most insightful book I have read on the subject of Dylan. Fanfreakingtastic!