Blood on the Tracks

by

Mary Lee's Corvette

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What on earth is she doing, thinking she can go onstage and do a song-for-song performance of one of Bob Dylan's greatest records ever? I had my doubts when I heard about this; but then I listened. And I was amazed. I was amazed at how great these songs sounded being sung by a woman with an amazingly soulful voice. The bitter anger and rage of "Idiot Wind", the sweet, sweet "Buckets Of Rain", the sad resignation and sarcasm of "You're A Big Girl Now" all come shining through. And the spontaneity of the whole evening is captured in the annoying, but thankfully short performance of an audience member during "Lily, Rosemary, and the Jack of Hearts".

This is a must for any Dylan fan. Mary Lee Kortes has managed to make you want to listen to these songs all over again and she makes you hear them in a new way. She reminds you of what gems they are and to rejoice in the fact that these songs exist in the world. Don't miss it...and at the very least, give her the respect she deserves for taking on this very daunting challenge and rising to it.

Combine a good voice, a tight back-up band, and a set of some of the best songs ever written, and you will get a very enjoyable album, and indeed, you can't go wrong buying this one. So why do I call it overrated? Because 4 or 5 stars (Rolling Stone gave it 4) requires more originality--some flash, at least, of creative brilliance. Without any of their own songs on the album, this can only be achived through creative interpretations of Dylan's songs, but that's generally lacking on this album. There are a few notable exceptions, such as the psyschedelic touch on Meet me in the Morning, and some interesting pacing in other songs. In some ways the most original aspect of the album was the choice of including that bit with the random guy in the bar doing Lilly and the Jack of Hearts. The guy cleverly parodies dylan's exaggerated vocal style on the original BOTT (eg in Idiot Wind), while giving us a tour of Dylan's many voices--giving us his BOTT voice in one line, jumping to Nashville Skyline in the next, and Dylan's Oh Mercy voice a bit later. Buckets of Rain, by the way, I think is a great interpretation, and throughout the album is technically excellent. I was a little disappointed that she went with Dylan's angry interpretation of Idiot Wind (the one you get on the original BOTT) rather than a sad melancholy interpretation as Dylan does in the bootlegs (my personal favorite).