Bob Dylan

This three-disc set compiles a trilogy of three of Bob Dylan's most experimental and exciting recordings. Collection, Vol. 4 includes the seminal Nashville Skyline, John Wesley Harding, and New Morning. The first two showcase Dylan in the company of top Nash Vegas session players like Pete Drake, Kenneth Buttrey, and Charlie McCoy, among others, and showcase a more laid-back, folksy, down-home style. Nashville Skyline resulted in the hits "Lay Lady Lay" and the fine "Tonight I'll Be Staying Here with You,"as well as a stellar duet with Johnny Cash on "Girl from the North Country." John Wesley Harding offers some of the songwriter's most memorable and poetic tunes as well, including "I Dreamed I Saw St. Augustine," "The Ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest," "All Along the Watchtower," and "I'll Be Your Baby Tonight." New Morning is something of an anomaly in a season of them, rushed out as it was in the wake of the commercially and critically disastrous Self Portrait (which seems to be intentionally bad). With a host of musicians, including David Bromberg and Charlie Daniels, it is a quirky, elliptical offering that walks the line between rock, country, blues, and folk, and contains "If Not for You," "Sign on the Window," and "If Dogs Run Free." For those who don't already have them, this box is a fine addition to the Dylan shelf, containing three idiosyncratic but very satisfying albums that ultimately portray an artist in the heat of transition. ~ Thom Jurek, All Music Guide