For his 35th studio album, 50 years after his first one, Tempest (Columbia), Bob Dylan wrote a nearly 14-minute song about the Titanic disaster (the title track), and an ode to the late John Lennon, “Roll On John.” It has been a big year for the Bard of Hibbing, who received the Presidential Medal of Freedom; and he’s on the cover of the Sept. 27 edition of Rolling Stone, the subject of an extensive interview. In his chat with Mikal Gilmore, Dylan says that he was “transfigured” following his 1966 motorcycle accident, which he relates to the death of Bobby Zimmerman, the president of the San Bernardino Hells Angels motorcycle club, in 1961. Anyway, the new album is a mix of rockers and ballads, which evokes an earlier century of carnivals and Western saloons. — M.S.
(American Jewish World, 9.28.12)
