Bob Dylan – Bourbon and Pride Review

Brief bursts of energy can be felt from Bob Dylan during his punchy leap into the 1990s He had Oh Mercy to thank for this confident scurry to the next steps of his career yet undid it all again with the lacklustre likes of Under the Red Sky. Unofficial bootleg Bourbon and Pride does well to revisit a time in Dylan’s career when it was all to play for and while he may not have capitalised on the sudden, spirited interest in his writings afforded to him by the 1989 release, he would soon find himself back on track towards the end of the decade. A long while to wait but in the meantime came performances and recordings which saw Dylan return to the reliable well of hits like Highway 61 Revisited. The dust had settled on his religious works and so Every Grain of Sand and their religious bedfellows are fitted throughout a collection of tracks which get to grips with guitar-heavy renditions. 

A skittery performance of Dixie and Wiggle Wiggle may surprise those listening in, then and now, but Dylan calms it all down a bit with Tonight I’ll Be Staying Here With You. A beauty from Nashville Skyline was brought back to the stage after a considerable absence. It is not until Political World that the range of Dylan now is truly felt. Clanging, brash and an almost uncaring tone take hold of these smooth guitar additions. Oh Mercy benefits from this cool tone enormously. Exceptional work on a cover of Charlie Daniels’ Old Rock and Roller feels well-placed. It may have only been performed once in Dylan’s career, but the reflective tone taken and the adaptation he makes when fitting it into his stage presence is monumental. He has taken the experiences of the Simple Man release and ran with it. These are not the best moments of Bourbon and Pride though they certainly set the scene. 

This unofficial bootleg comes to life on the likes of Lonesome Whistle Blues and the final track, Highway 61 Revisited allows Dylan to look back on his classics with a new burst of interest in his work thanks to Oh Mercy. One of the many great joys of this collection comes through the swinging formations found on Highway 61 Revisited. These are the bursts of energy and sudden motions of an instrumental collection given free rein to adapt and pull at a classic. Dylan has never shied away from tearing into his old material and here is no exception. Yet it is this structure which divides purists and those who hope to hear new versions of the classics. Dylan takes a backseat on the likes of Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again while Every Grain of Sand sounds relatively unchanged from how it appeared across the 1980s.  

Rough tones of what would become the norm for Dylan are heard on this release. He would reduce his voice a bit more, lean into those gruff moments and let the band play around with the tempo and tone of his best works. It fits well and Bourbon and Pride serves as a very well-worked piece of the puzzle. Time and again Dylan has found himself fighting back against a lacking public perception – particularly during the 1980s and 1990s. While it would be some time on from these performances that his luck would turn, it marks a fascinating period of his career. He finds the form of a sound which would carry him back to the studio for fruitful endeavours and make up the solid form of his live shows of the last thirty years. Monumental, yet quietly forgotten.