A strangely dark period for Bob Dylan would come after the release of both Blood on the Tracks and Desire. These were moments of lost faith, messy relationships and a stage presence which proved taxing. The Rolling Thunder Revue may not have been the breaking point for Dylan but his dedication to touring certainly proved laborious. It was energy he, by the sounds of it, did not have. Turning to a fundamentally depressed selection of blues efforts paints a picture known all too well to dedicated Dylan fans. Unofficial compilation Blues with a Feeling does well to select some darker days in Dylan’s discography, slept-on recordings which capture the moody moments of this period. His isolation is as on the nose as it gets for opener Hold Me in Your Arms, a frankly desperate song.
Desires of being held again open up a jagged and brutally open part of Dylan which cannot be heard on his albums. He comes across as increasingly genius on Blood on the Tracks, pand olitically defiant on Desire. But on the likes of The Sun is Shining, he shows his wounds and heartbreaks. Moody blues essentials can be heard throughout Blues with a Feeling, that latter feeling one of emotional despondence. Blues by a man with the blues. It sounds ridiculous on paper but the earnestness of it, the fundamentals which make the genre all the better, is what brings out the best of this compilation. Most of these are covers, moments which provide Dylan a chance to exorcise his wounded soul and heartbroken feelings without the need to put his own words, his muddled thoughts, out there. A mixture of studio sessions and other performances, most of it unreleased, but compiled together and it makes for a delicate, touching experience.
These are not for the faint of heart or the dense of mind. Blues with a Feeling is a compilation of decent songs, questionable quality on a few of them, but certainly listenable. Context of the times is paramount here. You can dive into these jam-like moments and get a feel for an instrumental fury but without its purpose, it may sound aimless. Marry those erratic sounds of Rita May to the divorce and distaste for touring which was circling at the time and Blues with a Feeling makes that much more sense. Love with a Feeling serves a brutal punch when paired with the harshness of life at the time for Dylan. These moments ripped from the post-Desire, pre-Street-Legal days, are moments of vitriol and rage in a time of nullified experiences.
Bootleg compilations are often scrapings of the live circuit and details of the studio sessions which simply never came to pass. For Blues with a Feeling it serves as shot after shot of emotional volatility for an artist whose work was about to slip entirely from the lofty expectations still held by listeners. Street-Legal is no masterpiece, but it serves as an underrated gem, a set of songs banking on good fortune and greater respect for an artist whose works before and after this compilation became obsessive. They were so fixated on the ruinous lows and joyous, reflective highs he lost sight of the politically charged fight. That is, for good or for ill, an inevitability of a personal life on the brink. Anton Chekov may have played his part in the blues feel and Blood on the Tracks, but the personable horrors are there for the taking on Blues with a Feeling.
