A near five-hour compilation of live show workings from Bob Dylan is the stuff dreams are made of. In the years to follow the Love and Theft tours, Dylan would incorporate his hits and deep cuts into a setlist of sincere balance. There is a loud crowd wanting those daring songs, the pieces which are not paid their dues. But a louder crowd prevails, those who expect Dylan to still play with the same style and brutish stage nature they never saw as a youth. Your Charms Have Broken Many a Heart offers a full range of Dylan tours from August and September 2006, dates from immediately before and after the release of Modern Times. It is a mammoth collection of forty-three songs from shows across the globe. A mighty compilation, and well worth hearing through at least once.
Consider the quality of Dylan as a touring musician at the time, the band he had backing him for deep cuts like Cat’s in the Well and The Man in Me, songs which had been absent from the stage for some time before these performances. It is a collection of shocks, usually one or two a show, all rolled into one. Changes to You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere are more for the Dylan vocal performance than anything else. This is to be expected. But when the instrumentals are this constant, the softer style which is utilised on the Rough and Rowdy Ways tour, it gives Dylan a buffer zone for his artistic licence. An excuse to change up the vocal tempo is there, and it is welcome. Pulling songs like Lenny Bruce and My Back Pages from obscurity and having them hang with the best of them, the inevitable performances of Desolation Row and All Along the Watchtower, is a wonderfully realised opportunity on Your Charms Have Broken Many a Heart. Again, instrumental consistencies are the key here.
That is not to discredit Dylan as a singer in tours from this century, not at all. He sounds tremendous in most instances. It depends on how desperate you are to hear certain songs. Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum is always a hit or miss performance, more because the writing is not up to scratch, the tone a little flippant, compared to the other Love and Theft songs featured throughout. Songs from around this reformed period, the Time Out of Mind rip, Cold Iron Bounds, for instance, are fiery brilliance. Head in a little deeper, and catch all-time great performances of To Ramona and Lay Lady Lay. For those who like the gruffer vocal tone, the pack-an-hour smokiness of this Dylan vocal range, then you’re in for a treat. Contemporary pieces mix well with the classics, and though these songs may be from different shows, the frequency of these deep cuts in shows across just a month, is absurd.
Prolific, perfect, and often providing a new route through the familiar tones of Dylan’s very best, Your Charms Have Broken Many a Heart is successful in compiling the very best of Dylan in a reformed period. His work on stage had hit a new peak, a veteran of the stage revisiting his past for his sake, as well as the audience’s. There is as much love for a Love and Theft piece like the groove-laden thrill of High Water (For Charley Patton) as there is for Mr. Tambourine Man. An enthused audience can often be heard, but the relatively consistent quality of the tapes means the focus is more on the interplay between Dylan and seasoned stage musicians than it is on the whoops and hollers of an audience not expecting a performance of Sugar Baby. This is the thrill kept alive by this compilation, a chance to hear the shock comes from the performance itself, not just the immediate realisation of this hit or that.
