“Legendary broadcasts from the early 1960s,” they say. Tiresome the Bob Dylan YouTube channel may be, but they do come good once in a while. The Spirit of Radio is a compilation of early efforts from Dylan, which featured on (where else?) the radio. These are performances which feed into Dylan as a person more than a performer. He may prefer the latter in modern times, but there were moments in his career when he had to let his guard down, either to provide context to a song or to promote an album. Ignore the album cover, where a seemingly edited image has given Dylan a larger forehead than usual, and listen in to some very nicely compiled recordings. A three-CD set turned into YouTube playlist fodder, the Folksingers Choice appearance from March 1962, Wax Museum from April 1963, and the Life and Life Only compilation of folk festival performances are on offer here.
It is quite the compilation for those wanting easy access to lesser-known performances from the pre-Highway 61 Revisited days of Dylan. The more you listen to these early Dylan performances, the more you may feel he has come full circle as an artist. Vocally, Dylan sounds closer to these radio performances than anything else on the Rough and Rowdy Ways tour. He has rekindled the sounds of his earliest years, the moments when he still had to prove himself. Delightful moments on Lonesome Whistle and Smokestack Lightning highlight the quality of the Folksingers Choice collection, which is here, radio chatter and all. Those moments of conversation are essential listens. Moments where Dylan sounds, for the final time in his career, truly candid. He has not figured out the route through his musical choices and changes is to display himself as an enigma. To not challenge the public perception.
Hearing a relaxed Dylan strum away, tootling along with his harmonica, disarmed by these early opportunities, is very sweet. Covers on the first CD, which ends at Hard Times in New York Town, soon turn toward original material for the Studs Turkel-hosted interview. A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall and Boots of Spanish Leather are magnificent here, paired well with songs not destined to be hits but still worthy of your time, like Who Killed Davey Moore. Then comes a drop-off of any old song. Here and there spots of early performances, songs which would not become staples of Dylan’s set until years after his radio and festival appearances. Girl from the North Country is vastly superior when paired with Nashville Skyline and Johnny Cash, yet here it is.
Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll and It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue, would fare better decades after these performances. The latter song sounds better in the studio, which in turn must tip itself towards the slightly superior Rough and Rowdy Ways live set performances. That is beside the point. The Spirit of Radio offers plenty of rare recordings in an accessible form to those interested in hearing them. Irrespective of their quality (and these are well-maintained performances), the historical importance is right there to hear. For those sick of searching the annals of the internet for early Dylan performances, you could not be better catered to than with this triple CD set, uploaded to YouTube, out of the blue.
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