Bob Dylan 36: Good As I Been To You

The poet of his generation had turned fifty, and what did he have to show for himself? How about an album of mostly folk songs? Good As I Been To You is wholly acoustic with vocals, just like his first four albums thirty years previous. But for the first time since his first time, these unaccompanied songs were all traditional folk and pop standards, not a one written by the man himself.
The first, most striking thing about the collection was that the guitar parts were all and only Bob. He hadn’t let himself be this exposed for such a long stretch for a while. Most of the songs defy classification; “Sitting On Top Of The World” and “Tomorrow Night” would have been known to fans of Cream and Elvis Presley respectively, while few would have guessed they’d ever hear “Froggie Went A-Courtin’” on a Dylan album. The out-of-tune “Arthur McBride”, “Hard Times” and “Frankie & Albert” have good intentions, but it’s hard to get past his (even for him) nasal delivery to care about the stories he tells.
Good As I Been To You screams contract obligation; seeing as these were the types of songs he played for an acoustic set on the now Never-Ending Tour, it seems he could have put this together in his sleep. Meanwhile, the packaging consisted of one recent crusty photo plus a shot from the 1986 run with the Heartbreakers.

Still, Columbia got a lot of mileage out of promoting it, coming on the heels as it did of the star-studded concert dubbed Bobfest by Neil Young. When The 30th Anniversary Celebration was eventually released on LP, CD and VHS, some of the more notable moments weren’t included, like Sophie B Hawkins’ pointless cover of “I Want You” and Sinead O’Connor being booed offstage into the arms of Kris Kristofferson (adding further insult to injury). Still, select moments from the still deliver chills, mostly from the version of “My Back Pages” where the verses are handled by Roger McGuinn, Tom Petty, Neil Young, Bob, Eric Clapton and George Harrison. Clapton’s version of “Don’t Think Twice” is pretty cool too, and Lou Reed’s spit-fueled take on “Foot Of Pride” makes one think the song was written just for him. The same can be said for George’s “Absolutely Sweet Marie”. Neil gets more attention for “All Along The Watchtower”, but it’s his version of “Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues” that really shines.

Bob Dylan Good As I Been To You (1992)—2½
Bob Dylan The 30th Anniversary Concert Celebration (1993)—3