Bob Dylan: A Man of Many Faces and Even More Music

His eyes are blue and he certainly does things his way, but Bob Dylan would be the first to tell someone to drop any Chairman of the Board or Boss nonsense if you are referring to him. Dylan's been making music and headlines for well over four decades, but try to pin him down to a definite title or style and you have no shot at being right. Like the handful of great performers, Bob Dylan's staying power emanates from the fact that he does what he wants to do creatively when he wants to do it, and he refuses to be pigeonholed.

Casual fans have a problem with seeing Dylan in concert because you never know which Bob you are going to get. During a performance in Atlantic City about a decade ago, he came out dressed in black, prepared to rock some country. The audience was clearly not expecting this guy. They gave him the proper homage given that he's Bob Dylan, but it was more of respect and nostalgia than anything else. He played only three songs folk lovers might have recognized, and then only by name since he'd rearranged the music. They should have be happy to have heard those versions. When he was in his born again phase, he rearranged many of his folk classics to have a do-wop style, featuring a group of back- up singers that had sung "shoobie doobie" and "shoop, shoop" a time or two over the years.

You may not like the sound of his voice but you have to respect the talent and the willingness to jump out of any musical aircraft wearing no parachute. Freewheelin' Bob Dylan (folk Bob) is not Gotta Serve Somebody Bob Dylan (born again Bob) is not the Traveling Wilburys Bob Dylan (country Bob). Certainly, none of these is the Bob Dylan who started showing up in the Victoria's Secret (Angels in Venice) ads. Okay, that was creepy Bob Dylan, and that one was a stretch, but you still have to respect the fact that he thought he could pull it off.

In Dec., 2004, he spoke candidly to Ed Bradley of 60 Minutes---or as candid as the cryptic balladeer can be. Bradley discussed Dylan as folk hero, the voice of a generation, a moniker Dylan has always hated. Bradley reeled off classic titles: Masters of War, Like a Rolling Stone, Blowin' in the Wind. How profound, Bradley marveled. How could one man tap into what a good part of the nation was thinking but wouldn't dare say aloud until HE took the bold step. Emphasis on the HE. Many people have spoken about Dylan with a reverence reserved for The Great I Am.

Do you think you could write something like Blowin' in the Wind today, Bradley asked, smiling, leaning in, awestruck, despite his own celebrity.

Long-time fans, real fans, were not surprised by the answer: No, not really, Dylan shook his head, starting to elaborate, then just giving up on it. No, not really. It just sort of came to him, we'd have to imagine. What's the big deal? He's never understood.

For Dylan the music and other projects reflect the life more than the man. From a creative standpoint, his work is almost as if he's thinking out loud, pondering whatever great life issue is before him. Then some music crops up mysteriously. It all works.

He doesn't edit. He should, his critics would argue, but he doesn't. Let's hope he never does. You can't have the kind of introspection that comes in Gotta Serve Somebody without having the sort of insanity that flows throughout Maggie's Farm. The latter is just a reflection of where he was at one specific moment. And we know where he was then...the same place the Beatles were at when they sang Octopus's Garden or I am the Walrus. The same place a lot of us were at clad in bell bottoms, headbands, no shoes, with painted daisies on the sides of our faces.

You have to take the Wilbury with the folk singer, the ten-gallon hat with the top hat and the fringed sombrero. It's all one in the same, entangled, swirled and mashed down to form one talented man. And that's the long and short of the mystique that is Bob Dylan: he's just a man. But what a man he is.