Expecting Rain

No need to be religious to like these 3 or 4 albums of Bob.
Exactly as liking Gospel, no need to be a believer to appreciate it.
Exactly as painting, no need to be a painter to enjoy and feel moved by Michel-Ange, Picasso, Rembrandt, Mucha, Schiele, Hockney, etc.

Shot of love for me, every grain of sand is one of Bobs best songs imo, a fantastic album.

Most of the people voting for Slow train coming..because they never really listened to Saved and Shot of love.

Maybe. Or perhaps they actually like Slow Train better!

Slow Train Coming quite comfortably for me. Great songs, great performances, great band and great sound. Saved sounds a little bit flat and could have been a far better record than the finished product shows, most of the live versions of the Saved songs are far superior to their studio counterparts. Shot Of Love is underrated, has some good songs, some very good songs, some filler songs and some very good songs left off, I would replace Watered Down Love and Trouble with Need A Woman and Caribbean Wind. I also prefer the live Heart Of Mine on Biograph by quite a long way to the studio version.

Dylan guitarist, Fred Tackett (2014 quote):
Those albums – all three of them, Slow Train, Saved and Shot Of Love – they were great records. And I think if you ask Bob, he likes those records, too. They were just good songs. But people just freaked out a little, I guess, about the whole religious thing. I never understood the logic of it. That was a wonderful time, though. Yeah: we were on the mission. Bob had a definite point of view, that he wanted to do this kind of music, and so, those of us in those bands around then, we felt like we were participating in something historic. It wasn’t like we were just going in and doing the newest Miley Cyrus record or whatever. It wasn’t like just playing on another record. It was doing something where you thought, this has some importance to it. This has some significance. This is good music, a good thing, a positive thing. You know: all the great artists in music have spent some time playing secular music, and some time playing religious music. I really felt it was like a fulfilment of my musical career to have a chance to do this. Everything about those three years of my life with Bob Dylan was precious to me. I was playing with these amazing musicians, and I loved every second of it, even when the travel was hard, or it was funky hotel, or whatever, the whole experience was absolutely wonderful. Yeah, it was just a great experience.

From a good Shot of Love article on today’s front page.

A HOLE FULL OF LIGHT: THE MAKING OF BOB DYLAN’S SHOT OF LOVE
https://damienlove.com/writing/a-hole-f ... t-of-love/

Slow Train Coming is the best album, but Shot of Love is my favourite. I listen to Shot more than the others, as I always go to live versions of the Slow Train Coming and Saved stuff when I want to hear those songs. Jerry Wexler's production on Slow Train Coming is fantastic, but there's something about Shot of Love's sound that I love more, there's a kind of rougher edge to it that's not in the other two albums. Slow Train Coming is a very slick production and has a wonderful laid back vibe, even on the more fire and brimstone songs, but it sounds like a carefully crafted and polished piece of work and lacks some of the energy of those songs when they're performed live. Saved was recorded at the point where Dylan and the band had been playing its songs to death on the road, and as such the album feels a little bit tired once you've heard how the songs sounded live.

Shot of Love feels a bit more spontaneous and new, less polished than the other two, and to me this makes it more exciting as an album. I think the difference in sound mainly stems from way the drums were recorded/mixed. There's also a very 'classic 60s Dylan' organ tone in Shot of Love, most noticeable on Heart of Mine, which perhaps make it sit more comfortably with his earlier work in my mind. The album's title track is an absolute scorcher and I love Groom's Still Waiting at The Altar too. Lyrics like "What can I say about Claudette?/Ain't seen her since January,/She could be respectably married or running a whorehouse in Buenos Aires" just put a massive smile on my face every time I hear them.

Shot of Love has fantastic outtakes (Angelina, Caribbean Wind) and is a little less full-on Christian than the other two, which makes it easier to palate for me as a non-believer on the days I'm not in the mood for all the hallelujah-ing and gospeling of the live shows or previous two albums. Don't get me wrong, I love Slow Train and Saved, but Shot of Love is the one I return to the most.

From the front page article referred to in my last post above:
Benmont Tench: The keyboards player in Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, Tench worked on the sessions for Shot Of Love and the following Empire Burlesque album, and played live with Dylan across 1986-87. He recorded with Dylan again in 2002, supplying stately organ on “Cross The Green Mountain”

And more on Heart of Mine:
FRED TACKETT: Yeah, I remember that Chuck was more like hanging with us in the studio, and enjoying it, rather than being in the control room. And he always wanted to play drums, as I remember! I remember this one night, we had Ringo Starr there, you know, as well as Jim [Keltner] – couple of pretty good drummers – and I came in and Chuck was sitting playing Ringo’s drums! It was the song, “Heart Of Mine.” And I remember thinking, “Uh…why is Chuck Plotkin playing Ringo’s drums, while Ringo is standing around waiting to play?”

CHUCK PLOTKIN: It’s almost impossible to explain how that happened. We had cut a version of it, it was one of the very few things that we cut more than one version, and the first version, it was at the wrong tempo, we didn’t get what, to me, felt like a workable version. Meanwhile, everybody who had found out that Bob was recording, friends of his, had called. So Ringo had called, “Oh, Jeez, I’m in town, I’d love to come by, maybe play on something.” And Bob mentioned this to me, and I’m like, “Sure, great.” So we plan a day, and we do it. And, of course, it turns out that Ronnie Wood comes along that day, too. You have to remember, I’m in my thirties at this point, I’ve never met any of these guys, I’ve got this funky little studio in Hollywood, really nothing fancy about the place at all – and, all of a sudden, I have Bob Dylan, The Beatles and The Rolling Stones, in my studio, playing together on this song. And Donald “Duck” Dunn was at that session, too.

Anyway. “Heart Of Mine” is the song that I know we need to get. Because it’s the obvious song for a single. And we’ve got Ringo, and Jim Keltner, and Jim was Our Man, you know. He was Bob’s Drummer. Just brilliant. We were crammed like sardines in the place. But for some reason, they were having trouble finding the right tempo, the right groove. So, we’re taking a break, and people spread out – there’s a little place upstairs to go relax in, people are off to the bathroom or grabbing a bite to eat – and I’m alone in the studio, and I sit down at Ringo’s set, it’s just a rented set of drums, and try to see if I can find the right groove. And I’m not a drummer, I don’t own a set, it’s not my instrument. But I’m playing, trying to locate the tempo, and Ringo walks back in, and he says, “There! That’s it. That’s the right feel, right there.” And so I start to get up for him to take over, and he says, “No, no, no. Don’t you get up. Don’t stop. You just stay right there and keep that going.” What am I going to say? That I’ve never played drums before? So, Ringo tells me, “You just sit there, you can play the hi-hat, the snare and the kick, and I’ll play the toms and the cymbal.” So, Ringo pulls up another seat, and the two of us are sitting at the same drum kit. People start coming back in the room, Keltner sits down, somebody calls “1-2-3,” and we start playing the song. And, if you listen to the recording, one of the things it is, yeah, is a bit raggedy-assed.

Saved has the most heart. Slow train has the best sound production. Shot of love has the best axe.

... and I thought Ringo played the drums on " Heart of mine. "

This!
Saved is my favourite too. My original vinyl still sounds fantastic. I would go so far, and call it an audiophile recording. It's one of his best sounding LP's

The sonic journey from STC to SOL is one of the interesting things
about the trilogy. The production choices for both records were
made in pursuit of an authentic RnB sound, but with divergent
results.

Hopefully the Heylin book will mine some additional detail as to
what went into these decisions.

I've never much liked the sound of Shot of Love, apart from the
Blackwell produced title track, and 'Groom'. Overall, it's a bit shrill
and rudimentary, a sound that has lost its original finesse and com-
plexity.

It has got to be Street Legal followed by Slow Train and then Saved. Saved is last not because the songs are poor but because by the time these songs have gotten to studio the singer cant climb into them with the same force and passion as playing them live. That raw emotion cannot be captured in studio

Sent from my SM-G920F using Tapatalk

Geez, IIRC, that album has a lot of compression in the mix. A song like Solid Rock from a sonic POV sounds like crud, really squeezed. On vinyl. I've never heard a CD of Saved.

Absolutely agree with every word of this! Slow Train is the most consistent and objectively best album but Shot Of Love has much higher highlights. I love the rawness of it all, I think this is possibly the last Dylan record that has that classic energy that defined his 60's work. The outtakes, as I've mentioned elsewhere, could have made it one of his best.

Go and clean your vinyl or stylus, or get yourself a proper copy.
compressed, crud, squeezed?
I don't know what you're talking about

I will admit I haven't played Saved in full since about 48 A.D. So maybe I'll subject myself to it once more and see if I revise my opinion on the SQ.

Nah, I still agree with myself. Playing it on TIDAL sees it sounding much like typical, processed ca. 1980 pop album. Nothing terrible, but nothing 'audiophile' either if by that term you mean real natural quality to the sonics. I remember the vinyl being the same. It's the least good sounding of the Born Again Trio.

The brain says Slow Train Coming, because of the three it's the least likely I'd hit Next on one of the tracks (Saved / Property of Jesus).
But the heart says Saved, because I love to blast Pressing On while going down the highway, even though I never had no religion. Hard for me to find many other [album] songs he puts as much feeling into as that one.

Shake the dust off of your feet, don’t look back
Nothing can hold you down, nothing that you lack
Temptation’s not an easy thing, Adam given the devil reign
Because he sinned I got no choice, it run in my vein

Though I just realized I've been hearing the last couple lines wrong all this time, as:

Temptation’s not an easy thing, and I'm givin' the devil reign
'Cause each sin, I got no choice, it run in my veins

Though I kind of like it better; seems to suggest he's losing a battle.

I usually only listen to these fully when I do a play-through of all albums, and by the time I get to Shot of Love I'm just eager to hear Infidels.

Well, I said what I didn't really mean. I wanted to mean that I don't mind the contents of its lyrics despite the criticism the trilogy is often given about its 'religious lyrics'.

I tend to be paying less attention to lyrics than music even of Bob Dylan's though, mainly because I'm non-native and not really used to catching every word Bob sings while listening. But, sure, I pay attention to lyrics when I can.

Sorry for making you confused.

I definitely think Street Legal and Infidels can be included here and that this bootleg Gospel series is tops now

Before bootleg 13, I don’t know if I would choose Slow Train over Shot of Love

Imagining the “Just A Closer Walk With Thee”-type and one-to-come tops ‘em all

Nah. Those just aren't quite as God-heavy as the Gospel trilogy.

Shot of Love!

Because it's the only of the three that contains a masterpiece,
and it has less lyrics about fairytales and unicorns.

The only *gospel* album is *Saved*:

Slow and Shot are religious (Christian albums is what they are called, aren't they?) but not *gospel*, neither musically nor thematically.
And we talk *religious albums*, Street and Infidels should be surely included.

In that case, my vote to an album would go to Street-Legal with no doubt.
The single song is *Jokerman* followed by *Grain Of Sand*.
From Saved, my favourite songs are *Saved* and *Solid Rock*.

I wasn't able to afford the Deluxe releases back when they came out so I never got the ones with the bonus discs of fairytales and unicorns. Apparently they weren't received well because he didn't include any of that on the Official Bootleg Series release either.