Roger, when you say you've lost touch with Dylan since "the early days"....that means till when? What was the last Dylan album you realy focused on? That would help with the recommendations.

I think Dylan's writing up through "John Wesley Harding" had a certain magic that it lost after that, and I think it was mainly because he was young...and in a different state of mind. He wasn't standing outside himself yet and looking at himself AS Bob Dylan. That's my theory. So the stuff he was writing was happening in a completely natural fashion. That's the innocence of youth.

When you start second-guessing yourself it gets harder and harder to write naturally anymore. I think he got hemmed in by who he was, other people's idea of who he was, and the pressure of all that, plus the family stuff.

Still, some of the later stuff is great, and the magic still comes through now and then.

Even on the Dylan albums "to avoid", there are usually one or two songs, maybe three, that are pretty special...floating forlornly amidst a sea of stuff that definitely isn't.

I find all Dylan albums worth a listen now and then...although...I have to say I have a really hard time relating to "Love and Theft". It's good musically, but I just don't relate to it much.