I've sung in many choral groups large and small, and sung in them in places like the Sistine Chapel, Red Square and the Sorbonne, as well as many music festivals--so I do know something about singing.

Dylan is a very good singer of his own songs. He puts them across well, in fact better than many another singer with a more pleasing voice. When I wanted to learn a Dylan song, I used to listen to Joan Baez for instance, to find out what the words really were. But for communicating the intent behind the song, especially if the song is either sneering, apocalyptic, cryptic or humorous, Dylan does a great job---( hell, "cryptic" covers a whole boatload of his songs by itself.)

I'm not a huge Dylan fan. There is no Dylan album I would voluntarily put on to listen to except what I think is the first one--Dylan in his Woody phase--with Talking New York Blues and a bunch of other absolutely great songs--that one I'd listen to over and over. I think those songs will last long after many other ponderously imposing songs have been lost to general conciousness. Of "significant" songs, I would listen to Mr. Tambourine Man, all verses or Desolation Row, all verses--used to sing that at 2 AM walking back to a place outside Paris where I was staying. Also like My Back Pages. But in general I wouldn't want to hear 40 minutes of Dylan. I think it's been mostly downhill since his first, great, album (though I'm aware this is a very controversial opinion)

Of course I also hold the possibly heretical view that in folk music less is more--simple chords, spare instrumentation and a good story is almost always a winner. Anything that can't be done outside a studio is not folk. Opportunities for harmony by other participants score more points. Also, folk music that doesn't take itself deadly seriously trumps weighty "significant" music most times. Did Dylan ever not take himself seriously after the first album? (as opposed to satirizing "society")? I stand ready to be enlightened.

There are always to exceptions to any rule and my preference for fun music doesn't stop my liking a lot of religious music and 19th century tearjerkers, and I take most of them as meant seriously by the people who liked to sing them--e.g. as catharsis, means to engender group feeling, etc.

On the subject of voices, "Martin Gibson" is being rather narrow-minded. Dylan's voice is unacceptable? How about Bill Monroe?--very few people would consider that he had a pleasing voice, and he wasn't always on pitch. But so what?---for what he sang, both his own songs and a whole raft of others, he was great. It also would be refreshing if "Martin Gibson" would climb out of the gutter, unless of course he's more comfortable there. We really can carry on this discussion in a civilized way--coarse language is not essential to communicate unless it's the only language one knows.