I'm not a Dylan authority by any stretch of the imagination. I did cite Desolation Row, Mr. Tambourine Man and My Back Pages as Dylan songs (written by him I think) that he puts across well and that I like hearing. If the first album is almost entirely old blues and country, that's probably the answer--I actually like old blues and country a lot better than most of what Dylan himself has written. Of course nobody can do Positively 4th Street or Just Like A Woman justice the way he can. But in general I'd prefer it if he didn't seem to take himself so seriously all the time after the first album.   Also I love his harmonica--it's just the right touch--too bad that it dropped out so soon in his career.

I didn't say I didn't like his voice--in fact in the first album he's great.   Aside from that album, I basically only like his voice in small doses , and usually for specific songs. I can stand a lot more of, say, Mary Black singing traditional material--in fact I love this--than Dylan singing his own songs. And it's not that I just like a pretty voice--I can listen to a lot more of Tom Waits or Kristofferson than Dylan. I think the voice and the type of songs Robert Shelton would have referred to are the ones in the first album.

In fact, just came across that review. One of the items Shelton mentions is exactly what I found missing after the first album: "Talkin' New York satirizes his troubles in gaining recognition and Talkin" Hava Nagila " (did he ever record that?) " burlesques the folk-music craze and the singer himself" Did Dylan ever burlesque himself after 1962? He seemed painfully earnest from then on. That made Eric Bogle's song "Do You Know Any Bob Dylan", one of the best musical spoofs ever, that much more effective. By then Dylan was a fat juicy target for satire himself. What do you think of Bogle's song?