Personnel: Bob Dylan (vocals, guitar, harmonica, keyboards); Bob Dylan; Happy Traum (guitar, banjo, bass instrument, background vocals); Leon Russell (keyboards).
Recording information: 10/1971.
Photographer: Barry Feinstein.
The most casual Dylan fan--listeners who just want a copy of "Blowin' in the Wind" and "Mr. Tambourine Man" around the house--should stick with GREATEST HITS. VOL. 2, however, is arguably the superior collection. For starters, it is a double album (the CD packs two-LPs' worth of material onto a single disc). Secondly, it offers a more thoroughgoing assessment of his dazzling range of styles in the first near-decade, spanning his protest songs ("A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall"), his acerbic, mid-'60s rock ("Maggie's Farm"), and his mellow, romantic approach in the early '70s ("Tonight I'll Be Staying Here With You").
Dylan's career is often referred to in terms of stages, and each of those stages is represented beautifully. The folkie phase circa FREEWHEELING BOB DYLAN ("Don't Think Twice, It's All right"), his acoustic visionary phase ("It's All Over Now, Baby Blue"), the oblique, mercurial BLONDE ON BLONDE phase ("Stuck Inside A Mobile With the Memphis Blues Again"), his allegorical, living-in-Woodstock-with-a-beard phase ("All Along the Watchtower"), and his country phase ("Lay Lady Lay") are all here. Even better, VOL. 2 includes a smattering of rarities, including live versions of songs and alternate takes of BASEMENT TAPES material. As an introduction and an overview of Dylan's music, it is hard to go wrong with this set.
Professional Reviews
Q (7/00, pp.128-9) - 3 stars out of 5 - "...A strictly chronological parade that begins with the apocalyptic vision of 1963's 'A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall' and concludes no less impressively with TIME OUT OF MIND's 'Not Dark Yet'....better for the uninitiated..."
Dirty Linen (10-11/99, p.81) - "...continues with another 21 classics, including non-LP singles and five live tracks not found anywhere else.... absolutely essential for any record collection, and budget priced to boot..."
NME (Magazine) (5/27/00, p.42) - 8 out of 10 - "...Tidied-up versions of his early works glower down the ages from this CD...still sounding threatening, accusatory and provocative..."
