Bob Dylan’s Another Self Portrait (1969-1971): Voice of a Generation as Artisanal Cheesemonger

Bob Dylan has pioneered many things in his 52-year career – the seven-minute pop song, lyrics that mean something, lyrics that mean nothing, the double album, the well-written, best-selling rock memoir, religious rock, the late-career comeback. 

But I had no idea until the release of his latest Bootleg Series collection, Another Self Portrait (1969-1971), that he may have also invented the foodie farm-to-table  movement way back in 1969.

Take a look at Bob in the above photo. Does he look like the voice of a generation? The guy who tracked down Woody Guthrie in a NJ hospital and sang all his songs to him at his bedside? The guy who played the March on Washington minutes before MLK gave his "I Have a Dream" speech? The afroed visionary who plugged in at Newport? The guy who turned The Beatles onto reefer? The guy who shocked audiences by singing "Even the President of the United States sometimes must have to stand naked"?

No, he looks like a Red Hook, Brooklyn food artisan, who charges $9 for an eight-ounce satchel of his locally gathered granola at the Union Square Greenmarket.

Dylan has always had a knack for matching his music and his look, and the music on Another Self Portrait reflects his upstate artisan vibe wonderfully (and vice versa). 

The tracks here are a combination of acoustic demos for tracks that would wind up on the 1970 LPs Self Portrait and New Morning, covers of old folk songs that were cast aside, and alternate versions that include luminaries like George Harrison, David Bromberg and Al Kooper, and by and large they are superior to what was released officially.

Take "Pretty Saro," a traditional folk song that is glazed with honey-dripped vocals from Dylan in his best Nashville Skyline croon - it actually could be his prettiest vocal ever on record. Combine the organic sweetness of his voice with the video's vintage, curated photos from the National Archives and you have artisanal country-rock at its finest - take that, Ray LaMontagne:

Another beautiful cover, "Copper Kettle," describes the joys of small-batch whiskey making. (A stripped down version appears on Another Self Portrait):

Bob was living the trustafarian hipster dream 40 years before it was in vogue – splitting his time between a place in the village and a sprawling, farm upstate, jamming on vintage instruments with The Band, rocking the seersucker and a scraggly beard, painting self portraits and putting them on his LP covers, road-tripping with David Crosby to pick up an honorary degree from Princeton, having a bunch of kids who called him Pa. 

Here's a fascinating in-depth look at Dylan circa 1970, released in conjunction with Another Self Portrait: 

Bob Dylan - Another Self Portrait Documentary Short from Columbia Records on Vimeo.

The only thing Woodstock-era Bob wasn’t doing back then is creating his own line of artisanal goat cheese, and given the other things that have come out of his archives, who's to say the next Bootleg Series won't be edible — and, of course, sustainable?

I have been listening to Another Self Portrait for several weeks and I would put it on the very top tier of a pretty incredible series of Bootleg Series recordings that began in 1991. Dylan does some of his best-ever singing and it covers my personal favorite period in Dylan's long career. It's a wonderful album to get you through the fall and any other season for that matter. And it pairs nicely with an array of artisanal cheeses and meats. And perhaps a dry Reisling from the Finger Lakes.

If you buy Another Self Portrait on iTunes, spring for the version which contains his full, fantastic 1969 Isle of Wight concert with the Band - use the link below.

Buy Another Self Portrait:
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