The 1970sThis is a featured page


The 1970s

Self Portrait






New Morning
1970: Self Portrait is Dylan’s first flop, an overproduced set of covers whose title seems to be ironic.





Dylan rebounds a few months later with New Morning, featuring the hit “If Not for You,” which is also covered by Beatle George Harrison. No concerts, but a session with Harrison is later bootlegged.




1971: Dylan’s association with Harrison continues with an appearance at the ex-Beatle’s benefit concert for Bangladesh. The single “George Jackson,” about a black revolutionary killed in prison, is his only studio release of the year.


1972: No concerts, no records, as Dylan goes to Mexico to act in Sam Peckinpah’s Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid.

Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid






Dylan






1973: Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid is released, as is Dylan’s soundtrack album.





Dylan announces he is leaving Columbia records for David Geffen’s label, Asylum, and Columbia responds by releasing a shoddy collection of Self Portrait outtakes, which it insultingly dubs Dylan.
Planet Waves






Before the Flood




1974: Dylan hits the road for the first time in eight years, with the Band along for support. They also release Planet Waves, Dylan’s best record since John Wesley Harding; two versions of “Forever Young” are included, and the song becomes a standard.




The tour is a huge success, the album reaches #1, and a live record, Before the Flood, is released to further acclaim.
Blood on the Tracks






The Basement Tapes


1975: Dylan returns to Columbia Records and releases perhaps his greatest album ever, the folk-tinged, emotionally devastating Blood on the Tracks, featuring “Tangled Up in Blue.”





A bastardized version of The Basement Tapes is also released. Late in the year, he sets out on the Rolling Thunder Revue, with Joan Baez and Roger McGuinn heading up his supporting cast.



Desire
1976: The RTR continues, and Desire is another strong album. The eight-minute single “Hurricane” champions the cause of unjustly imprisoned boxer Rubin “Hurricane” Carter, who is finally released from prison in 1986.




1977: No records, but a four-hour movie, Renaldo and Clara, directed by Dylan himself is released. If a bomb explodes in an empty movie theater, does it make any noise?

Street Legal
1978: Following the trauma of R&C, Dylan releases the confused album Street Legal and tours with a slickly professional band that critics liken to a Vegas lounge act. His marriage to Sara ends in divorce.



Slow Train Coming
1979: At a personal and professional low point, Dylan finds God — the fire and brimstone God of Born Again Christianity. The resulting album, Slow Train Coming, featuring the hit single “Gotta Serve Somebody,” is derided by many fans, but is as passionate as anything Dylan has every released. The tour that follows finds Dylan preaching his faith to often hostile crowds and refusing to play any of his classics, but the resulting audience recordings of his shows at San Francisco’s Warfield Theatre document the passion of a true believer.


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