As convivial the ambiance, and starry the guestlist – that was Jimmy Web page, however was that Patti Smith, or Polly Harvey’s mum? – and unbelievable the music, the defining second from Bob Dylan’s 4 evening stand at London Palladium in October final 12 months was in the end a visible one. After enjoying a number of songs on the piano, Dylan – now 81 – stepped away from the instrument and into the centre of the stage, and jauntily positioned a hand on his hip to obtain a few of his acclaim. Sure, he gave the impression to be saying, that is it: as Bob Dylan because it will get.

On this journal we’re putting a pose of an analogous nature. That is our first 172-page Definitive version, and in it we evaluation every of Dylan’s albums from the eponymous debut to the newly-released Shadow Kingdom, and reprise his most attention-grabbing encounters with the British press. We’ve additionally included a particular eight-page fold-out chronology, taking a sideways take a look at the six ages of Dylan.

It ought to go with out saying that on these pages we honour Dylan’s many indispensable previous recordings, his affect on 20^th Century tradition and thought. However we’re additionally celebrating the beguiling work in his current, the place he has not been idle. Since we final printed one thing like this journal in 2016 there was a brand new, mildly demented Dylan movie, a e-book, and 5 new volumes of the Bootleg sequence, wherein we’re invited to stroll with Dylan not solely down the roads he took, however study alongside him a map displaying lots of the routes he thought of – and enter with him a complete various panorama of alternative and track.

In that point we now have additionally loved Triplicate, the third instalment of Dylan’s exploration of the Nice American Songbook. Then in early 2020, there arrived the occasion that we had been hoping for: Tough And Rowdy Methods, a double studio album of recent Dylan compositions wherein every little thing – ambition, music, and lyrics gave the impression to be stretching out for the horizon, rolling in rhythm and blues enjoying that was discovered, gutsy and entertaining as the person himself.

On the Palladium and on the Tough And Rowdy tour, Dylan’s and his band appeared to have reached some extent the place it magnificently all got here collectively: the continuity of the enjoying becoming a member of the music of his current and his previous with the currents of older American track.  The keyboard enjoying touched on blues and boogie-woogie. The guitar enjoying was as fiery as any on a Solar Session. The reinvention and re-arrangement of his personal Sixties classics (“Most Possible You’ll Go Your Means And I’ll Go Mine” for instance) uncovering new methods of listening to them.

As Dylan positioned his hand on hip and the applause mounted in a night of wry, entertaining and self-referencing music, you would probably delude your self that this was Dylan in plain sight, lastly revealing his masterplan. As we write, although, and he releases an album of “early songs”, re-interpreted in his riverboat deluxe type, and we try to unravel the main points of who’s enjoying on the file, by no means thoughts why – to select the lock of the Shadow Kingdom in truth – it’s clear he’s evaded seize as soon as once more.

Benefit from the journal.  You will get one right here get one right here.