Trouble No More – The Bootleg Series Vol. 13 / 1979-1981
THE REVIEWS ARE IN!!
Esquire
“…”the set is full of some of the greatest live vocal performances of Dylan’s career, and are backed by perhaps his best live band…””
New York Times
“Trouble No More — The Bootleg Series Vol. 13, 1979-1981” unearths concerts from Bob Dylan’s Christian years, when he proclaimed his newfound faith and confounded old fans. With a band steeped in Southern soul, the songs grew funkier and more intense onstage.
Rolling Stone: Best Reissue of the Year
Bob Dylan, ‘Trouble No More’
The latest edition of the Bootleg Series is one of the most fascinating, a deep dive 8 CD/1 DVD exploration of Dylan’s strange wanderings through evangelical Christianity from 1979 to 1981… The DVD contains “Trouble No More: A Musical Film,” a film that incorporates never-seen footage from Dylan’s 1980 tour.
Newsday
The massive eight-CD package features more than 100 previously unreleased live and studio recordings from what is known as Dylan’s spiritual period, around the releases “Slow Train Coming,” “Saved” and :Shot of Love.” However, the biggest surprise may be the DVD, which includes “Trouble No More: A Musical Film,” combining previously unreleased footage from Dylan’s 1980 tours with sermons written by Luc Sante and performed by Michael Shannon
Yahoo Music
Aside from when he first plugged in and went electric at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965, this was the most controversial period in Dylan’s career. Not everyone found it praiseworthy at the time, but it’s well worth a second listen, even if you’re not religious.
Chicago Tribune
The more overtly religious viewpoint in many of the songs baffled many of his fans at the time, but some of the music has gained in resonance as the decades passed.
Chicago Reader
Of all the music Bob Dylan has recorded, little has been more routinely maligned than the three albums of original gospel he made during his brief born-again phase in the late 70s and early 80s. Those are the years covered by this new eight-CD set, volume 13 in the ongoing Bootleg Series, though the albums themselves aren’t part of it—it consists entirely of unreleased material, most of it recorded live during tours to support those gospel records.
Many of the previous entries in this wonderful series have been revelatory…But Trouble No More is the first volume to make me completely reconsider the body of work upon which it’s focused.