May 2011 sees the 70th birthday of Bob Dylan. To celebrate, we're taking you on a journey through the lesser celebrated avenues of his back catalogue. A journey down Highway 61 that won't stop off at 'Blowin' In The Wind', 'All Along The Watchtower' or 'Knockin' On Heaven's Door' but will call by...
Quit Your Low Down Ways (1962)
We jump from a combo of acclaimed Dylan interpreters to a group who were tainted with criticism in 1969 when they decided to devote an entire album to his material. With hindsight it seems strange that The Hollies should be considered inferior purveyors of Bob’s work, by 1969 they’d already expanded their musical palette with Graham Nash at the helm leading them on a very British Psychedelic trip; albeit quite a light one! Still it is the embarking of the ‘Hollies Sing Dylan’ album that is thought to have been a major factor in Nash’s quitting the band before the studio sessions commenced. The worst you could say about the record as a whole is that there are a couple of instances where it is over-produced; overall though they proved, as The Byrds had before them, that some well executed harmony singing can enhance certain Dylan material considerably. The best moments are where they tackle lesser covered material, such as the then unreleased early track ‘Quit Your Low Down Ways’, played here with some satisfyingly twangy guitar.
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