55 Years Later: Bob Dylan Crafts His Country Croon On Steadfast ‘Nashville Skyline’

Bob Dylan’s issued more than a few insubstantial albums over the course of his sixty-plus year career—Down in the Groove and Knocked Out Loaded come to mind first– but few are more lightweight than Nashville Skyline (released 4/8/69). And yet the lack of depth in the record belies both its short and long-term influence on contemporary pop and rock.

The Nobel Laureate had recorded in Nashville Tennessee twice before he traveled to Music City for his ninth studio album. Most of 1966’s Blonde On Blonde was created there–because producer Bob Johnston was dissatisfied with the productivity of early sessions in New York City–and Dylan returned to conjure up the stripped-down of John Wesley Harding roughly two years later.

But the source of no-nonsense, efficient musicianship garnered little attention at the time of those releases. As a result, it took the title of Bob’s 1969 album, graced with the portrait of him sporting a beatific grin in the bright sunshine, to officially give formal benediction to the marriage of rock and country. 

Yet this blend of music had actually begun in earnest over a year prior to his own album’s release. After having been teased by the Beatles around 1965 and the Byrds two years later on Younger Than Yesterday, Gram Parsons’ International Submarine Band preceded the Byrds’ foray into this fusion when he joined for 1968’s Sweetheart of the Rodeo. And with Chris Hillman in tow following that man’s own departure from the Byrds in the wake of Parsons’, the Flying Burrito Brothers the two fronted actually released that group’s debut album of the hybrid around the same time Dylan was recording back in Nashville in early 1969.

Of course, with the hindsight afforded over a half-century, it’s fairly simple to discern the direction Bob was taking from his previous release. That long-player, slightly misnamed after Texas outlaw John Wesley Hardin, had rightfully provided a bellwether for digression from the rampant psychedelia of the 1967 year in which it was recorded. And the shift was never more so than with its final pair of cuts, “I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight” and “Down Along the Cove,” on both of which steel guitarist Pete Drake was employed. 

That pair of tracks would fit right in with the other originals that comprise Nashville Skyline. In fact, if those two took the place of “Girl From The North Country,” Dylan’s gesture of friendship and loyalty toward Johnny Cash (his partner in that duet), the album would gain a sustained continuity it otherwise lacks. And that’s not to mention about two minutes extra playing time (which still leaves the record at around a half-hour in duration!).

Meantime, JWH would lose none of its own pervasive suspense as a result of that change. In fact, it might actually benefit from it as its last two numbers present a marked move from the sparse nature of the material as well as the musicianship: by and large, Dylan played and sang with just two other players, drummer Kenny Buttrey and bassist Charlie McCoy. 

Meanwhile, the bouncy intimacy of those somewhat wayward cuts would reside most comfortably next to the straightforward likes of “I Threw It All Away” and “Lay Lady Lay.” And the quick instrumental first track, “Nashville Skyline Rag,” would also serve as an ideal intro to a record whose author and accompanists, not to mention producer Johnston (again!), put a high premium on taste and economy. 

Far from the nightmarish surrealism that peppered the iconic triad of the three previous Dylan LPs, “One More Night” and the borderline throwaway “Peggy Day” are full of easy rhymes and conventional structures. But it’s Bob’s voice that renders them so listenable, albeit a bit less so with hindsight of over a century and a half: purportedly because he had stopped smoking, Bob’s wheezy tone became enriched with tuneful warmth, so much so it functions as the flashpoint for this album’s domestic insularity. 

“Tell Me That It Isn’t True” is just one cut here where its author sounds refreshed by the straightforward nature of his approach, instrumentally and vocally. Supplied by what the Lovin’ Spoonful’s John Sebastian dubbed ‘Nashville Cats’– like guitarist Norman Blake and THE Charlie Daniels on bass and guitar–the verve of the accompaniment as on that cut is predictable, but only in the most positive sense. 

As such, it mirrors Dylan’s mastery of songwriting conventions. Still, he’d already proven that, in no uncertain terms, back in 1966, with “Just Like A Woman” and “I Want You,” so there’s no revelation on that front. In marked contrast, the next album by The Bard from MInnesota. Self Portrait, would cause all manner of uproar for not only its scattershot production approach but also its paucity of original material. 

As if to right that latter wrong, New Morning appeared in very short order, around four months later, sporting a portrait of Dylan on its front cover that just about defines an implicitly defensive attitude. But with the extended perspective of fifty-five years, this apparent ode to what the late Warren Zevon once called ‘a quiet normal life’ was the result of multiple inspirations in both writing and recording. 

After the obeisance to tradition in both those respects for Nashville Skyline, Bob was beginning to regain his idiosyncratic connection with his muse. Through standalone efforts like “If Not For You”–conspicuously covered by the late George Harrison on his solo debut All Things Must Pass–as well as an aborted collaboration with poet Archibald MacLeish that bore some fruit in the form of this title song, the former ‘voice of a generation’ was not just rediscovering his own style, but reconfiguring it in such a way it would stand him in good stead for decades more to come. 

In retrospect, then, Nashville Skyline is just a slight detour along what might accurately be termed Bob Dylan’s own ‘long and winding road.’