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WORLD GONE WRONG
won the 1995 Grammy Award for Best
Traditional Folk Album.
In the early-to-mid-'90s, Dylan took a break from
recording original material, releasing two albums of
traditional songs performed solo. When the first, GOOD AS
I BEEN TO YOU, was released, detractors claimed Dylan was
out of ideas and grasping at the straws of his folkie
youth (TIME OUT OF MIND would eventually lay such claims
squarely to rest). His next solo outing, WORLD GONE WRONG,
made it clear that Dylan was simply exercising his power
as a troubadour to find deep, timeless meaning in
traditional material.
Two of the most affecting songs, "Blood In My
Eyes" and the title track, were made
"popular" by the Mississippi Sheiks, an early
country blues group, and these easily rank among Dylan's
finest '90s performances. On mournful tunes like
"Delia," Dylan sounds like a grim specter,
materializing to whisper his tales compellingly to those
who wander near. On the ragtag blues of "Ragged &
Dirty," he exhibits enough passion and abandon to
definitively scuttle any talk of him succumbing to the
ravages of age.
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