What do you think of Bob Dylan's blues singing?

Bearing in mind that he is, after all, white.

As in, for instance, "Highway 61 Revisited", "Pledging My Time", "It Takes A Lot to Laugh", "Obviously 5 Believers", etc.

It's so hard to talk about Bob as a singer, because he doesn't sound like anybody else--you can't compare him to Howlin' Wolf or Son House or BB King or any singer from any school of blues music. You can't compare him to any other singer, period. Personally, I don't think he's trying to do what those other guys did, so it's not worthwhile to judge him by their standards. If Bob was trying to be Howlin' Wolf, you could say he sucks for not sounding like Howlin' Wolf, but Bob is trying to do his own pure Bob Dylan thing, and nobody will ever be better than Bob at doing the Bob Dylan thing. Lots of people can do Howlin' Wolf better than anybody can do Bob Dylan.

Take him as Bob Dylan, and look at the blues songs he's done, and ask yourself if you like them. Do you? Then Bob Dylan is a good blues singer.

Personally, I love it when Bob does blues stuff. For whoever said Bob hasn't done a lot of pure blues, are you on crack? Not even considering his first album, Good As I Been to You, and World Gone Wrong, Bob's new album, Modern Times, is about half blues songs--some of them, like Rollin' & Tumblin' and Someday Baby, are actually old blues songs where he kept the choruses and wrote his own verses. Lots of Muddy Waters songs creeping into that album--it's just that they're done as though they're Bob Dylan songs, of course.

There are very few Dylan songs that could even be classified as true "blues", even if you take quite a liberal definition of that term.

Off the top of my head, I would think that "Meet Me In The Morning" has a very basic blues feel. And "Corrina, Corrina" might have been rendered as such, but he chose to give it a fairly low-key, slightly longing delivery.

He certainly would not have (not now, for sure : ), or has ever had, the chops to deliver classic shouting-style blues (Bob covering Howling Wolf or Muddy Waters is a recipe for disaster, if he tried to mimic them).

Nor do I think that his vocal gifts would allow enough colour and phrasing to be interesting as a straight-ahead blues singer, working with straightforward blues lyrics (as opposed to his own lyrical complexity).

The flip side is that some talented blues singers would do interesting things with Dylan songs, I think. "You're A Big Girl Now", for example, could be given a truly expressive reading. "One Too Many Mornings", "It's All Right, Ma"...many others. Not blues songs, but they make good canvases.

With Bob Dylan, it's always been a words thing. That's the magic, and his adequate (sometimes!) voice has to suffice as the vehicle for them.

EDIT: Yes, even in those examples you quoted I would say the same - he isn't trying to be obviously "a blues singer" (Highway 61 sung by John Lee Hooker - now, that would be something : ) and I don't think he could pull it off if he tried.

Canned Heat & Fleetwood Mac had white blues singers and they were amazing.

Not much. Johnny Winter's version of "Highway 61 Revisted" turns it into a rocking, Texas blues with stinging slide guitar.

Bob Dylan, blues singer? To me hes a folkie at heart. Of the songs you mentioned, Johnny Winter does a more believable blues version of Highway 61 and someone else does a great version of It Takes A Lot To Laugh but I forget who. It may be Mike Bloomfield.
Hes no blues singer but he sure writes great songs.

Not much ...

And for white blues singers, there is a LONG list of them who would stand before Bob in my opinion.

Dick Justice
Jimmie Rodgers
SRV
Johnny Winter
Elvis
John Mayal

I thought Bob's version of "When The Levee Breaks" was awful.

Mind you, I think Bob Dylan is okay. I enjoy his music, I am NOT offended that he sings the blues or anything ... just not his forte.

if all he had to stand on was his voice, we wouldn`t have
heard of him...it`s his writing and composing thats art.

Bob released two recordings back to back, Good as I Been to You and World Gone Wrong which have a folk blues feel to them. He'll never be a good time blues shouter but he has a good feel for these tunes much and a subtle vocal approach much like Mississippi John Hurt's vocals. But what really
impressed me was the quality of the guitar playing. I though Bob was just a strummer, but he uses finger picking very well thoughout these CD's.

Dylan doesn't sing any genre; Dylan sings Dylan. His versions of his songs are always the best.

Bob Dylan is a Folk singer. His chords follow not the standard folk pattern but the country format. This confuses the normal blues pater-en.

Bobby D is GOD!

Hello,,bearing in mind I'm white, means nothing, I'm more soul brother than white bigot, Bob Dylan has his own way of reflecting the blues and it is blues he is singing, trace his steps and you'll find the blues in the tracks, you might want to reflect on your deeper emotional issues, after all I'm white.

two friends get into a bar and one of them complain the way the voice sounds cuz he cant understand a word he麓s singing and his friend says "oh, it麓s because its bob dylan"