Dylan gets into Christmas spirit

You have to give it to him: at 68, Robert Allen Zimmerman still has a few tricks up his old Mod suit sleeve. Forty-eight years into his long-scandalous career, he has released a for-charity Christmas collection of classics and novelty tunes from the seventies. Not bad for a Jewish boy from Hibbing, Minn.

When following Dylan’s eclectic oeuvre, one can observe skips and pops and full-on stylistic snafus. Case in point: in 1966, Dylan recorded what many consider to be his masterpiece, “Blonde On Blonde.” Later that year he was in a near-fatal motorcycle accident and hung up his Telecaster (and his best backing group ever, the Band) for a number of years. He emerged the next year with “John Wesley Hardin,” the country-folk platter that first gave the world “All Along the Watchtower.” Not until “Planet Waves” in ’73 would Dylan return to his mercurial fury as his first marriage began to flounder.

Also, one could observe his late ’70’s-early 80’s gospel phase, where Dylan turned to Christ for post-marital salvation. He got bored with that after a while and started making decent records again by the ’90s. But Dylan still rolls with the punches, and if this Christmas extravaganza is any kind of sign, there may be a bit of that wild, thin mercury in his gruff tenor yet.

For the last decade, Dylan’s fascination has revolved around pastoral Delta blooze, the grandaddy of Rock ‘n’ Roll and arguably the first form of hit music. From his take on the classic murder ballad “Stagger Lee” to the Alicia Keyes name-dropper “Thunder on the Mountain,” Dylan seems to be in the mood to conquer the American canon with a vengeance and do it as he damn well pleases. Thus it isn’t bizarre for him to release a Christmas album (though he reads the Torah at Yom Kippur these days).

That is not to say the album is without merit. Indeed, the woozy, drunken Uncle Bob renditions certainly rank up there with Bing Crosby and David Bowie singing “White Christmas” as a wacky Christmas card to the audiophiles everywhere. In “Must Be Santa,” the upbeat accordion accompaniment sounds as if it were scrapped from Dylan’s last album, “Together Through Life.”

In fact, it might be the most lively thing Bob’s put to megabyte in years. He sings with conviction, which is good, because dissenters otherwise would have reason to convict him.

Long-standing arguments of Dylan “selling out” may be bolstered by this release, but its charitable promise of all royalties feeding hungry children is, if nothing else, honorable. After all, “Like A Rolling Stone” has been hailed the greatest song ever by many, so it’s doubtful ol’ Bob will ever need another paycheck. He may try and sell you a Cadillac, but it’s probably more because he’s nostalgic for the times when a Cadillac and the American dream were one and the same, not a climate-change nightmare.

That’s the point, ultimately, with Bob Dylan. He may act like a grouse to the media, but he’s still a dreamer. He doesn’t need pay or acclaim to keep doing what he does. Love it or hate it, the album displays that Uncle Bob has fire left in the chimney, and though he’d probably put whiskey in Santa’s egg nog, his heart is still in the right place.

4 out of 5 stars.