Love And Theft (generally referred to as Love and Theft) is the thirty-first studio album by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, released on September 11, 2001 by Columbia Records. It featured backing by his touring band of the time, with keyboardist Augie Meyers added for the sessions. It peaked at #5 on the Billboard 200, and has been certified with a gold album by the RIAA. A limited edition release included two bonus tracks on a separate disc recorded in the early 1960s; and two years later, on September 16, 2003, this album was one of fifteen Dylan titles reissued and remastered for SACD hybrid playback. (More from Wikipedia)
Bob Dylan (who was 17 at the time) attended Buddy Holly’s show on January 31, 1959 – only three days before the airplane crash. Dylan spoke of the concert during his 1998 Grammy acceptance speech for Album of the Year for Time out of Mind: “And I just want to say that when I was sixteen or seventeen years old, I went to see Buddy Holly play at Duluth National Guard Armory, and I was three feet away from him . . . and he LOOKED at me. And I just have some sort of feeling that he was – I don’t know how or why – but I know he was with us all the time we were making this record in some kind of way.”
As an aside, fellow Bob Dylan fans who might have quit buying his albums back in the 1960’s and 1970’s would do well to start with Time out of Mind – Dylan’s next album, Love and Theft is even better – to see how great his newer music still is.
(June 2013/1)
