Maps of Music

Love and Theft (2001)

Where the lyrics of Love and Theft take you, and where it was really made.

The title is apparently taken from a 1993 history of blackface minstrelsy and the American working class, a book the album never mentions.

Key places

Twelve days of sessions in Midtown Manhattan (2001)

Recording site Clinton Recording — The twelve songs on the album were recorded in May 2001 at Clinton Recording in Midtown Manhattan. The sessions were spontaneous, with arrangements changed quickly during recording. Google Maps · Apple Maps

How to get there: See the map for directions.

Album story

Overview

• Love and Theft: 31st studio album by Bob Dylan
• Released September 11, 2001 by Columbia Records
• Backed by his touring band of the time, with keyboardist Augie Meyers added for the sessions
• Peaked at No. 5 on the Billboard 200; certified Gold by the RIAA
• Highest chart positions worldwide in Norway and Sweden, both No. 1
• First No. 1 album by Dylan in Norway since Infidels, and his first No. 1 album ever in Sweden
• Limited edition included a separate disc with two bonus tracks recorded in the early 1960s
• On September 16, 2003, remixed into 5.1 surround sound and reissued as one of 15 Dylan titles remastered for SACD

Background

• First album Dylan recorded with his Never Ending Tour road band
• The same band lineup carried over to his next eight studio albums
• Continues the artistic comeback begun with Time Out of Mind (1997), which received an even more enthusiastic reception
• Guitarist Larry Campbell recalls Dylan showing him the chord changes for the new song "Po' Boy" shortly after the band recorded "Things Have Changed" in 1999
• Campbell describes the changes as taking elements from the jazz era and adding a folk sensibility
• Drummer David Kemper says the band's knowledge of early American styles came from lessons absorbed from Dylan

Recording

• The twelve songs were recorded in just 12 days in May 2001 at Clinton Recording in Midtown Manhattan
• The sessions were notable for their spontaneity
• Engineer Chris Shaw says Dylan would abandon an arrangement quickly and change key, tempo and style until a version fit the vocal and lyric
• Dylan was interested in working with Shaw after hearing he had started on Public Enemy's early records
• Dylan later used Shaw to engineer and mix Modern Times and Rough and Rowdy Ways

Cover

• Cover photo: black-and-white photograph of Dylan with a then-new pencil-thin mustache, taken in the studio by Kevin Mazur
• Back cover: black-and-white portrait by David Gahr
• Inside cover photo by Mazur shows Dylan with the band, including organist Augie Meyers
• Art direction credited to Geoff Gans

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Tracklist

Disc 1

Disc 2

Sources: musicbrainz.org

Artist

Formation

• Born Robert Allen Zimmerman on May 24, 1941, in Duluth, Minnesota; raised in Hibbing, Minnesota.
• Moved to New York City in January 1961 to pursue a music career.
• Signed to Columbia Records after playing harmonica on Carolyn Hester's album; debut album Bob Dylan released in 1962.

Members

• Solo artist; backed over the years by bands including the Hawks/the Band, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, and his touring band led by bassist Tony Garnier.

Career

• Breakthrough with The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan (1963); protest songs such as "Blowin' in the Wind" became anthems for the civil rights and antiwar movements.
• Went electric with Bringing It All Back Home and Highway 61 Revisited (1965) and Blonde on Blonde (1966), provoking controversy among folk fans.
• Motorcycle accident in 1966 led to nearly eight years without touring; Basement Tapes recorded with the Band.
• Converted to Christianity in the late 1970s and released gospel albums; won Album of the Year Grammy for Time Out of Mind (1997).
• Has toured since 1988 on the Never Ending Tour; won an Academy Award and ten Grammy Awards; awarded the 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature.

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Reception

At release

• Robert Christgau, in his Village Voice Consumer Guide column, called the album a glowing review: "If Time Out of Mind was his death album—it wasn't, but you know how people talk—this is his immortality album"
• Critic Tim Riley praised Dylan's singing as shifting artfully between humble and ironic
• Greg Kot, in the Chicago Tribune, called it one of the finest roots rock albums ever made, with the myths and folklore of the South as a backdrop

Reappraisal

• Village Voice Pazz & Jop critics' poll: topped the list, the third Dylan album to do so
• Rolling Stone's critics' list: also topped
• Q: listed among the best 50 albums of 2001
• Kludge: ranked eighth among the best albums of 2001
• Newsweek: named the second best album of its decade
• Glide Magazine: ranked No. 1 album of the decade in 2009
• Entertainment Weekly: included on its end-of-the-decade best-of list
• Johnny Cash, in a 2001 New York Times interview, named it Dylan's best album

Records

• Billboard 200: peaked at No. 5
• RIAA: certified Gold
• Norway and Sweden: No. 1, the highest chart positions worldwide
• Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Folk Album at the 44th Annual Grammy Awards
• Nominated for Album of the Year at the same ceremony
• Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums of All Time: No. 467 in 2003, No. 385 in 2012, No. 411 in 2020

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Trivia

• The title was apparently inspired by historian Eric Lott's 1993 book Love & Theft: Blackface Minstrelsy and the American Working Class.
• Sheryl Crow recorded an up-tempo cover of "Mississippi" for her 1998 album The Globe Sessions, offered by Dylan, before Dylan revisited it for this album.
• The Dixie Chicks later made "Mississippi" a mainstay of their Top of the World, Vote for Change, and Accidents & Accusations Tours.
• Dylan took part in a press conference at the Hotel de la Ville in Rome on July 23, 2001, with reporters from ten countries, and gave an unusual number of interviews to promote the album.
• A 30-second commercial featuring "Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum" showed Dylan in a tense poker game with magician Ricky Jay, actress Francine York and writer Eddie Gorodetsky.
• The album drew plagiarism controversy when some lines were linked to Junichi Saga's book Confessions of a Yakuza, and Saga reportedly felt honored rather than abused.

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

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