Nashville Skyline - Aftermath

Aftermath

Nashville Skyline was finished and scheduled for release in May 1969, but at the end of April, Dylan returned to Columbia's Studio A in Nashville for three more recording sessions. These sessions, held on April 24, 26th, and May 3, were dedicated to country standards with one exception, a new composition titled "Living The Blues." Dylan was apparently planning his next album.

"Bob asked my opinion of the album's concept early on", recalls Clive Davis. "My objections wouldn't necessarily have stopped the album, but I knew he'd been having some difficulty coming up with his own material...so I encouraged him."

By the time Nashville Skyline was recorded, the political climate in the United States had grown more turbulent and polarized. In 1968, civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. and Senator Robert Kennedy (a leading candidate for the presidency) were both assassinated. Riots had broken out in several major cities, including a major one surrounding the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Illinois and a number of racially-motivated riots spurred by King's assassination. A new President, Richard Nixon, was sworn into office in January 1969, but the U.S. engagement in Southeast Asia, particularly the Vietnam War, would continue for several more years. Protests over a wide range of political topics became more frequent. Dylan had been a leading cultural figure, noted for his political and social commentary throughout the 1960s. Even as he moved away from topical songs, he never lost his cultural status. However, as Clinton Heylin would write about Nashville Skyline, "if Dylan was concerned about retaining a hold on the rock constituency, making albums with Johnny Cash in Nashville was tantamount to abdication in many eyes."

Helped by a promotional appearance on The Johnny Cash Show on June 7, Nashville Skyline went on to become one of Dylan's best-selling albums. Three singles were pulled from the album, all of which received significant airplay on AM radio.

Despite the dramatic, commercial shift in direction, the press also gave Nashville Skyline a warm reception. A critic for Newsweek wrote of "the great charm... and the ways Dylan, both as composer and performer, has found to exploit subtle differences on a deliberately limited emotional and verbal scale." In his review for Rolling Stone, Paul Nelson wrote, "Nashville Skyline achieves the artistically impossible: a deep, humane, and interesting statement about being happy. It could well be ... his best album." However, years later in a review for Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits Vol. II, Nelson would retract his opinion, writing "I was misinformed. That's why no one should pay any attention to critics, especially the artist."

A few critics expressed some disappointment, but of those who did, Ed Ochs of Billboard wrote, "the satisfied man speaks in clichés, and blushes as if every day were Valentine's Day", while Tim Souster of the BBC's The Listener magazine wrote, "One can't help feeling something is missing. Isn't this idyllic country landscape too good to be true?"

As Nashville Skyline continued to enjoy strong sales, Dylan planned his first concert performance since the Woody Guthrie memorial in January 1968. English promoters had approached Dylan about appearing at the Isle of Wight Festival at Woodside Bay in Isle of Wight, England. Before agreeing to the arrangements, Dylan made a surprise public performance on July 14, 1969. At the Mississippi River Festival held at Southern Illinois University in Edwardsville, Illinois, Dylan joined The Band for a brief four-song set, including Woody Guthrie's "Ain't Got No Home", Leadbelly's "In The Pines", and Little Richard's "Slippin' and Slidin'."

Later, on August 31, 1969, Dylan would appear with The Band at the Isle of Wight Festival, performing a one-hour, seventeen-song setlist dominated by Dylan's compositions; only two songs from Nashville Skyline, "I Threw It All Away" and "Lay Lady Lay", were performed.

Roughly 200,000 fans attended Isle of Wight, and though audience reaction was strong enough to elicit a two-song encore, Dylan was dissatisfied with the whole performance. Dylan had hired Elliot Mazer to record his set, hoping to release an official live album. Instead, Dylan scrapped those plans, but not before sending the tapes to Nashville, where Bob Johnston began to remix the recordings.

Dylan had told Rolling Stone in late June that he would resume touring in the fall, but after the experience at Isle of Wight, those plans never materialized. There would be a few more sporadic performances before Dylan would finally resume touring in January 1974, four and a half years after the Isle of Wight festival.

Dylan was not alone in his disappointment with Isle of Wight, and he would experience that harsh criticism when a selection of those performances appeared on his next album. The stage had already been set with the three Nashville sessions in late April and early May, as Dylan was about to face the worst reviews of his career.