Andrew Ferguson is not impressed with Bob Dylan or his new Christmas CD:

The production and packaging are professional. The band is competent in a midnight-at-the-Nashville Hyatt sort of way–maybe a little heavy on the tremolo but still. And the songs themselves are fine, of course. The arrangements, though, are jarringly slick, with sleigh bells and gossamer strings and cooing girl singers–as if Dylan had chosen to lift the backing tracks from an Andy Williams Christmas special circa 1968. Oozing just beneath his asthmatic croak, the arrangements give an effect of overwhelming creepiness. His voice gets worse with every track. You wonder whether someone left the karaoke machine on in the emphysema ward at the old folks’ home. He doesn’t sing notes so much as make exhausted gestures in their general direction, until at a break he falls silent and is rescued by the backup singers, who reestablish the melody in the proper key. But then he starts singing again.

Yeah well, maybe ol’ Bob blew the Christmas CD. But even at the age of 50 in the video below from almost 20 years ago, Dylan could still rock with the best of them — Roger McGuinn, Tom Petty, Neil Young, Eric Clapton and the late George Harrison. Enjoy.