Slow Train Coming
| Slow Train Coming | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
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| Studio album by Bob Dylan | ||||
| Released | August 20, 1979 | |||
| Recorded | April 30 – May 11, 1979 | |||
| Genre | Rock, gospel, Christian rock | |||
| Length | 46:19 | |||
| Label | Columbia | |||
| Producer | Barry Beckett and Jerry Wexler | |||
| Bob Dylan chronology | ||||
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| Professional ratings | |
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| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |   |
| Robert Christgau | B+ |
| The Rolling Stone Album Guide | |
Slow Train Coming is the nineteenth studio album by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, released on August 20, 1979 by Columbia Records. It was Dylan's first effort since becoming a born-again Christian, and all of the songs either express his strong personal faith, or stress the importance of Christian teachings and philosophy. The evangelical nature of the record alienated many of Dylan's existing fans; at the same time, many Christians were drawn into his fan base. Slow Train Coming was listed at #16 in the 2001 book CCM Presents: The 100 Greatest Albums in Christian Music.
The album was generally well-reviewed in the secular press, and the single "Gotta Serve Somebody" became his first hit in three years, winning Dylan the Grammy for best rock vocal performance by a male in 1980. The album peaked at #2 on the charts in the UK and went platinum in the US, where it reached #3.
By November 1978, Dylan had received some of the worst reviews of his career. In late January, he finally premiered Renaldo and Clara, the part-fiction, part-concert film shot in the fall of 1975, during the first Rolling Thunder Revue tour. Though the performances were well-received, the overwhelming majority of film reviews were negative, particularly those by The Village Voice, which printed four negative reviews by four different critics.
Though critical reception in the United Kingdom was kinder, with some British critics proclaiming it a major work, his most recent album, Street-Legal, was also received poorly by most American critics. Charges of sexism, poor production, and poor writing were thrown at the album.
In the meantime, Dylan's latest tour was getting its own share of negative reviews, many of which reflected the negative criticism which greeted the American release of Bob Dylan at Budokan, taken from performances in February and March 1978.
Yet Dylan was in good spirits, according to his own account: "I was doing fine. I had come a long way in just the year we were on the road [in 1978]." This would change on November 17 in San Diego, California. As Clinton Heylin reports, "the show itself was proving to be very physically demanding, but then, he perhaps reasoned, he'd played a gig in Montreal a month earlier with a temperature of 105."
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Wikipedia