With Saved, Bob Dylan adds a second chapter to his polarizing era as an Evangelical Christian

Bob Dylan : Solid Rock

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On June 23, 1980 Bob Dylan released Saved, his second album as a born-again Christian. This time, he didn't have Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits adding emphatic guitar lines or a single as catchy as "You Gotta Serve Somebody". Saved sounds even more like a gospel album, dripping with sanctified organ lines and soulful call and response vocals. And there's no shortage of Mr. "Hard Rain's A Gonna Fall" spitting out lyrics full of doom and gloom. Still, bored-again critics dismissed Dylan as a spiritual pamphleteer and this album, also recorded at Muscle Shoals Sound Studio, failed to convert them. It peaked at #24 on the album charts .

This baffling period in Dylan's career was captured on film and released in 2017 as Trouble No More: A Musical Film. We can find clips of his spirited performances on YouTube. By now audiences who came to hear "Blowin' In The Wind" and " Like A Rolling Stone" were subjected to nothing but Dylan's born-again music. Not that it was bad. "Solid Rock" sounds like something the Allman Brothers would have recorded ...and how many times have we seen Dylan pick up the mike and dance along to his tune?

As I've written, at the critics were stumbling over themselves to dismiss the new Dylan.

From Robert Christgau of the Village Voice a grade of  C+:

 In case you were wondering, Slow Train Coming wasn't Jerry Wexler's album, or the former R. Zimmerman's, or Jesus Christ's. It was Mark Knopfler's. Anyway, the first flash of faith is the deepest. May Bobby never indenture soul sisters again.

And from Kurt Loder of Rolling Stone:

The only miracle worth talking about here is Bob Dylan’s artistic triumph — qualified though it may be — over his dogmatic theme. Musically, Saved may be Dylan’s most encouraging album since Desire, yet it’s nowhere near as good as it might have been were its star not hobbled by the received wisdom of his gospel-propagating cronies. Dylan doesn’t stand much chance of becoming the white André Crouch (or even the next Roy Acuff, who was no slouch with a gospel number either), not just because he lacks the vocal equipment but because he’s too inventive, too big for the genre. Because he’s Dylan. 

 As born-again gospel LPs go. Saved is a work of some distinction. Now that Bob Dylan’s had his shots at that old-time religion, perhaps his secular fans may be forgiven for hoping that this, too, shall pass.

With the 2017 release of Trouble No More: The Bootleg Series Vol. 13 / 1979-1981, critics returned to Dylan's born-again years with fresh ears. Pitchfork's Sam Sodomsky sums up the reason Dylan might have responded to this spiritual awakening the way he did:

For Dylan, they signified a rebirth, both creatively and personally. By the end of the decade, his longevity as a rock icon was unprecedented: Elvis was gone; The Beatles had been broken up as long they’d been around; the “new Dylans” like Springsteen were now welcoming their own disciples. When the “old Dylan”—just pushing 40—found himself uninspired on what had become known as his “Las Vegas Tour,” the Bible offered a way forward, even if it didn’t provide the answers he might have wanted.

Dylan would release one more Christian album in 1981, Shot of Love ( US#33) before slowly moving on to other things. Perhaps we have his son Jesse to thank. Dylan's teenage song was playing a lot ofThe Clash, Elvis Costello, Squeeze, and X for his dad.