[BrerRabbit]

Never understood his popularity. He always sounded like an Alfalfa falsetto with a mouthful of peanut butter.

Joni Mitchell's assessment was undoubtedly the harshest:

Bob is not authentic at all: He’s a plagiarist, and his name and voice are fake. Everything about Bob is a deception.

Definitely derivative. It's so strange to find people at this site, of all places, praising him!

[don-o]

Pompous and pretentious - comment that is.

Derivative? What does that even mean?

[x]

He's a role player. He created a legend for himself. Most entertainers do, though Dylan took it farther than others. Don't think Joni is so authentic or real either.

She sounds like one of those modern poets who think other writers are inauthentic because they write in another style or genre that's more baroque and further from naked self-expression. But perhaps there's something personal going on that we don't know about.

Dylan gets praised here because he's an eccentric who didn't fit in to the "folk musician" box that his peers tried to create.

You might argue that that was because of egocentrism or cussedness or a loose screw, but still, there's a lot to praise in someone who defies the usual stereotypes and cuts across expected categories.

It's an amusing feud. The way to become "an American original" as Dylan undoubtedly is now, is to pick a role and play it long enough in defiance of trends and fashions to the point where people assume the mask is your own face.

[Bubba Ho-Tep]

In one of his early interviews, Dylan was asked if he was the voice of his generation or somesuch. He replied, "I'm just a song and dance man," and I think that it's true. Cut through all the hype, which he's always ignored anyway, and he's just a singer and songwriter with a fondness for traditional American songs and forms.

Does he take classic songs and twist them and rewrite the lyrics? Sure. Folk music has been doing that for 200 years. Did he change his name? Sure. He's hardly the first Jewish entertainer to make that choice.

[Chode]

talk about bitter...

[upsdriver]

It's so strange to find people at this site, of all places, praising him!

Why is that strange? Who do you consider worthy of praise on this site?

[Revolting cat!]

It's so strange to find people at this site, of all places, praising him!

Indeed. They should be praising Barry Manilow, Helen Reddy and Kenny G. !