Bob Dylan

St. James Encyclopedia of Pop Culture, Jan 29, 2002 by Bryan Garman

Dylan's career had not yet ended, but the photograph that appeared on the inside cover of the Time Out of Mind compact disc box proclaimed a sense of closure. Shot from the shoulders up, a corpse-like Dylan stares into the camera, the soft focus connoting an elusiveness, his pale, worn face suggesting a weariness, his eyes glistening with the sadness of experience yet not devoid of hope, his riverboat minstrel costume, complete with string tie, underscoring the timelessness so powerfully communicated by the soulful and battered vocal performance rendered on the album. As a new generation embraced him, as his son, Jacob, began his own recording career with the Wallflowers, Dylan had, like the hard-traveling minstrel he emulated, become the progenitor of the cultural and musical traditions he so carefully studied. His remarkable body of work and enigmatic persona had, in effect, delivered him out of time, had elevated him to the status of national myth. Nearly forty years after his first record, Dylan continued to provide audiences with a "means to adventure."