-- By Tom Phillips
Bob Dylan is a serial disappointer, and that is part of what's kept him thriving as an artist for six decades. A Swedish friend tells me his nation is deeply hurt that Dylan declined to come to Stockholm to accept his Nobel Prize for Literature. But this is just one of a long series of disappointments and shocks to his fans -- going back to the Newport Folk Festival of 1965, when the left's favorite folk-singer came out with a snarl and an electric guitar. In 1967, after a year's hiatus attributed to a mysterious accident, he again came out with a new style that distressed his followers. Suddenly Dylan's words and music seemed thin and spare -- compared to the hard rock and smoldering satire that began in Newport and culminated with "Blonde on Blonde."
