Love and Theft

Bob Dylan’s renewed creative roll that kickstarted on 1997’s Time Out of Mind continues through this 2001 album. With a warm sense of nostalgia he celebrates various forms of American music: There’s rockabilly (the romping “Summer Days”), Appalachian styles (the apocalyptic “High Water (For Charley Patton)”), electric blues (the searing “Cry a While”), folk-rock (the beautiful, jangly “Mississippi”), and even Bing Crosby-styled pop (“Moonlight”). By “Sugar Baby,” the album’s folky finale, Dylan’s the grizzled storyteller informing us convincingly that existence “seems like some dirty trick.”