I don't know diddly about gospel music, but I do know that I like some of it a great deal. I picked up a Mahalia Jackson record at an estate sale once, and that was interesting for a few plays. We discovered Odetta's Christmas album at the Public Library and give that one a spin every year. Paul Simon's cannibalizations of gospel sounds have always held an appeal for me. And I have a copy of an album by Otis Clay called On My Way Home, which I love to play in the car as I tool around Portland. That one can stay in the player for upwards of a week, getting several loops through the machine before it's time to go back in its case for a while.

So I took an interest in the new album of covers of Bob Dylan's gospel songs, Gotta Serve Somebody. And now, having sat through a couple of listenings, I am duly impressed.

I remember when Dylan had his Christian Conversion Period in the late '70s. There were Slow Train Coming and Saved, and we worldly-wise agnostic folks in our mid-20s turned our noses up at them. After the stunning personal revelations of Blood on the Tracks and the somewhat lesser Desire, we were expecting more of the same from Dylan -- introspective but secular -- and his abrupt right turn into Christian rock just didn't click for us. I didn't really catch up with the contemporary Dylan again until his Daniel Lanois period a few years ago.

Gotta Serve Somebody dusts off the Dylan gospel tunes and hands them over to a strong cast of gospel and soul singers who are the real deal. I can't honestly say that I remember most of these songs; even the title track is just a dim memory in its original Dylan version. But in this collection, with artists like Shirley Caesar, the Fairfield Four, and Aaron Neville at the mike, they ring much truer than they did 20 or 25 years ago.

The album may be blasphemy to gospel music purists, for all I know. If so, my apologies, but I think I'll be listening to this one for quite a while. Perhaps I'll post more if and when I can digest the material and the performances a bit further.