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Bob Dylan: Slow Train Coming (CBS)

Charles Shaar Murray, New Musical Express, 25 August 1979

THE RELATIONSHIP between rock and religion has always been fraught and filled with tension: back at its Southern rural roots, there was always a serious metaphysical choice involved. Not for nothing did Jerry Lee Lewis fear for the safety of his immortal soul when he debated the morality of his music with Sam Phillips during a Sun Records session back in the '50s; not for nothing did Little Richard veer crazily between his sinful boppin' and the call he felt snaking out to him from gospel music; not for nothing did Georgia Tom, bawdy bluesman supreme, kick it all in the head and become the Reverend Thomas A. Dorsey, composer and publisher of sacred songs.

Total word count of piece: 2253

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