A fueled by coffee production.

Hello, my name is Ben Barrow and this is Bob Dylan album by album, a podcast that brings an in-death look.

I teach Bob Dylan's studio recording record by record.

I hope all is good and you're enjoying the season so far.

We have a little announcement to start the show.

Congratulations to the winner of our competition who is Brett Cole.

Brett, congratulations. You have won a Bob Dylan album by album turntable slipmats and also the

brilliant book, Why Dylan Matters. If you did get involved with our competition and you bought me

a coffee, then thank you. There were so many entries. It's really hard-womened to see.

We might do another little competition before the end of the season actually because that one went so

well uh so stick around for that in the meantime this episode marks a little i guess mini season

within this main season from now until the end of this season we are looking at bob's christian period

he released three albums with overt

Christian themes in them. And we're going to have a look at them. And also in a couple of special

episodes, the context around those albums too. Let's start with this. The first album of his Christian

period, this is 1979's Slow Train Coming. On the 17th of March, 1978, Bob Delalb. In 179th, slow train coming.

On the 17th of March, 1978, Bob Dylan was on stage in San Francisco, California.

Towards the end of the show, someone out in the crowd knew I wasn't feeling too well, he recalls.

I think they could see that and they threw a silver cross onto the stage. Now, usually I don't pick things up on the stage, but I look down at that cross and I said,

I've got to pick that up. So I did and I put it in my pocket.

Things would never quite be the same. Dylan was born again.

Of course, it's not quite as simple as that, but we've come to a point in Bob's career

...