Blood on the Tracks
Singer-songwriter Mary Lee Kortes decided to tackleBob Dylan's masterpiece  of romantic disillusionment and wanderlust on a whim when she learned that the  New York nightclub Arlene's Grocery needed someone to cover the 1975 classic for  one of its Classic Album Nights. The experiment in channeling rock's greatest  bard was so otherworldly for Kortes and her band Mary Lee's Corvette that  they've now released this impassioned and athletic homage toBlood on the Trackson  CD. While it's tempting to compare this disc toExile in Guyville, Liz  Phair's retort to the Rolling Stones'sExile on Main Street,  this is much more a mash note to the great man than a rejoinder. Kortes's  strong, sinewy voice careens artfully through the 10 songs, as if she were a  medium tapping into Dylan's mind, perfectly mimicking his cadence and  idiosyncratic phrasing without entirely losing herself in the process. While no  shrinking violet, Kortes does succeed in bringing a woman's vision to the  collection, if only between the lines (she makes no attempt to change the gender  in the lyrics). But Kortes inhabits a song like "Buckets of Rain" completely,  giving it a guileless innocence that Dylan could never have anticipated.--Jaan Uhelszki