It's been a "slow train coming," as the album title from Bob Dylan's recently remastered 1979 album reads, but Dylan's amazing, and for the most part previously ignored body of work is finally getting an overdue and complicated face-lift. Excepting the Biograph box set and ongoing Bootleg Series, Dylan's catalog has primarily been shuffled from format to format with few revelatory improvements. To correct this oversight, Columbia/Legacy has released a massive project that updates 15 of Dylan's 30 or so studio albums. Not only are all 15 albums impressively remastered in stereo, all contain even more high-fidelity layers -- all with two-channel, and five with 5.1 surround sound -- encoded in the Super Audio (SACD) format, a digital delivery system jointly developed by CD creators Sony and Philips to challenge DVD-Audio.

Some are critical of the perceived exploitation of fans, who may feel compelled to repurchase their favorite albums every time a new medium is marketed. Others happily make the upgrades, no matter the cost. Sound is improved, though at a premium -- even without additional recordings or artwork expenses, these retrospective remasters are at contemporary prices. Additionally, the increased fidelity of SACD requires investing in new hardware. But as long as audiophiles and hardcore fans celebrate upgrades with buying sprees fueled by the joy of rediscovery and obsessive "completist" attitudes, the market will continue to recycle products. In one sense, everybody wins. But in another, it's just a different version of the great rock 'n' roll swindle.

For Dylan fans, however, the planners have made the right choices in a sonically enhanced set beginning with 1963's The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan and concluding with 2001's Love and Theft. Even the stark and powerful Another Side of Bob Dylan, consisting of simply a solo acoustic guitar and Dylan's voice, sounds full and rich. And when Dylan delves into the sonic embellishments of ethereal producer Daniel Lanois on Oh Mercy, the textural sound reproduction is spectacular. The remasters also include Dylan's acoustic-to-electric transitional album, Highway 61 Revisited, magnificent lynchpin Blonde on Blonde, countrified Nashville Skyline, deeply spiritual Slow Train Coming, and what many consider Dylan's finest work, Blood on the Tracks.

Dylan explored music by working with people such as the Band (Planet Waves), and dub/reggae masters Sly Dunbar and Robbie Shakespeare (Infidels). With each new direction, there was one constant -- rich and metaphorical poetry; and one intangible and gradually changing aspect -- Dylan's unique voice. The reissues -- albums with original art/liner notes available individually or as a pricey box set -- may not include anything new, but the works stand on their own as pillars in Dylan's province, with no extras needed.

For previously unreleased material, the Columbia/ Legacy Bootleg series (presented on traditional CDs) has provided a steady flow of rare material over the past 10 years, with a focus on finding and perfecting the many obscure (and illegally available) tracks and concerts from Dylan's past. The sixth "official" bootleg is Bob Dylan Live 1964: Concert at Philharmonic Hall, recorded on Halloween night before an enraptured audience and presented uncut. Dylan was 23 and just getting comfortable onstage, as heard in his quick-witted banter and sometimes cocky rapport.

The performance includes material from Bob Dylan and The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, the first two albums that made Dylan one of the generation's premier folksingers. Tracks include "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right" and "It Ain't Me, Babe," plus a few "new" songs that forebode significant musical changes to come -- such as the sinister "Gates of Eden." Briefly joined by Joan Baez, Dylan at times seems to be toying with the audience's sensibilities, but always comes back to the significant point: the song itself. Dylan was gradually drifting away from the traditionally political folk scene, and beginning to write from his own point of view. It was the first of many shifts for the singular songwriter that would occur over the next 40 years, and that continue today.

So whether it's old or new material, or an old or new format, the Columbia/Legacy Dylan series is a fitting paean to an artist who may be the greatest poet of the late 20th century. Dylan and his fans deserve the royal treatment, and these latest releases are worth every penny.

music@creativeloafing.com