Bob Dylan, have an opinion?

If you rate Dylan by his voice, rather than what he does with it, you can miss the whole point. Sure, Lightfoot or
Don Mcclean or... have 'better' voices, but few if any, singer/songwriters can go straight through to your gut like Dylan. BTW, Nashville Skyline, Blood On The Tracks and Desire show off his voice, versus just his interpretation, a little better, but the Dylan I love best is the
hard-edged Dylan of Blonde on Blonde or Highway Sixty-One Revisited. OK, you got me, I like all of it. Hey there are a lot of Manilow-smooth vocalists out there. Who cares. Give me grit and soul any day. There are more good lyrics in one decent Dylan composition than in any hundred other albums. and that's counting the better albums, IMHO.
His voice these days sounds like they dug him up to record, but his inner voice is undeniably still there. If they are going to give every hack for miles around an award, it was about d*** time they gave an Oscar to America's greatest troubador.

Sd et al, I just remembered many years back a young woman(and contemporary) was arguing with her twin sister about the technical problems with Joni Mitchell's(!) singing, saying that she 'glided' wrong or something. I was amused and horrified to hear one of my favorites criticised, but it just goes to show you that there is 'standard' technique in singing, and then there is what works emotionally and musically. If it works for you, I would not knock any music or musician. Any more than I would knock an involving component just because it strayed from accepted specs or design. Anyone else see the analogy?

Dekay,
The closest I got to Joni was front row at the Pit in Albuquerque, a city that allowed one to see more great musicians up close and affordably in the seventies than the Fillmore East or Brooklyn Academy of Music combined(which were blocks from my high school.) She had Tom Scott and the L.A. Express with her, and was just magical. I have read the classic Rolling Stone interview, but I envy you your one-on-one experiences. Right places, right times.
Most fellow musicians I have met were not big names, but wonderful nonetheless.