In an interview once, Dylan said he could sing as good as Caruso, that he could hit a lot of those same notes. It was a tongue in cheek comment about the quality of his voice, but in fact, in his earlier incarnations, Dylan was a singer par excellance. He could maneuver his way through complex melodies like a boxer in the ring, hitting his opponents, whatever the song was aiming at, with direct, heartfelt, withering punches.
These days, Bob Dylan's voice has changed to an astonishing degree, unlike any singer one can think of in recent history. It's become a tuneless voice that can nonetheless be extremely expressive at times, when Dylan feels like injecting it with genuine emotion - but for the most part, it's a gravelly two or three note growl that barely makes any attempt at hitting what we call in music "notes." Perhaps for Dylan's music transcriptions of late, if someone were to transcribe the music of a live performance, for instance, there needs to be a new musical system of writing notes. The sounds he makes could be graded on the level of growliness... maybe on the musical chart it could show these 'notes' as vibrating at different levels - a level one growl, a level two growl, etc.
For the most part, he seems to favor the two to three note growl, going from some lower growl to some slightly higher growl, usually somewhere in the area of fourths, for those who know music. He'll hit the growly base note, then hit the growly fourth. Sometimes he hits a growly fifth, but by the time it gets that high, it's hard to determine the difference between a musical note and a man clearing his throat. Once and a while, he'll be inspired enough to actually hit a real musical note. At which point the crowd cheers.
Which isn't to say that Bob's performances aren't in their own weird way wonderful. Once you get past the idea that the singer isn't really going to sing, but instead make like a grizzled old lion all the way through, he can reach places of transcendence.
Case in point - a recent performance of the song he's been doing for months now in every set - Mississippi. A spirited, upbeat, lively, 90% tuneless performance, that is quite lovely, in it's own peculiar way.
Enjoy, if you can wrap your head around it.
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