Prodigal Son.

Jakob Dylan couldn’t escape his fate even if he moved in with that tribe recently discovered who have had no contact with the civilized world. He’d be Bob Dylan’s son even to them. That’s why he has led a fairly underachieving band, The Wallflowers for most of his career and is just now, at the age of 38, releasing his first solo album, Seeing Things. It’s the perfect name for this spare collection of acoustic originals recorded with a famous record executive (Rick Rubin) producing on the old-school Columbia Records label. The parallels between this album and say, John Wesley Harding are enough to make you rub your eyes. 

Accompanied by just his acoustic guitar and a rhythm section that’s only sometimes noticeable, Dylan wraps his beautiful voice (take that Dad!) around songs about taking responsibility and living a simple life. He varies the tempo only slightly from song to song giving the album a kind of sameness that sounds like a performance for a small intimate group. The hopeful “Something Good This Way Comes” and it’s pessimistic opposite “Evil is Alive and Well” are given a similar arrangement with the ever humble Dylan in the role of the observer. There are some political moments like the Iraq war commentary in “Valley of the Low Sun” and his empathy with the working man on “All Day and All Night.” The beautiful love song “Long End of the Telescope” finishes the album on a melancholy, soul baring note. 

Seeing Things holds up well compared with other acoustic masterpieces like Nebraska, Rubin’s own work with Johnny Cash and say, John Wesley Harding. But, as Dylan has reminded in interviews “that stuff is the high water mark for anybody doing what I do…not just for me but for any songwriter.”  

Listen for songs from the album Seeing Things  by Jakob Dylan all this week on Paul Shugrue’s new music show “Out of the Box” on Hampton Roads public radio 89.5 WHRV Mon. through Thurs. from 7 to 9 p.m., Sat. afternoon from 1 to 5 p.m. and on-demand at www.whrv.org/outofthebox.