Elvis Costello plays Bob Dylan – Happy Birthday Mr. Costello

Bob-Dylan-Elvis-Costello

Elvis Costello once did a three-night solo acoustic support opening for Bob Dylan in March 1995 at Brixton Academy, London, England. And there is a quite good bootleg from those sets. Elvis is clearly a Dylan fan and has played his songs on several occasions.

He is also part of that new project; Elvis Costello, Marcus Mumford, T Bone Burnett and My Morning Jacket’s Jim James is working on unfinished “Dylan album”. The collective are composing  music to Dylan’s original lyrics, written around the time of his late-60s Basement Tapes. It is kind of in the same vein as Billy Bragg and Wilco’s Mermaid Avenue albums.

Egil posted a very fine version where he sings with Dylan himself some time ago.

From the support for Dylan in 1995
From the support for Dylan in 1995

Let us see how Elvis Costello interprets Dylan.

We are starting with a beautiful take from the TV-show, Spectacle.
Elvis Costello – I Threw It All Away (2010):

Elvis Costello And The Imposters – License To Kill (live, 24 may 2011) a song he also did for the Dylan/Amnesty covers album:

Spotify:

Elvis Costello/Flip City – Knocking on heaven’s door (audio), this song is unreleased by Elvis Costello, but he recorded it with Flip City in 1975 and performed it in concert with Roger McGuinn on two occasions: 1998-10-24 and 2001-05-11(I could not find those…):

This is a stretch, but Elvis Costello is in the band. Ron Sexsmith sings Ring Them Bells with Elvis Costello, Sheryl Crow, Neko Case and Jesse Winchester on Spectacle:

Elvis Costello – When I Paint My Masterpiece (live, audio, 10 June 2012, Reykjavik), the quality is a bit bad, but interesting none the less:

Elvis Costello & Diana Krall – Wallflower (live, not sure about the date, Bridge School Concert – October 26, 2013)short but sweet:

I could not find You’re gonna make me lonesome when you go from The Kojak Variety (extended).

– Hallgeir

5 thoughts on “Elvis Costello plays Bob Dylan – Happy Birthday Mr. Costello”

  1. You left out the best one! You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go on the expanded version of Kojak Variety

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