Tag Archives: Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan, Country, Indie, List, Rock, Singer Songwriter

13 great Americana versions of Bob Dylan songs

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Dylan_Bob_280_1973.jpg

13 great Americana versions of Bob Dylan songs

Americana is an amalgam of roots music formed by the confluence of the shared and varied traditions that make up the American musical ethos; specifically those sounds that are merged from folk, country, blues, rhythm and blues, rock and roll and other external influences. Americana, as defined by the Americana Music Association (AMA), is “contemporary music that incorporates elements of various American roots music styles, including country, roots-rock, folk, bluegrass, R&B and blues, resulting in a distinctive roots-oriented sound that lives in a world apart from the pure forms of the genres upon which it may draw. While acoustic instruments are often present and vital, Americana also often uses a full electric band.”

A while ago I did a post on my top 10 country versions of Bob Dylan songs (soon to be updated), since then I’ve been made aware of a lot more songs from people who read the original post. Then most of my pickings where of classic country leaning on outlaw country, in this post I will concentrate on the new generation of country/ alt. country.

Dylan Outlaw Cowboy

Here are 13 favourite Bob Dylan songs performed by Americana artists. Lets start with a great live version:

Bobby Long & John Fullbright – It’s Not Dark Yet:

What a wonderful sound and such a great performance. These guys are just so good!

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Bob Dylan, Bob Dylan video

October 3: Bob Dylan Tomorrow Is A Long Time, Rome, Italy 1987 (Video)

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bob dylan Rome 1987

If today was not an endless highway
If tonight was not a crooked trail
If tomorrow wasn’t such a long time
Then lonesome would mean nothing to you at all
Yes, and only if my own true love was waitin’
Yes, and if I could hear her heart a-softly poundin’
Only if she was lyin’ by me
Then I’d lie in my bed once again

A BEAUTIFUL version of “Tomorrow Is A Long Time”.

Roma Palaeur
Rome, Italy
3 October 1987

Musicians:

  • Bob Dylan (vocal & guitar)
  • Mike Campbell (guitar)
  • Benmont Tench (piano).

I can’t see my reflection in the waters
I can’t speak the sounds that show no pain
I can’t hear the echo of my footsteps
Or can’t remember the sound of my own name
Yes, and only if my own true love was waitin’
Yes, and if I could hear her heart a-softly poundin’
Only if she was lyin’ by me
Then I’d lie in my bed once again

There’s beauty in the silver, singin’ river
There’s beauty in the sunrise in the sky
But none of these and nothing else can touch the beauty
That I remember in my true love’s eyes
Yes, and only if my own true love was waitin’
Yes, and if I could hear her heart a-softly poundin’
Only if she was lyin’ by me
Then I’d lie in my bed once again

Check out:

-Egil

Bob Dylan, Bob Dylan other, Bootleg

Bob Dylan: The Rundown Rehearsal Tapes (audio)

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bob dylan rundown rehearsal tapes

Stunning!! This eagerly anticipated 4 CD release truly delivers. Excellent soundboard tapes of most recordings.
~bobsboots.com

During the winter months of 1978, Bob Dylan conducted rehearsals for his upcoming 115-date world tour in downtown Santa Monica’s aptly named Rundown Studios. Captured for posterity by engineers Arthur Rosato and Joel Bernstein, the Rundown tapes represent a remarkably panoramic window into Dylan’s creative process as he reinvents his classic songs via improvised lyrics and arrangements that gradually transform the raw, fiery melodies into larger-than-life pop fantasias seemingly earmarked for the casino ballrooms of Las Vegas. The four-CD bootleg box set The Rundown Rehearsal Tapes is an embarrassment of riches for the serious Dylan enthusiast, encompassing virtually every landmark in his storied songbook as well as some new compositions and a handful of traditional blues standards that never made it past the rehearsal stage.
~Jason Ankeny (read more over @ allmusic.com)

The info about the different disc’s is from the Sleeve info (edited by bobsboots.com)

Tracks

Disc one

The first CD opens with an arrangement of Like A Rolling Stone that’s quite different from the one utilized on the tour itself, before introducing a first ever CD transfer of the complete December 30th 1977 tape. This particular rehearsal comes at a time when the touring band was still in a state of flux, with Denny Siewell on drums, Jesse Ed Davis on guitar and Katie Segal and Debbie Dye Gibson on backing vocals. It also features Dylan figuring out a piano arrangement of It’s all over now baby blue, as well as versions of three songs that failed to appear on the tour; Most likely you go your way, Leopard skin pill box hat and If not for you. Though this is a first generation digital transfer of the cassette master, this is one recording not from the mixing console, but recorded by one of the musicians with a boom box. (hence the slightly recessed vocals). However, it remains a fascinating insight into the embryonic stage of rehearsals at this point.
Tracks 15-17 on the first CD gain come from a first-gen digital transfer of a tape that has generally only circulated in mediocre quality, from high generational recordings. This session featured a different drummer, (Bruce Gary), as well as a unique 1978 arrangement of the Blood On The Tracks classic You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go. Finally, the CD concludes with a teaser of the goodies to be found on CD2… a previously uncirculated take of the old blues standard My Babe.

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Bob Dylan, Bob Dylan calendar

September 29: Bob Dylan at Gerde’s Folk City profile in the New York Times 1961

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Dylan NYT Gerdes

“He was a cross between a choir boy and a beatnik, a 20-year-old  with a voice , anything but pretty”
– Robert Shelton

Robert Shelton helped start Mr. Dylan’s career with his Sept. 29, 1961, profile.

Wikipedia:
Robert Shelton, born Robert Shapiro (June 28, 1926, Chicago, Illinois, United States – December 11, 1995, Brighton, England) was a music and film critic. Shelton was perhaps most notable for the way in which he helped to launch the career of a then unknown 20-year-old folk singer named Bob Dylan. In 1961, Dylan was performing atGerdes Folk City in the West Village, one of the best-known folk venues in New York, opening for a bluegrass act called the Greenbriar Boys. Shelton’s positive review, in The New York Times, brought crucial publicity to Dylan, and led to a Columbia recording contract.

Robert Shelton’s review was the start of a proffesional relationship with Bob Dylan, and he wrote the liner notes to the album, Bob Dylan. Dylan also lent Shelton’s apartement to have a place to write.

He is  the writer of the book, No Direction Home – The Life and Music of Bob Dylan:bobdylannodirectionhomethelifeand550760

  • Hallgeir
Bob Dylan, Bob Dylan recording sessions

Bob Dylan: Greatest Hits Vol.2 recording session, 24 September 1971

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bob dylan greatest hits vol2

 

“He felt there were some songs that he had written that had become hits of sorts for other people, that he didn’t actually perform himself, and he wanted to fit those on the record as well…So we just went in one afternoon and did it, it was just the two of us and the engineer, and it was very simple…we chose three [songs] on the spot and mixed them…in the space of an afternoon…Sometimes I wasn’t even sure if it was a final take until we would just finish and Bob would say, ‘Okay, let’s go and mix it.'”
~Happy Traum

–
I believe we can hear a surprisingly happy Dylan reasserting the expressive power and rich musicality of his own work. The soulful harmonica playing, the striking two-part singing, the confident and inventive guitar rhythms, the strong conveying of individual consciousness and specific feelings in the vocalizing of words and phrases, all work together to communicate the artist’s renewed confidence in the value of his work and in his ability as a performer to share something unique with the world.
~Paul Williams (BD Performing Artist, 1960-73)

Wikipedia:

Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits Vol. II (1971), also known as More Bob Dylan Greatest Hits, was the second compilation album released by Bob Dylan. With Dylan not expected to release any new material for an extended period of time, CBS Records president Clive Davis proposed issuing a double LP compilation of older material. Dylan agreed, compiling it himself and suggesting that the package include a full side of unreleased tracks from his archives. After submitting a set of excerpts from the The Basement Tapes that Davis found unsatisfactory, Dylan returned to the studio in September 1971 to recut several Basement songs, with Happy Traum providing backup.

The final package included one previously uncollected single, “Watching the River Flow”, an outtake from the same sessions, “When I Paint My Masterpiece”; one song from Dylan’s April 12, 1963 Town Hall concert, “Tomorrow Is a Long Time”, and three songs from the September sessions, “I Shall Be Released”, “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere”, and “Down in the Flood”. The remaining tracks were drawn from existing releases.

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