Tag Archives: Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan, Cover versions

Bob Dylan’s Planet Waves covered

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Planet Waves covered

Bob Dylan’s Planet Waves covered

I love this album, and I think there are many wonderful songs on it. Every time I play it the lesser known songs (if that can be said about a Bob Dylan album) really amazes me.

The originals are better, I agree, but I love to hear what other artists can do with such great material.

It is hard to find good cover versions of songs that are so dear to you, and sometimes you just can not find a decent one. This time I couldn’t find a good cover of Never Say Goodbye so please help me if you know of one.

My favorites here are Merl Saunders and Jerry Garcia Band, Norah Jones and John Doe with Lucy Schwartz

Other entries in the series:

Highway 61 Revisited covered
Blood on the Tracks covered
Oh Mercy covered
Street Legal covered

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Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen concert

Jan 15: Bob Dylan & The Band at Maryland in 1974

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bob dylan and the band 1974

Capital Centre
Largo, Maryland
15 January 1974

  • Bob Dylan (vocal, guitar, harmonica)
  • Robbie Robertson (guitar)
  • Garth Hudson (organ & piano)
  • Richard Manual (keyboards)
  • Rick Danko (bass)
  • Levon Helm (drums)

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Bob Dylan, Bob Dylan recording sessions

Jan 15: Bob Dylan – The third & final recording session for “Bringing It All Back Home”

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bob dylan bringing it all back home

I’ve written some songs that I look at, and they just give me a sense of awe….stuff like, It’s Alright, Ma, just the alliteration in that blows me away. And I can also look back and know where I was tricky and where I was really saying something that just
happened to have a spark of poetry to it.
~Bob Dylan (to John Pareles, Sept. 1997)

This session contains some of Dylan’s strongest performances ever!
Master versions: “Maggie’s Farm”, “On The Road Again,” “It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding),” “Gates of Eden,” “Mr. Tambourine Man,” and “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue.”

Some background from wikipedia:

Bringing It All Back Home is the fifth studio album by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, released in March 1965 by Columbia Records. The album is divided into an electric and an acoustic side. On side one of the original LP, Dylan is backed by an electric rock and roll band—a move that further alienated him from some of his former peers in the folk song community. Likewise, on the acoustic second side of the album, he distanced himself from the protest songs with which he had become closely identified (such as “Blowin’ in the Wind” and “A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall”), as his lyrics continued their trend towards the abstract and personal.

The album reached No. 6 on Billboard’s Pop Albums chart, the first of Dylan’s LPs to break into the US top 10. It also topped the UK charts later that Spring. The lead-off track, “Subterranean Homesick Blues”, became Dylan’s first single to chart in the US, peaking at #39.

Bob Dylan - Bringing It All Back Home sessions

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Bob Dylan, Bob Dylan recording sessions

Jan 14: Bob Dylan – The Second Recording Session for “Bringing It All Back Home” in 1965

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bob dylan bringing it all back home

….Bringing It All Back Home, that was like a break through point, it’s the kind of music I’ve been striving to make and I believe that in time people will see that. It’s hard to explain it, it’s that indefinable thing..
~Bob Dylan (Paul Gambaccini Interview, Jun. 1981)

The first session didn’t result in any master versions… but on the second session Dylan nailed 5 masters: Love Minus Zero/No Limit, Subterranean Homesick Blues, Outlaw Blues, She Belongs To Me & Bob Dylan’s 115th Dream

Some background from wikipedia:

Bringing It All Back Home is the fifth studio album by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, released in March 1965 by Columbia Records. The album is divided into an electric and an acoustic side. On side one of the original LP, Dylan is backed by an electric rock and roll band—a move that further alienated him from some of his former peers in the folk song community. Likewise, on the acoustic second side of the album, he distanced himself from the protest songs with which he had become closely identified (such as “Blowin’ in the Wind” and “A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall”), as his lyrics continued their trend towards the abstract and personal.

The album reached No. 6 on Billboard’s Pop Albums chart, the first of Dylan’s LPs to break into the US top 10. It also topped the UK charts later that Spring. The lead-off track, “Subterranean Homesick Blues”, became Dylan’s first single to chart in the US, peaking at #39.

bd 1965_11

 

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Bob Dylan, Cover versions, David Bowie

David Bowie sings Bob Dylan – Rest in Peace David Bowie

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dylanbowie

David Bowie sings Bob Dylan

“His albums have a great class to them, even those albums where he is actually playing songs of long-dead blues singers. His writing, his song texts, leave me speechless. “
– David Bowie (about Bob Dylan, 1997)

David Bowie have always talked about Dylan with great respect. Bob Dylan has maybe not been the biggest influence on his music, but he has sung some of his songs both live and in studio. I found some fine versions of, Like a Rolling Stone, Maggie’s Farm and Trying to get to heaven. Mick Ronson a long-time Bowie friend and collaborator was also a part of Dylan’s Rolling Thunder tour.

He has also played Don’t think twice it’s all right and She belongs to me (I’ve read somewhere) but I could not find an upload of them anywhere.

Trying to get to heaven
Recorded during the mixing sessions for Earthling in 1998.

Bowie’s version of “Tryin’ to Get to Heaven” (which, at least in its circulating edit, cuts Dylan’s second verse and squeezes the fourth and fifth into one incoherent lump) is, essentially, a first draft of what would become Hours. The take begins somber and ashen enough. Yet the circularity of Dylan’s singing on “Tryin’”, conveying a journey undertaken but never in danger of ending, seemed to frustrate Bowie: he needed a narrative.

So in the “people on platforms” verse, Bowie builds to a manic desperation, as if he has to make an eleventh-hour sale or he’ll be sacked by his proprietor. We get a rattled “cha-hay-hay-hain,” a squeaked-out “looose,” the creaking onomatopoeia of “cloowwoose the door,” and a gargle. Having made a hash of Dylan’s last verses, Bowie latches onto a line as if he’d drawn it by lot to torture: “I’ve beeen! to Sugar Town-I shook! the su!gar down!” Dylan sang those words with an earned swagger, like a spendthrift man recalling a spent-out life. Bowie sang them as if he was just passingly familiar with the English language.
– Pushing ahead of the Dame

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