Tag Archives: Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan, Cover versions, Jimi Hendrix

Jan 21: The Jimi Hendrix Experience recorded All Along The Watchtower in 1968


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Jan 21: The Jimi Hendrix Experience recorded All Along The Watchtower in 1968

“It overwhelmed me, really. He had such talent, he could find things inside a song and vigorously develop them. He found things that other people wouldn’t think of finding in there. He probably improved upon it by the spaces he was using. I took license with the song from his version, actually, and continue to do it to this day.”
– Bob Dylan (1995)

“I liked Jimi Hendrix’s record of this and ever since he died I’ve been doing it that way… Strange how when I sing it, I always feel it’s a tribute to him in some kind of way.”
– Bob Dylan (booklet Biograph)

The Jimi Hendrix Experience began to record their cover version of Dylan’s “All Along the Watchtower” on January 21, 1968, at Olympic Studios in London. According to engineer Andy Johns, Jimi Hendrix had been given a tape of Dylan’s recording by publicist Michael Goldstein, who worked for Dylan’s manager Albert Grossman.

“(Hendrix) came in with these Dylan tapes and we all heard them for the first time in the studio”
– Andy Johns

For me it is the only cover version of a Bob Dylan song that is arguably as good or better than Dylan’s own version.

The Jimi Hendrix Experience – All Along The Watchtower (audio):

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Music Calendar, Steve Earle

Happy 60th Birthday Steve Earle

SteveEarle

“If I can get me out of the way, I can do anything”
– Steve Earle

“I don’t really think in terms of obstacles. My biggest obstacle is always myself.”
~Steve Earle

All we do as songwriters is rewrite the songs that have impressed us till we find our own voice. It’s part of learning the craft.
~Steve Earle

One of Alldylan’s Greatest heroes

Fort Worth Blues:

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Bob Dylan, Bob Dylans's best songs

Bob Dylan’s best songs: It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue

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You must leave now, take what you need, you think will last
But whatever you wish to keep, you better grab it fast
Yonder stands your orphan with his gun
Crying like a fire in the sun
Look out the saints are comin’ through
And it’s all over now, Baby Blue

—

CM: It’s not the same Blue as in It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue?
BD: No, no. That’s a different Blue. That’s a character right off the haywagon. That Baby
Blue is from right upstairs at the barbers shop, y’know, off the street… a different Baby
Blue, I haven’t run into her in a long time, long time.
CM: You’re being serious?
BD: Yeah, I’ve never looked at Joan Baez as being Baby Blue.
~Craig McGregor Interview (March 1978)

I had carried that song around in my head for a long time and I remember that when I was writing it, I’d remembered a Gene Vincent song. It had always been one of my favorites, Baby Blue… ‘ It was one of the songs I used to sing back in high school. Of course, I was singing about a different Baby Blue.”
~Bob Dylan (Biograph)

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Bob Dylan, Bob Dylan other, Cover versions, My Morning Jacket, Sound

Calexico and Jim James Going to Acapulco


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Calexico and Jim James – Going To Acapulco

Calexico have some very fine Dylan covers. Sometimes alone and sometimes as a terrific backing band for other great artists. Today we present the collaboration, Going To Acapulco, with Jim James (My Morning jacket) and Calexico from the film, I’m Not There.

I’m Not There is a 2007 biographical musical film directed by Todd Haynes, inspired by the life and music of American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan. Six actors depict different facets of Dylan’s public personas: Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett, Marcus Carl Franklin, Richard Gere, Heath Ledger, and Ben Whishaw. At the start of the film, a caption reads: “Inspired by the music and the many lives of Bob Dylan”. Apart from the song credits, this is the only mention of Bob Dylan in the film.

The film tells its story using non-traditional narrative techniques, intercutting the storylines of seven different Dylan-inspired characters. The title of the film is taken from the 1967 Dylan Basement Tape recording of “I’m Not There”, a song that had not been officially released until it appeared on the film’s soundtrack album. The film received a generally favorable response, and appeared on several top ten film lists for 2007, topping the lists for The Village Voice, Entertainment Weekly, Salon andThe Boston Globe. Particular praise went to Cate Blanchett for her performance, culminating in a Volpi Cup from the Venice Film Festival, the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress, along with an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress nomination.

Calexico has several fine collaborations on the soundtrack.

We will start with a wonderful live version from The Newport Folk Festival in 2008.

Going To Acapulco – Calexico and Jim James (Live, August 3, 2008, Newport Folk Festival):

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Bob Dylan, Bob Dylan recording sessions

50 years ago: Bob Dylan – The first recording session for “Bringing It All Back Home”

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Bob Dylan - bringing it all back home

I never wanted to write topical songs,…. Have you heard my last two records, Bringing It All Back Home and Highway 61? It’s all there. That’s the real Dylan.
~Bob Dylan (Frances Taylor Interview, Aug. 1965)

50 years ago – 13 January 1965 – Bob Dylan entered Studio A, Columbia Recording Studios, NYC for the first of three seminal days in the studio… It was time to show the “real” Dylan on record.

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.

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Photo by Columbia Records photgrapher Don Hunstein

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