Tag Archives: The Best Dylan Covers

Ian Hunter Is Your Love In Vain (Dylan) – Happy Birthday Mr. Hunter!

ian hunter

Do you love me, or are you just extending goodwill?
Do you need me half as bad as you say, or are you just feeling guilt?
I’ve been burned before and I know the score
So you won’t hear me complain
Will I be able to count on you
Or is your love in vain?

Is your love in vain? is a song from Dylan’s Street Legal album, but my favourite version (official, that is…) is from Live at Budokan. It’s a heart achingly honest love song, he really bares his heart, and I feel for the man. The song is profoundly touching, and in my book, one of Bob Dylan’s best love songs. It received a fair amount of negative response when it was released, some critics meant it was degrading women. I think that is harsh, I simply cannot see it.

Ian Hunter performed the song for a TV-show in 1981 (aired 1982?) and has been released on a bootleg/semi-official compilation album, Bald At The Station (2012).

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“The CD ends with one song from a 1982 Don Kirshner performance and finds Hunter diving back to his roots, dirging up Dylan’s “Love in Vain” and making it his own. If a better-quality recording exists, let’s hope it turns up somewhere soon. In the meantime, it’s a marvelous end to a surprisingly useful odds ‘n’ oddities collection, and proof that we were all severely shortchanged when the Ian Hunter anthology turned out to be a mere two discs. He deserved at least four.”
– Dave Thompson (allmusic.com)

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The Best Dylan Covers: The White Stripes – One more cup of coffee

the-white-stripes-music-hd-wallpaper

Desire is the seventeenth studio album by Bob Dylan, released on January 5, 1976 by Columbia Records.

It is one of Dylan’s most collaborative efforts, featuring the same caravan of musicians as the acclaimed Rolling Thunder Revue tours the previous year (later documented on The Bootleg Series Vol. 5); many of the songs also featured backing vocals by Emmylou Harris and Ronee Blakley.

Bob_Dylan-Desire-Frontal

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The Best Dylan Covers: John Lynch – One More Cup Of Coffee

John Lynch

Desire is the seventeenth studio album by Bob Dylan, released on January 5, 1976 by Columbia Records.

It is one of Dylan’s most collaborative efforts, featuring the same caravan of musicians as the acclaimed Rolling Thunder Revue tours the previous year (later documented on The Bootleg Series Vol. 5); many of the songs also featured backing vocals by Emmylou Harris and Ronee Blakley.

Bob_Dylan-Desire-Frontal

John Lynch is a blues singer/shouter from Cork City. John makes impromptu guest appearances on any given Monday at Charlies Bar, Union Quay, Cork. He also performs as lead vocalist of The Medication Blues Band. John hasn’t made any formal recordings (as yet), but some videos of his live performances exist on Youtube. Check out his rendition of “Hoochie Coochie Man”, also from this show. Cork band Princes Street named one of their albums in his honour “The Night John Lynch Lost His Glasses”.

On 24th May, 2012, Cork city musicians celebrated Bob Dylan’s 71st birthday at the Pavilion. John Lynch sang up a storm with his rendition of ‘One More Cup of Coffee’ from Dylan’s 1976 ‘Desire’ album.

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The Best Dylan Covers: Steve Earle – It takes a lot to laugh, it takes a train to cry

Steve Earle bergenfest photo-1

Well, I ride on a mailtrain, baby
Can’t buy a thrill
Well, I’ve been up all night, baby
Leanin’ on the windowsill
Well, if I die
On top of the hill
And if I don’t make it
You know my baby will

It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry” is a song written by Bob Dylan that was originally released on his seminal album Highway 61 Revisited, and also included on the compilation album Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits 2 that was released in Europe. An earlier, alternate version of the song appears, in different takes, on The Bootleg Series Volumes 1–3 (Rare & Unreleased) 1961–1991 and The Bootleg Series Vol. 7: No Direction Home.

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The Best Dylan Covers: Mick Ronson with David Bowie – Like a Rolling Stone

mick ronson

Like A Rolling Stone  is a 1965 song by  Bob Dylan. Its confrontational lyrics originated in an extended piece of verse Dylan wrote in June 1965, when he returned exhausted from a grueling tour of England. Dylan distilled this draft into four verses and a chorus. Like a Rolling Stone was recorded a few weeks later as part of the sessions for the forthcoming album Highway 61 Revisited.

Bob-Dylan-Highway-61-Revisi

Michael “Mick” Ronson (26 May 1946 – 29 April 1993) was an English guitarist, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, arranger and producer. He is best known for his work with David Bowie, as one of the Spiders from Mars. Ronson was a busy session musician who recorded with artists as diverse as Bowie and Morrissey, as well as appearing as a sideman in touring bands with performers such as Van Morrison and Bob Dylan.

Mick Ronson covered the song, Like A Rolling Stone, on Heaven and Hull his final solo album, released in 1994, following Ronson’s death the previous year. With collaborations by longtime friends of Ronson including: David Bowie, Joe Elliott, and Ian Hunter. Other artists include: Peter Noone,Martin Chambers and Chrissie Hynde, Phil Collen and John Mellencamp.

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