As we saw in a previous article, tribute albums to Bob Dylan were already plentiful before 2000. But as the millennium turned the page, artists seemed to be falling all over themselves to pay homage to the great man. In 2000, when Dylan was staring 60 right in the eyes, his hometown even got in on the act.
Duluth Does Dylan featured 15 covers of Dylan tunes by local Minnesota bands. Albums and events in Duluth continue to honor their famous native son. And Duluth was by no means alone.
There have been recreations of Dylan's entire albums and of Dylan's concerts. Well-known artists have devoted sets to simply playing their favorite Dylan songs. The Grateful Dead, with whom Dylan famously toured in the 1980s (I saw them play together in Washington, DC in 1986 – it was very hot and Bob wore all black leather), played so many Dylan covers that they were able to release multiple collections of those performances like Postcards of the Hanging (2002) and Gracia Plays Dylan (2005).
Bob Dylan covers from the 21st century are some of the best
There have been gospel covers, punk covers, jazz covers, blues covers, covers for every taste under the sun, moon, and drone. The latest count I’ve seen puts Bob Dylan's total number of songs written at over 600. An awful lot of them have been recorded by others, some dozens of times.
As I said in the first installment of this two-part series, I do not claim the following eight songs are some kind of “best” list. There are too many contestants for that honor, and though I love Dylan and often seek out new recordings, I am sure I have only heard a small sampling.
These are just eight very good – and very different – takes on Bob Dylan, all of which were recorded in the new millennium. After all, Bob has barely slowed down since 2000. Why should the tributes and covers stop pouring in?
In chronological order…
“Gotta Serve Somebody” by Etta James (2000)
First off, I realize that all the smart people out there classify 2000 as the last year of the 20th century. Screw that. It starts with a “2.” I’m putting it in the current century.
I only half-jokingly said in part one of this series that you could easily make an exquisite top ten list just including covers of this particular song from Dylan’s 1979 album, Slow Train Coming. That was the first album after the singer’s well-publicized conversion to Christianity.
Etta James began her recording career in the 1950s when she was a teenager. Johnny Otis, the famed R&B talent scout/producer, helped her achieve great success before the age of 20. In this song, Dylan describes how acceptance of things greater than yourself confronts everyone, regardless of how high or low you may be. James experienced many highs and lows throughout her turbulent life and career, which may have made this an ideal marriage of singer and song.
This song was part of her Matriarch of the Blues album, which also featured rockers from John Fogerty, Otis Redding, and the Stones. With first-rate session musicians like Mike Finnigan (Hammond Organ) and Jimmy Zavala (sax), this is a big, bold and brassy take that fits James’ voice perfectly.
“Pressing On” by the Chicago Mass Choir (2003)
There is a very good version of “Gotta Serve Somebody” by gospel singer Shirley Caesar that begins Gotta Serve Somebody – The Gospel Songs of Bob Dylan, a 2003 compilation album that collects eleven tracks from Slow Train Coming and its 1980 follow-up Saved. They are performed by a series of outstanding singers and choirs, including Aaron Neville, Mavis Staples, and Dylan himself.
One of the highlights of the album is the Chicago Mass Choir’s glorious version of “Pressing On” from Saved. It begins quietly with a simple piano and vocal. Soon, the choir begins echoing the lead, and it sounds as if the voices of thousands are singing their redemption. The song continues building, with organ and more and more elaborate backing vocals.
No matter what joins the mix, singer Regina McCrary soars above it all. McCrary, from the well-known gospel group the McCrary Sisters, was a background singer for Dylan in the early ‘80s and clearly knows her way around this song. The results are glorious.
“Sweetheart Like You” by Guy Davis (2007)
Dylan recorded the achingly beautiful, broken-down love song “Sweetheart Like You” for his 1983 album Infidels. Chrissie Hynde included a fine cover of her own Dylan tribute album, Standing in the Doorway. But it’s hard to beat Davis’ version. With a chorus pinned on the line “What’s a sweetheart like you doing in a dump like this,” this screams out for some soulful blues.
That’s exactly what Davis, a first-rate blues guitarist, gives it. He even opens with a nod to Dylan’s signature instrument, the harmonica, before his gruff, time-worn baritone begins its inspired delivery. Davis, the son of actors Ruby Dee and Ossie Davis, included this on his 2007 Guy Davis On Air album, and it proved so successful that he named his subsequent album in 2009 after the song.
“If Not For You” by Ze Ramahlo (2008)
Dylan wrote the buoyant love song “If Not For You” for his wife Sara Lownds and released it on his 1970 album New Morning. It was one of many songs inspired by Sara, from “Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands” when their love was young, to “Sara,” recorded for the devastating breakup album Blood on the Tracks a decade later, when that love was on life support. This song comes in the middle and is nothing but sweetness and hope.
Ramahlo was a giant of Brazilian music from the mid-‘70s on. In 2001, he recorded Ze Ramahlo Canta Raul Seixas, covering songs of Brazilian rock guitarist Seixas. Seven years later, he reached for more international appeal with an entire album of Dylan covers. All of the songs are sung in Portuguese with the exception of “If Not For You,” which gets an upbeat reading with a samba rhythm, slinking slide guitar, and infectious accordion accompanying the vocals. It is one of the happiest of all Dylan covers.
“Maggie’s Farm” by Ben Sidran (2009)
Early on, Ben Sidran played piano and keyboards for the likes of Steve Miller, Eric Clapton, and the Rolling Stones. He would drift away from rock & roll toward jazz over the course of his career and release dozens of acclaimed jazz albums – his latest coming just last year. In 2009, for his 36th solo album, he decided to honor Dylan.
Dylan Different is just that. A dozen covers of Dylan songs from the mid-‘60s through the late ‘80s. Two of the songs already mentioned in this series (“Highway 61 Revisited” and “Gotta Serve Somebody”) got the smooth jazz treatment (along with another song still to come).
The highlight for me is a spacy, hypnotic version of “Maggie’s Farm” from Bringing It All Back Home, the groundbreaking 1965 album. With its jazzy brushed drums, constantly tinkling piano, and assorted horns languidly swirling around the arrangement, Sidran's own spoken vocals turn a rocker into a perfect slow jazz vehicle.
“The Times They Are a’Changin’” by Flogging Molly (2012)
As previously stated, there have been too many Dylan tribute albums to count. The grandaddy of them all came in 2012. Chimes of Freedom: The Songs of Bob Dylan Honoring 50 Years of Amnesty International brought together artists from all over the musical landscape to record 73 new versions of old classics. With so much material, there is bound to be high and low points.
There are enough of those high points for me to have created this entire list of songs drawn from this one source, but I am limiting myself to just two representatives. On an album that includes Johnny Cash. Patti Smith, Pete Townsend, Sting, Elvis Costello …. Well, you get the point … the first of those two representatives are Irish-American punk rockers Flogging Molly.
Their version of Dylan’s early folk protest masterpiece begins with a simple acoustic guitar and tin whistle accompanying Dave King’s gruff vocal. But it doesn’t stay simple for long. At the end of the first verse, the full band launches an assault on the rest of the song, instilling it with an energy that matches the prophecy of the famous lyrics.
“Ballad of Hollis Brown” by Rise Against (2012)
Another punk band, Rise Against, gets the second entry from Chimes of Freedom. Like the Flogging Molly song, “Ballad of Hollis Brown” comes from Dylan’s third album, The Times They Are a-Changin', in 1964. But whereas the title track looked forward with defiant optimism, “Hollis Brown” is nothing short of apocalyptic.
Rise Against gives it the unrelenting power it deserves. Tim McIlath screams out all the pain and injustice in the tragic story while the rest of band pounds through verse after thunderous verse. They vary the tempo and volume throughout so the song becomes a roller coaster ride hitting “Seven shots ring out like the ocean’s pounding roar” for all it is worth.
“Ballad of a Thin Man” by Cat Power (2023)
In 1966, Dylan played a concert at the Free Trade Hall in Manchester, which went down in legend. Part of that legend was that the concert was actually performed in the Royal Albert Hall. Dylan released bootleg copies of the performance in 1998. Twenty-five years after that release, and 47 years after the concert itself, Atlanta’s Cat Power decided to recreate the concert.
She titled the live concert release Cat Power Sings Dylan: The 1966 Royal Albert Hall Concert. The only difference was that Power performed at the actual Royal Albert Hall.
The penultimate number Dylan sang in Manchester was among the most mysterious and haunting songs he ever wrote. “Ballad of a Thin Man,” from the monumental Highway 61 Revisited, details the bizarre experiences of the fictitious (or real – Dylan has remained cryptic) Mr. Jones, some sort of petty functionary who is bewildered by the pace of change around him.
Thematically, this is “The Times They Are a’Changin’,” but with much darker undertones. After the ominous piano intro, Power delivers a jazzy, mysterious vocal that makes the song just as vital in 2023 as it was back in the middle of the 1960s.
That’s because Bob Dylan songs are rarely confined to one time and one place. The best of them are timeless, elastic, and layered. It’s likely that they will continue inspiring new and exciting covers long after the people who first played and listened to them are a thing of memory.