For week five in our Bob Dylan appreciation (read previous articles here), we take a step away from Bob’s own recordings and enjoy a wide range of other musical artists covering his material. And it really is an incredible collection of ages and genres who have turned to the Dylan canon over the years, whether the motivation is to find quality material or to simply tip their hat to one of our greatest writers. You would maybe expect folk-rockers like The Waterboys and Fairport Convention to have put their spin on this music but how about Soul and R&B legends like Pops Staples and Bettye Lavette? Or acts that came out of the Jazz scene like Madeleine Peyroux and Norah Jones, not so predictable surely? Icons like Nina Simone were huge admirers of Bob’s writing as was the psychedelic rocker Jimi Hendrix, who in covering ‘All Along The Watchtower’ actually made a version of a Dylan classic that is widely recognised to be the definitive recording of that particular number.
You see the thing that every aspiring songwriter aims for is to be interpreted by other artists, especially the popular acts of the day who will take those songs into the charts, onto the radio and into homes. There have been many legendary writers over the years (Lennon & McCartney, Elton John, David Bowie, Lou Reed to name just a few) who at the early stages of their compositional careers seriously considered positioning themselves as behind-the-scenes composers feeding into the mainstream from the fringes. The fate that eclipsed those ambitions was merely the ascension of their own performing successes, which ensured the original versions of their songs became the definitive ones. With Bob Dylan, this has not quite been the same, because, for all the lovers of that wild mercury Bob sound, the ragged harmonica solos, the first take imperfections and the sandpaper voice, there are arguably just as many people who quite like some Dylan songs but preferably sung by somebody else.
That voice, the voice that Bowie sung was “like sand and glue”*, has been a hot potato among music lovers throughout Bob’s career. There are people who simply cannot stand his sound, they argue that he sings like a hoover or stand firm behind the opinion that he cannot sing at all. And let us face facts, when you feel that strongly about anyone you are not going to waste any time listening to them are you? And so it is that Bob does have, unlike many of the other celebrated songwriters of his era, many well-known songs that people love but have no idea he is the composer. Only last month I was taking part in a zoom quiz where a mini argument broke out because the quizmaster believed that ‘All Along The Watchtower’ was written by Hendrix. There are many others like this; The Byrds reading of ‘Mr Tambourine Man’ is a solid jingle-jangle classic; ‘This Wheel’s On Fire’ is instantly recognisable too thanks to the psychedelic finery of Brian Auger and Julie Driscoll’s hit; few were aware that Manfred Mann’s ‘The Mighty Quinn (Quinn The Eskimo)’ was a Dylan original; ditto Robert Palmer & UB40’s chart-climbing action with ‘I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight’ and jumping forward to the 21st Century, I doubt many Adele fans were too worried about the identity of the composer on ‘To Make You Feel My Love’.
As a side note, I should add that not all those hits mentioned above are featured on the ‘Volume 5’ Spotify playlist below. Where the Byrds are concerned I just wanted to feature another of their many Dylan covers and as far as the Adele track goes, I have nothing against Adele at all, but I prefer Billy Joel and he did get to the song first. Nevertheless, my main aim was to present the immense range of acts that have worked with this catalogue. I have only really scratched the surface too; it is no small thing that you can put 75 recordings together like this without having to double up on a single song title or feature the same artist twice. Looked at from this viewpoint as an overview, it is clear that Dylan has and continues to be hugely successful as a popular writer. So many artists have returned to the catalogue repeatedly and a fair amount of tribute albums have been compiled over the years. Add to that the quirkier fare like gospel choir albums doing Dylan or an artist making a whole ‘Sings Dylan’ themed collection and you understand there is a truly mouth-watering selection available for those who want to hear Dylan songs without listening to their rough-edged writer.
What Bob makes of versions of his own songs by others remains typically clouded, although it does seem that he has always welcomed interpretation. Richard Thompson has mentioned how Bob once told him that he thought Fairport Convention did the best versions of his songs. And given the high esteem that Bob held for Johnny Cash, you can assume that he got a thrill when the man in black started including his songs in his sets and on albums. Also though, it is known in Bob discussion groups that he did have a desire for more of his songs to be sung by Elvis Presley and he could not understand why Elvis would apparently turn down his songs in favour of inferior material. It has been said that Bob envisioned ‘Forever Young’ as an Elvis number, not a bad call in my opinion, but in the end, the only Dylan tune he properly cut was ‘Tomorrow Is A Long Time’. Again, I have not included that on this playlist because I prefer the Sandy Denny recording, one of her loveliest tracks I believe.
So finally, as you dig into this melting pot of modern music titans and cult figures united over the years in Dylan appreciation, perhaps you will feel at times you prefer these tunes without the trademark Dylan “sand and glue” voice at the helm? If that is the case, shall I let the man himself have the final word? Hilariously, with tongue in cheek, during the film ‘Don’t Look Back’ he felt the urge to defend his singing ability to a rather battered and dubious-looking Time Magazine journalist. “I’m as good a singer as Caruso” he announced. “I hit all those notes and I can hold my breath three times as long!”
See also: Folk Do Dylan, a Folk Radio UK mix from 2019
- Lyric from David Bowie’s Song for Bob Dylan