Nod to Bob, and Carrie, Mary, Rose, Sarah, and Joanie, too

Opening doors, changing the way listeners and fellow creators of song think about music, writing songs that are literal, mystical, poetic, political, and funny, and always leaving room for more than one way to take the words: those are several things Bob Dylan has done in five decades of his work as a musician. He’s marking a birthday this last week in May. All over the word and all through this year there have been and will be tributes to this unlikely musical hero who grew up in the Minnesota Iron Range town of Hibbing, and first built his national fame in the clubs of New York’s Greenwich Village. .

A good song always leaves room for those who listen to take it in, to make it their own, and to carry it on in their own lives. With lyrics both enigmatic and direct, Dylan has been good at that. To celebrate his birthday, Red House Records, which is based in his native Minnesota, invited musicians who work with the label to choose favorite Dylan songs to record. The result is A Nod to Bob 2, a sixteen track collection that could be a study in songwriting, in singing, in song interpretation -- a study that’s best carried out by playing the disc many times and letting the songs unfold.

There are well known songs , ones that might start to jog your memory with their first notes, and ones that perhaps you’ll be hearing for the first time. Interestingly chosen and thoughtfully sequenced, this album works as few collections do, as a thoughtful narrative of the songwriter’s ideas as well as a group of songs and interpretations that play into and bounce off of each other in ways both familiar and surprising.

Each listener will come by his or her own favourite cuts, of course. Eliza Gilkyson, a master herself of the indirect lyric, offers Jokerman, in a track which was recorded live. Peter Ostroushko takes on Dylan's sense of humour with Mozambique. Pieta Brown goes to the blues side of things with Dirt Road Blues, while Texas troubadour Jimmy LaFave gives Not Dark Yet plenty of space and plenty of room for thought. So do Robin and Linda Williams, whose high spirited take on Walkin’ Down the Line is the closer to the disc. Meg Hutchinson, John Gorka, and Lucy Kaplansky are among others who contribute songs

You might also care to see the first Red House Collection honoring Bob Dylan, A Nod to Bob

This time in late May seems to be a place in the calendar when musicians celebrate birthdays. Several you’ve met along the music road are celebrating around this time of year: Irish singer Mary Black, rising bluegrass star Sarah Jarosz, songwriter Rosanne Cash, Cherish the Ladies founder Joanie Madden, songwriter Carrie Newcomer -- and me. Sign of Gemini in the zodiac, sign of hawthorn in Irish mythology, both said to hold gifts in the arts of communication.

So, good wishes to all who celebrate. Do you have a favourite song by Bob Dylan, or by one of the other artists mentioned here? Let us know in the comments.

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Road Trip Music: Minnnesota

Lakes and big sky, prairie and open hearted cities, family ties from Norway to Germany to the Deep South to Asia to Ireland: those are just parts of the landscape in Minnesota. As the Great American Road Trip traverses Minnesota, the soundtrack includes the work of three very fine and very different songwriters.

Bob Dylan grew up in Minnesota, in Hibbing, and went on to change the face of contemporary songwriting, more than once. One of the ways he did that was to write songs including personal issues and ideas and experiences that resonated both with folk tradition and current times. A song of that of that sort which draws immediately from Minnesota is Girl from the North Country, which Dylan first recorded on his album Freewheelin' Bob Dylan in the 1960s. It has been covered many times. My favourite version is by Altan, which they’ve recorded on Another Sky.

Jon Vezner’s songs have been recorded by just about every top country artist there is. Sometimes his work is funny such as with the Lorrie Morgan hit Five Minutes, sometimes reflective, as in Where’ve You Been, recorded by Kathy Mattea, It is always insightful, whatever lyrical path he’s following. He has a relaxed and engaging delivery as a singer, too. A good place to explore the work of this Minnesota native is on his album Vezner & Songs.

Like Vezner, Sally Barris made her way from the north country to Nashville, where she’s written for and with top artists including Kathy Mattea, Irene Kelley, and Martina McBride. On her recent album Restless Soul she melds clear eyed Minnesota vision with her experiences traveling in Ireland. It’s a good place to meet her music, or to learn more about it.

you may also wish to see
Music Road: Music Road trip in West Virginia
Music Road: celebrating the USA: born on the fourth of July
Gather: Voices:Jon Vezner

This is part of The Great American Road Trip, in which I originally partnered up with A Traveler’s Library to add musical ideas to the book and film suggestions for journeys through the regions of the United States which you’d find there. The Library is closed now, but I think you will still find the journeys through music interesting
For more about the road trip (and a look at some great road songs) see Great American Road Trip: Music begins

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here is a way to do that, through PayPal. Note that you do not have to have a PayPal account to do this.Thank you.

covering dylan: Ian & Sylvia

The haunted isolation often found in the landscapes of western Canada forms the hallmark of Ian Tyson’s folk classic song Four Strong Winds. There’s another haunting song of loneliness and love found on that Four String Winds album, which was first released in 1962. It’s Tomorrow is a Long Time, by Bob Dylan. This is a song made even stronger by being sung with both a man’s and woman’s voice, the shared and diverging and converging feelings presented with both passion and care.

The duo, who were managed by Dylan’s manager Albert Grossman for a time, were the first to record the song. They’d revisit the Dylan connection several years later. In the meantime, together and separately they would write and record several of the most enduring songs to come out of the 1960s, including Some Day Soon and You Were On My Mind, and shine light on the work of fellow Canadian writers such as Joni Mitchell and Gordon Lightfoot.


part of an occasional series on perhaps less than expected covers of the music of Bob Dylan

you may also want to see

Music Road: now playing:Matt & Shannon & Ian & Sylvia

Music Road: now playing: The McDades: Bloom

covering Dylan: Richard Shindell

A tale of religious conversion, or one of political intrigue? A comment on policy decisions or a shifting stream of images connected only in the writer’s mind? Like many of Bob Dylan’s songs, Senor (Tales of Yankee Power) has enough room in it for any dozen ideas you want to bring to it. Though he leans a bit to the political side, it might seem, Richard Shindell also leaves that door of interpretation wide open open in his recording of the song on his latest release, South of Delia.

Shindell is a writer’s writer, a man of well thought out words. Reunion Hill is one of his better known songs. He’s opened for Joan Baez and toured and recorded with Dar Williams and Lucy Kaplansky as the trio
Cry Cry Cry.

Shindell counts time in a Buddhist monastery and at Union Theological Seminary in his background, and for several years he’s been looking at American life from the perspective of living in Argentina. For South of Delia he chose to cover, and reinvent, some of his favorite songs from traditional music and by other writers. In addition to Senor, the songs include Born in the USA, Texas Rangers, and Acadian Driftwood.

The project was produced by respected acoustic guitarist Greg Anderson, who leaves plenty of space for Shindell’s visions. “These are twelve narrators,” Shindell says. “I imagine meeting them along the road now that whatever happened has happened. We stop to exchange news, to share their disbelief that the world could ever have come to this, to warn, to point the way, to provide a light, and then be off again.”

Richard Thompson, Sara Milonovich, Ben Wittman, and Eliza Gilkyson are among those who sit in.

apologies for the lack of the tilde~ it's just not, ah, translating.

Now playing: Tm O'Brien takes on Dylan

Red on Blonde

Tim O’Brien takes Dylan to bluegrass and bluegrass to Dylan, all the while bringing new light to the music. Some often covered and widely known songs including Farewell Angelina, Forever Young, and Masters of War, quite a bit of lesser known material too. O’Brien opens with Senor, a Tex bluegrass searcher on the road rendition that fits nicely with his yet to come (at the time he recorded this) projects such as Traveler and The Crossing. And imagine Subterranean Homesick Blues with a bluegrass band vibe if you will...This is one of those albums which works powerfully as trip from one track to another, and yet allows each cut to stand strongly on its own as well.This is also a man who makes sense of poetry -- someone else’s poetry -- and knows whereof he sings.

O’Brien considers his Irish ancestry onThe Crossing

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