The musician who taught Bob Dylan how to improve all his songs: “Shown me the way”
Everyone’s talking about Bob Dylan. A hit movie will do that sort of thing, and as Timothée Chalamet looks set to be a mainstay at awards season for his portrayal of Dylan in A Complete Unknown, the presence of the freewheelin’ troubadour will be invigorated once again, and his shadow will once again thicken over the music-making world. In truth, for those who have loved and listened to the man for six decades, there has rarely been a moment when that shadow hasn’t provided some needed shade.
Dylan’s position as one of the greatest songwriters of all time has long been confirmed, and no Hollywood production was needed to rubber-stamp it. The only musician to be awarded the Nobel Prize for literature, a feat fellow wordsmith Leonard Cohen likened to awarding Mount Everest an award for being tall, Dylan’s plethora of incredible material has meant he has always been ripe for a cover or two.
Covering an artist’s song, as the old adage alludes to, could well be considered the sincerest form of flattery. In Dylan’s lifetime, he has lent his music to the very best and brightest. Nobody could forget the iconic reimaging of ‘All Along The Watchtower’ provided by Jimi Hendrix, about which Dylan himself noted: “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.”
Add to Hendrix’s version of that song the brilliance of The Byrds, Johnny Cash, Odetta, Jeff Buckley and Rage Against The Machine and you have a range of covers that would leave any artist supremely proud of how influential their work had been. However, for every glimmering side of a shiny new coin, there is the grotty underside that you’d rather lose down your nearest drain. And Dylan has suffered through a fair number of awful covers.
While many musicians have given Dylan food for thought in terms of how to evolve musically — he once notably shared how impactful The Beatles had been on his songwriting — there was one man who showed him how to play his won songs better and, even more impressively, how to evolve them. Jerry Garcia of Grateful Dead would prove to be a guiding light.
Dylan had joined The Dead for a tour during the 1980s when his star was beginning to wane, and his willingness to change form had not quite allowed him to merge into his now iconoclastic status. But it wasn’t just on stage where Garcia had helped Dylan, as the songwriter noted in a 1997 interview with Edna Gunderson: “I can’t say that I’ve made any great-sounding records. A lot of the older songs were just blueprints for what I’d play later on the stage. Jerry Garcia proved that to me.”
It would become a life-changing moment for Dylan: “He took a lot of the songs and actually recorded them and sang them a step further than they were on my records. He heard where they should go. I would hear his versions of songs of mine, and I’d say, ‘OK, I understand how it should go.’ Then I would play that and might even take it a step further. There have been other artists who have recorded my songs and shown me the way the song should go.”
While it might seem odd to imagine Dylan, one of the true greats not just of pop music but in the entirety of music’s history, to learn anything from a contemporary, his interaction with Garcia is proof of his devotion and a hint at the reasoning behind why he is so revered. Dylan never wanted to stand still. Whether it was in his bid to ‘go electric’ as the film focuses on, or change his recording and performance style when being the dangerous young songwriter no longer washed — Dylan is a true artist, and all true artists always look forward.
Never Miss A Tale
The Far Out Bob Dylan Newsletter
All the latest stories about Bob Dylan from the independent voice of culture.
Straight to your inbox.