Who sings the female backing vocals on Bob Dylan’s ‘Hurricane’?
Of all the many artists out there in the world who are more than willing to dine out on the cash grab of a collaboration or two, Bob Dylan certainly isn’t one of them.
To be clear, this is not to make out that he is some kind of lone wolf on the scene – his power of influence, both in terms of giving and receiving, is almost unmatched within the sonic landscape. You can bet your bottom dollar that there are scores of musicians who would practically trip over themselves to work on a track with the folk rock god. But ultimately, the final decision is always his, and if he says no, then that is the absolute definitive answer.
Having said that, there are a smattering of occasions in which Dylan’s usually brutal decision-making skills have been swayed and altered by some unexpected people strolling along, not least in his most recent bizarre turn of events in which he collaborated on the track ‘Lost Americana’ with Machine Gun Kelly earlier this year. Yet it also points to something far less frivolous: the fact that Dylan knows certain causes are greater than the sum of his own parts, and the moments where he needs to bring in more voices to amplify them.
This is where the example of his prolific track ‘Hurricane’ comes most pertinently into the fray. As a relic of the mid-1970s and the opening track to his album Desire, it’s easy to see the song as Dylan’s sole reckoning with racism in honour of Rubin ‘Hurricane’ Carter. But the reality was a far greater team effort to highlight this plight of social injustice. The dulcet tones of his female backing vocalist might seem like a small cog in the machine, but they were made all the mightier by the strength of the woman who provided them: Ronee Blakley.
How did Bob Dylan get Ronee Blakley to sing on ‘Hurricane’?
It bears stating that Blakley’s inclusion on ‘Hurricane’ was not some sheer happy accident, because it coincided with a period in which she occupied a space in Dylan’s closest and most coveted musical circles. Having been part of the singer’s backing band for his Rolling Thunder Revue tour over the same period of 1975 and 1976, she had already made her mark on the bootleg recordings which emerged from this. ‘Hurricane’ was just the chance to take that burgeoning platform to the mainstream.
But equally, don’t be fooled by the romanticism of this statement: there was also a heavy dose of necessity at play within this, too. Indeed, Dylan had previously recorded a version of ‘Hurricane’ before the Rolling Thunder Revue came into his orbit, but threatened with legal action over some of its controversial lyrics, he conceded by using his touring musicians to re-record a new version, hence Blakley and her bandmates getting the gig.
Even still, she makes history as one of the exclusive group of musicians whom Dylan trusts in the highest regard, which is no mean feat when you consider how impenetrable he can often be. Just like the song and its namesake, together they proved that they were a formidable force; to overcome such a seismic societal injustice, it would take more than one voice to swing the tide. That’s exactly where the help of those thunder clouds rolled in.
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