Bob Dylan – Cover Versions, or “68 Songs in 58 Minutes”!

PLAY THE SHOW

I know we said that last week represented our final show regarding Bob Dylan in the “How Music Changed” series, and that is still true;but with one caveat. A nagging desire to summarize our coverage of Dylan kept eating at me, and ultimately, a series of events conspired to make today’s show an absolute necessity. First, a hard drive of ours crashed, a hard drive containing over 34,000 song files. Without our inventory of music, it became nearly impossible to formulate a playlist for the next subject of our series (Sidney Bechet, who we most certainly WILL cover next week). If that wasn’t bad enough, a wiring difficulty in our neighborhood knocked out our access to the Internet for a full three days. That, to coin a phrase, was the last straw. A few weeks ago, I built a playlist based on various artists’ versions of Bob Dylan songs, and it was just sitting there, waiting for me to use it. It is also quite impressive, so for all of the above reasons, we dedicate today’s show to cover versions of Bob Dylan songs.
To give my statement last week about being done with Bob some semblance of truth, you will not hear a note of his singing or playing. Instead, you will hear bits of Bob’s songs as interpreted by others. This show should prove once and for all the near universality of Dylan’s appeal, the scope of his influence, and the wonderful malleability of his songwriting. We feature snippets taken from a full 68 recorded versions of Bob Dylan songs. There are literally thousands to choose from, so finding great versions of Dylan songs is as easy as shooting fish in a barrel. This represents just a small sample.
The good news is that our hard drive has since been salvaged (at considerable expense, not to mention a case of hives that apparently developed as a result of the stress) and our Internet access has been restored, so we have no excuses for next week. Next Friday, you can expect a well-prepared show focusing on the music of New Orleans jazz great Sidney Bechet. Until then, we hope you enjoy hearing 68 songs in 58 minutes!