THROUGH THE LENS: The 22 Best Bob Dylan Covers By Roots Artists

There are, it seems, only two ages: Before Dylan and After Dylan. As we approach the 60th anniversary of the fateful 1961 winter day when Bob Dylan arrived in New York, it’s significant to note that no single songwriter has had their songs covered more than Bob Dylan. Covering his songs is a rite of passage, an acknowledgement that all things flow from him, through him. 

I’d also venture that no artist has had more lists made identifying their “best” covers than Dylan. I’ve scanned dozens of these lists over the years and what’s apparent is that Dylan’s impact on popular music is without parallel. However, none of the lists I found have been from a roots perspective. That strikes me as quite odd, as Dylan is the embodiment of roots music. This week’s column seeks to correct that egregious oversight. Here are my 22 favorite Dylan covers by roots artists, starting with the best right off the bat:

1. Joan Baez – “Farewell, Angelina”

In early 1965, when Dylan did a throwaway version of this song, Baez thought their romantic and musical liaison was burning brighter than a thousand suns. But where she saw diamonds, Dylan, already planning his escape with another lover stashed in the Chelsea Hotel, felt only rust. Recorded after the bitter, humiliating split, this version finds Baez sifting through the ashes, turning Dylan’s surrealistic images of farewell into a plaintive, compassionate acceptance of the leaving. (Farewell, Angelina, 1965)

2. My Bubba – “You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go”

This is the first song then-new roommates My Larsdotter and Guðbjörg Tómasdóttir sang together; first around the house, then, when they began writing and performing their own songs, hundreds of times more before recording it. The way their lilting voices circle, sway, embrace, ebb, and flow, as if caressing a lover, feels like a religious experience wrapped in a well-worn flannel shirt on a crisp November morning. (Single, 2017)

3. Guy Davis – “Sweetheart Like You” 

At the truck stop at the end of the world, Memphis bluesman Davis muses out loud, to anyone who will listen, on the many not-so-simple twists of fate that brought him there. Later, as he turns his gaze to the raging night outside, he finds that when you think you’ve lost everything you can always lose a little more. (Various Artists – A Nod to Bob, 2001)

4. Emmylou Harris – “Every Grain of Sand”

In taking 20 years to record a Dylan song, Harris has said she was waiting for a good one, meaning one that fit her. This one is permanent, like a tattoo, on an album with Daniel Lanois and Brian Blade that pretty much defines Americana. (Wrecking Ball, 1995)

5. The Band – “I Shall Be Released”

With Manuel singing lead, and Danko and Helm harmonizing on the chorus, few have done anguish more thoroughly. (Music From Big Pink, 1968)

6. Lucinda Williams – “Positively 4th Street”

Stripping away Dylan’s seething vitriol, Williams reveals the song’s soft underbelly, its vulnerability. A spurned lover pleads for understanding, not just for herself, but for the other to see himself for what he is before becoming irredeemable. (Various Artists – The Village, 2006)  

7. Judy Collins – “Daddy You Been on My Mind”

Collins, Baez’s only competition as the Queen of Folk Music in the 1960s, recorded nearly as many Dylan songs as Baez did, often the same ones. Here, she gives this song a lighter touch, as if she’s waking up in the morning with someone else as well. (Fifth Album, 1965)

8. Rosalie Sorrels – “Tomorrow Is a Long Time”

Unfortunately, most versions of this song have been done by younger folks. To fully feel the depths of its heartbreak one must, as Rilke expressed, have experienced the “many nights of love, none of which was like the others,” not simply its rush. (Various Artists – A Nod to Bob, 2001)

9. Buddy Miller – “With God on Our Side”

Miller begins slowly, steadily increasing the intensity before reaching a climactic crescendo, dripping blood all along the way. (Universal House of Prayer, 2004)

10. Robyn Hitchcock – “Tryin’ to Get to Heaven Before They Close the Door” 

With subtle assistance from Gillian Welch and David Rawlings, Hitchcock embraces mortality as he whistles through the graveyard. (Spooked, 2004)

11. Ramblin’ Jack Elliott – “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right” 

What is most arresting about this casual dismissal of a lover who wasn’t quite worth the effort is Elliott’s straightforwardness, without the usual smug wryness others attach to it.  (Various Artists – A Nod to Bob, 2001)

12. Bettye LaVette – “Things Have Changed” 

This song requires an outrage that borders on the unhinged and a ferocity that howls like a hammer. LaVette has a patent on that territory. (Things Have Changed, 2018)

13. Chris Smither – “Desolation Row”

Only someone with Smither’s world-weary voice and prodigious finger-picking skill would even attempt to tackle this unassailable holy mountain. With Bonnie Raitt in tow, he succeeds admirably in the scaling, without noticeable bruising. (Train Home, 2003) 

14. Gillian Welch – “Billy” 

With Welch’s laconic vocal meditations blending with David Rawlings’ sprawling guitar lines, this Peckinpah lament becomes a seven-minute fever dream. (The Revelator Collection, 2002)

15. Joan Osborne – “Ring Them Bells”

Osborne first performed this 1989 song for a series of benefit concerts after 9/11, finding dignity in sorrow, the ability to come together, to move on. However, in this version I hear a hymn to what’s been lost and all that’s about to be. (Songs of Bob Dylan, 2017)

16. Neko Case; Jimmy LaFave – “Buckets of Rain”

Case hits the sweetest of spots in this sweetest of love songs. LaFave, on the other hand, treats it as a blues full of regret. It’s a toss up, depending on which part of town you’re in. (Case: Various Artists – Sweetheart, 2005; LaFave: Road Novel, 1997)

17. The Byrds – “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere” 

The ultimate encore sing-along comes from the album that first melded country and rock. While you’re at it bring that bottle over here. (Sweetheart of the Rodeo, 1968)

18. Dave Alvin – “Highway 61 Revisited”

There’s a new gunslinger in town looking to make his mark. When Alvin asks where you want that killin’ done you can already smell the kerosene-soaked bullets ripping through flesh. (Various Artists – Highway 61 Revisited, 2005; From an Old Guitar: Rare & Unreleased Recordings, 2020)

19. Emma Swift – “I Contain Multitudes”

Instead of falling into the song’s Alice in Wonderland trap that shifts between burden and boast, Swift embraces its contradictions with a wistfulness that Dylan once could summon at will, but with a cadence all her own. (Blonde on the Tracks, 2020)

20. Martha Scanlan – “Went to See the Gypsy”

I never thought much of this song until I heard Scanlan’s take. You get the sense that if you reached out just a bit further your lifeline would be revealed. (The West Was Burning, 2007)

21. Fairport Convention – “Percy’s Song”

Who can resist Sandy Denny’s voice and Richard Thompson’s guitar? (Unhalfbricking, 1969)

22.Dave Mason – “All Along the Watchtower”

Traffic’s Mason was not only very good friends with Jimi Hendrix, he was instrumental in encouraging Hendrix to record this song, and played 12-string acoustic guitar on it. While Mason’s take is not as incendiary, it has a homey feel, as if it were recorded in a forest glen. (Dave Mason, 1974)

I’ll close by paraphrasing the final lines from David Yaffe’s thoughtful 2011 book Bob Dylan: Like a Complete Unknown: New covers will be recorded, new lists will be made, a new audience will see the light, we’ll walk down another road. Till then, this is my travelogue on the journey we’re on today.

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