Rage Against/Dylan Video for Amnesty International

[TheSound]

Just last week I took delivery of Chimes of Freedom which is the 4-disc set released to mark the 50th Anniversary of Amnesty International, which is all cover versions of Bob Dylan songs....73 of them!!

It's mostly excellent, but mainly it illustrates what a unique and hugely influential artist/writer Dylan is.... there's Dylan song covers by Johnny Cash, Pete Townsend, Sting, Mark Knopfler, Queens of the Stone Age, Lenny Kravitz, Elvis Costello, Jackson Browne, Joan Baez, Rage Against, Adele, Bryan Ferry, My Chemical Romance, Joe Perry, Paul Rodgers, Nils Lofgren, Sinead O'Connor, Seal, Jeff Beck, Dave Matthews Band, Mick Hucknall, Pete Seeger, Ziggy Marley, Band of Skulls, Steve Earle, Fistful of Mercy, Billy Bragg, Gaslight Anthem etc etc. and I guarantee they could have easily filled another 4 discs. I'm happy to stand corrected if somebody knows different, but I seriously doubt any artist in history can have had his songs covered by such a vast and widely different collection of musicians over the years..and I include Lennon and McCartney there. Now that is what I call influential.

Anyway, my point!...maybe the best track on it for me is Rage Against's cover of Dylan's 'Ballad of Hollis Brown'.... and the video they made is as good as anything you will find on YouTube right now, so I thought I'd just showcase it here as it leaves a pretty thought provoking message about America in 2012, as well as being a great song covered by a great band. Rage Against do what they do better than anybody else imo, thank God for bands like them...angry rock rebels without a sniff of the self-adoring celebrity BS you get with many bands.

Cheers.

 

[TheFeldster]

I should see if I can get my hands on this.

As much as I love Bob Dylan's work on it's own, I also acknowledge Bob's shortcomings as a performing musician. With Dylan's remarkable songwriting and the musical abilities of some of the greats, his songs can move bloody mountains if they wanted to. One listen to "All Along the Watchtower" by that guitarist fella is all the testament to that you'll ever need, IMO.

I'll still never replace the man himself in my record collection, but boy there's some beautiful covers out there of his music. There's also some shockers, but normally from the same people who seem to break the laws of music by managing to screw up a Ringo song.

 

[TheSound]

As much as I love Bob Dylan's work on it's own, I also acknowledge Bob's shortcomings as a performing musician

Indeed Feldster...I can't even talk rationally any more about seeing Dylan 'live' in Manchester last year without wanting to take all his great albums outside and set fire to them in protest, to be honest I felt like I should maybe have contacted 'Amnesty International' after I got home to complain to them about cruel and sadistic torture being inflicted on thousands of innocent citizen's ears.

But the man is song writing genius none the less.

 

[Death on Credit]

I've never heard a Dylan cover that I like as much as Dylan performing his own material (even Jimi).

Regardless, that was a ****ing powerful video, and a great rendition of the song.

 

[TheFeldster]

Indeed Feldster...I can't even talk rationally any more about seeing Dylan 'live' in Manchester last year without wanting to take all his great albums outside and set fire to them in protest, to be honest I felt like I should maybe have contacted 'Amnesty International' after I got home to complain to them about cruel and sadistic torture being inflicted on thousands of innocent citizen's ears.

But the man is song writing genius none the less.

I got lucky apparently. I saw him about a year ago in a double bill with B.B. King, and Bob was on his best behaviour. You didn't see his face (that WOULD be asking too much) but he played his songs with class, his voice was a good as you can expect from a post-80's Bob Dylan. And he played songs that were actually hits (I read he's quite happy to just play obscure tracks from mediocre albums for 2 hours some nights). So I struck gold, but yeah, heard horror stories from others