Saluting the songwriter: Six area musicians play tribute to music of Bob Dylan
Posted on Friday, November 23, 2007
There is a certain it factor about Bob Dylan.
He is often the subject of movies, including the soon-to-be-released "I'm Not There."He has his own satellite radio program, still makes albums and is largely regarded as the most important American singer-songwriter of any generation.
For local songwriter Wade Ogle, anyway, Dylan is the big deal.
"He's it. He's the guy,"said Ogle matter-of-factly.
And so Ogle, who will serve as host of the weekly singer-songwriter night on Wednesday at the Green Door in Fayetteville, decided to feature an evening of the singer-songwriter's music.
Ogle has gathered five other local songwriters to join him for the evening, including Mike Blackwell, Effron White, Bryce Harrison, Jovan Arellano and Jeff Kearney.
When Ogle began asking musicians to play Dylan songs, the response was overwhelming. Each musician has there own personal story about Dylan, it seems. White, for instance, has been playing Dylan for 30 years. Blackwell has seen Dylan perform in five states.
The rules for the evening are simple, Ogle said. Each of the artists has been asked to play at least some Dylan songs. Which songs are up to the individual performers, each of whom will play a set of acoustic-based music. In addition to the Dylan covers, each musician has the opportunity to play a few originals.
There are only a few artists, Dylan included, whose catalog is large enough to support such an event, Ogle said. And because there are hundreds of songs spanning several decades, Ogle makes no predictions about who might play what.
"Everyone gets something different from Dylan,"he said.
His set list, for instance, is likely to include "Girl From the North Country,"a song Dylan recorded with Johnny Cash for his 1969 album," Nashville Skyline."Another possibility is "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues"from 1965.
The other performers will offer different takes. White, who taught himself to play guitar about 30 years ago and has been playing Dylan songs ever since, will likely play "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right,"which was recorded in 1963. The song has special meaning for White as one of the first songs in the finger-pick style he ever learned to play.
Like White, Arellano jumped at the opportunity to showcase some Dylan songs. He, too, taught himself to play many tracks, but usually uses his live gigs for his original work.
And although the featured subject of the upcoming show is some 30-plus years older than Arellano, it is Dylan who keeps the Fayetteville songwriter grounded.
"Bob Dylan has helped me to remain topical. I want to write about abstract things, and then I listen to Dylan. He helps me say something,"Arellano said.
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