Sarah Jarosz – Ring Them Bells – The Best Dylan Covers
Ring Them Bells is included on the Bob Dylan album Oh Mercy, his twenty-sixth studio album, released on September 18, 1989 by Columbia Records. Produced by Daniel Lanois, it was hailed by critics as a triumph for Dylan, after a string of weaker-reviewed albums.
Sarah Jarosz is an American musician and singer-songwriter from Texas. Jarosz was born in Austin, Texas, and raised in Wimberley, Texas. She has stated that her last name is Polish. She began learning the mandolin at age 10 and later began learning to play the guitar, clawhammer banjo, and octave mandolin. During her senior year of high school, Jarosz signed a recording contract with Sugar Hill Records and released her debut album Song Up in Her Head in June 2009; it was produced by Jarosz and Gary Paczosa.
In 2011 she released her second album, Follow Me Down. It has a wonderful interpretation of Bob Dylan’s Ring Them Bells.
“… comes perilously close to perfection, and each song sounds different from all the others. Jarosz’s talent is wondrous and in no way normal, and her developing musical maturity continues to be a wonder to watch.”
– Rick Anderson (Allmusic.com)
Here Sarah Jarosz’s acoustic performance of Ring Them Bells for Vanguard and Sugar Hill Record’s The Americana Sessions recorded and taped at Minutia Studios in Nashville, TN:
Here is another wonderful version filmed for BBC Radio 2 at the CCA in Glasgow:
Check out:
- MusicThisDay.com
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My wish is your command. Yes, this song is indeed “perilously close to perfection,” and maybe sometimes you just find yourself over the line. This is smooth like a rhapsody, she may have even here painted her masterpiece even at this young age. I have provided some thoughts on these amazing lyrics @ https://dougondylan.blogspot.com/2011/05/ring-them-bells.html
I don’t agree with you about this being solely Sarah’s “masterpiece.” Due to having great parents who got her great teachers, she has had strong connections with many great masters of songwriting from an early age. I suspect the perfection of this song is not just due to her talent, but also due to a talent for harnessing support from the superlative songwriting community that she is associated with. Sarah is smart enough to recognize good ideas, good advice & take it. And as you say, Sarah is smooth. She is a master at getting around her weaknesses with support from the best.
However, even while he may have emulated the great Woody Guthrie, Dylan taught himself, did his own editing – had his own ideas. I am hopeful that with time, Sarah will stop producing safe, smooth songs & get dangerously edgy with her own ideas.