Full Dylan album covered – Oh Mercy

“Oh Mercy (1989) is a collection of 10 songs, best listened to at night, if you’re inclined to take that gypsy caravan down into a mythic Louisiana bayou, a world conjured up by Bob Dylan and producer Daniel Lanois. Virtually every song is a highlight, from “Political World” (which sounds just as immediate today) to the bittersweet “Shooting Star.” It’s quite an ethereal voyage from beginning to end and should withstand the test of time.”
– Josh Downham (user review, Amazon)

It is a great collection of songs and there are many artists that have tried their luck in singing them, none as good as Dylan’s original versions (as usual) but there are some good ones out there. I have tried to collect some of the best.

My favourites are Ron Sexsmith, Gordon Lightfoot, Tom Jones and Willie Nelson.

Check Out more Full Dylan albums covered:

 

Nashville Skyline

Street Legal

Modern Times

Slow Train Coming

Infidels

and now Oh Mercy:

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Full Dylan album covered – Modern Times

I like the “Bob Dylan period” of Modern Times a lot,  I play it often. I love it, one of the great albums from the first ten years of the 2000s.

This is a post where I have “dug” out some cover versions of the songs on the record, I would say that none of them are as good as the originals, but they’re good and they are interesting. Many of the album’s songs have roots in well-known older compositions, though in all cases, Dylan has given the songs new lyrics. Some of the “cover versions” I have found are interpretations of the old traditional songs, it wasn’t easy to compile this cover selection…

“Modern Times is the thirty-second studio album by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, released on August 29, 2006 by Columbia Records. The album was Dylan’s third straight (following Time Out of Mind and Love and Theft) to be met with nearly universal praise from fans and critics. It continued its predecessors’ tendencies toward blues,rockabilly and pre-rock balladry, and was self-produced by Dylan under the pseudonym “Jack Frost”. Along with the acclaim, the album sparked some debate over its uncredited use of choruses and arrangements from older songs, as well as many lyrical lines taken from the work of 19th-century poet Henry Timrod.

Modern Times became the singer-songwriter’s first #1 album in the US since 1976’s Desire.”
– Wikipedia

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Classic documentary: Blues Story by Jay Levey

BLUES STORY: A Documentary (2003)
Directed by Jay Levey

The blues was born at the turn of the century in the Mississippi Delta and other regions of the South. It would become the cornerstone of all popular American music. This is its story as told by the artists who lived it.

Produced and directed by Jay Levey, executive produced by Levey and Richard Foos (the man who founded Rhino Records as well as Shout!), with Edward Marritz directing photography and Mark Mandler serving as the sound engineer, the film also counts Jim O’Neal (the founder of Living Blues magazine and owner of Rooster Blues) as executive consultant and associate producer. What a great production crew.

Hubert Sumlin, guitarist with Howlin’ Wolf for many years, tells a story about his mother telling him that if he wanted to do church music, he should do church music. If he wanted to go the other way, he should. His smiles and says, “Yes, ma’am, I’m going the other way.” Continue reading “Classic documentary: Blues Story by Jay Levey”