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Colin Randall writes: of the three Salut! Live contributors who have been posting items relating to Bob Dylan to coincide with the arrival of A Complete Unknown in UK cinemas, I was last to see the movie and the least passionate Dylan fan among us. I dd not stop liking him when he went electric; on the contrary Blonde on Blonde was and remains a favourite of mine. But it was also the last Dylan album I bought. I just began to like him less.
A Complete Unknown reminds me of how much I loved his early music and all he seemed to represent to my generation.
Opinions vary but, to me, the film is a triumph. Here I shall limit my thoughts to the music. I cannot improve on Bill Taylor’s film review. Timothée Chalmnent (Dylan), Monica Barbaro (Joan Baez), Edward Norton (Pete Seeger) and Boyd Holbrook (Johnny Cash) perform the songs of their characters with commendable respect and competence.
Unknown author: from the 1964 yearbook of St Lawrence University
That brings me to the reason for this closing piece in the series. Countless artists have covered Dylan. Bill, Andrew Curry and I set out our choices in this article. I then drew as much attention as I could around social media, inviting others to nominate there own favourite alternative versions of his work from the period dealt with by the film, 1961-65.
Despite Salut! Live‘s encouragingly high readership levels, few of our visitors leave comments whereas people are invariably quick to respond to posts at, for example, relevant Facebook groups. Here, with links to the groups so that you can explore further, is a short selection of those responses, all reproduced from Facebook:
Hank Garfield (who also correctly pointed out that one of my choices, Jimi Hendrix’s All Along the Watchtower was from outside the designated period):
Outlaw Blues by Grace Slick and the Great Society.
The UK and Irish Folk & Acoustic G0s-80s Group
Mike Kenny (one of several to choose this):
To Ramona by Sinead Lohan
Steve Yates:
Masters of War by Martin Simpson
There were votes, too, for Maggie Holland, Bryan Ferry, Manfred Mann, Fairport Convention, Julie Driscoll, The Band, the Byrds, Chris Smither, Old Blind Dogs, Ralph McTell, Pete Townshend, Nic Jones and many, many more.
Please follow the Links above to the groups I’ve mentioned plus two others I haven’t but which I heartily recommend: Uncharted Jukebox and the 60s 70s Folk Music Group.
Our thanks to all who came up with ideas.
My parting thought: as one who has quite often preferred a Dylan cover to Dylan Dylan, I should add that good as the actors were when singing his songs, I enjoyed even more the real thing that accompanied the rolling credits.
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