Almanac Music: Dylan Cover Songs – Aussie Style: The Females Take On Dylan

 

This is the tenth article in my ongoing Dylan cover songs series and the eighth to shine a light squarely on Australian singers and bands. Scattered within previous articles, I have showcased Dylan covers by the following Aussie female singers: Shirley Jacobs; Wendy Saddington; Olivia Newton-John; Renee Geyer; Denise Drysdale; Sister Janet Mead; Anne Kirkpatrick; Cliela Adams; Lisa Gerrard; Lisa Miller: Kyle Minogue; Beccy Cole; Kate Ceberano; Emma Swift.

 

In this article I focus the lens on all those other Aussie female singers who have recorded a Dylan cover but have not yet featured in any of the previous articles. I also give a reprise to Shirley Jacobs and Emma Swift – who, despite being separated by over 50 years of recording history, epitomize the extraordinary longevity and musical/poetic pull of Dylan across the generations.

 

 

Tina Date  

                          

Tina was born in Melbourne in the early 1940s and originally studied as a concert pianist. In the early 1960s, she was caught up in the folk revival; learnt guitar and rapidly became one of Australia’s premier folk music performers at concerts, on stage and on television.

 

Tina released her only album, A Single Girl, in December 1965. The final track on the album is a cover of Dylan’s ‘Tomorrow Is A Long Time’. (The YouTube link below is of the entire album, with ‘Tomorrow Is A Long Time’ beginning at the 28m:23s mark.)

 

 

Tina’s cover of ‘Tomorrow Is A Long Time’ is interesting as there were no Dylan versions of the song in circulation (official or bootleg) prior to Tina’s recording in late 1965. However, of the nine cover versions of the song that were commercially available prior to Tina’s recording, it is most likely that Canadian folk duo Ian & Sylvia’s July 1963 cover was the more likely to have informed Tina’s own version.

 

To date, there have been over 120 cover versions of ‘Tomorrow Is A Long Time’, making it the 17^th most covered song in Dylan’s anthology.

 

A final point of interest – the liner notes for A Single Girl were co-written by Margaret Kitamura – a contemporary folk singer/songwriter who will be featured at the end of this article with a remarkable twist of fate that kept Dylan’s first Australian tour on track – at least at the acoustic level.

 

 

Shirley Jacobs    

               

In my third Dylan covers article {insert link}, I provided a detailed summary of Shirley’s life and times and featured her cover version of Dylan’s ‘Blowin’ In The Wind’, which was partly sung in German. Her debut 1967 album, Endless Highways included a further two Dylan covers – ‘Tomorrow Is A Long Time’; and ‘Mr. Tambourine Man’….and it is this latter song that is featured in this article.

 

 

To Shirley’s credit, she attempts to give ‘Mr. Tambourine Man’ the full Dylan treatment – Ch, V1, Ch, V2, Ch, V3, Ch, V4, Ch – however, when she gets towards the end of verse 3 (i.e. around the 3m:20s mark) something goes astray, the lines gets mixed up and then Shirley seems to ad lib a line before deciding to end the song on the chorus that follows and simply dismiss verse four altogether. Looking back, it seems curious that this take was allowed to be etched into the vinyl recording.

 

To date, there have been over 230 cover versions of ‘Mr. Tambourine Man’, making it the 5^th most covered song in Dylan’s anthology.

 

 

Marcia Hines

 

Marcia has been etching her unique mark on the Aussie music scene since 1970 – when she was plucked from obscurity as a 16-year-old singer in the US and transported to Australia by Harry M. Miller to perform in the stage musical Hair.

 

In the years following, Marcia has: played the role of Mary Magdalene in the stage production of Jesus Christ Superstar (1973/74); released 15 studio albums (1975-2023); been voted ‘Queen Of Pop’ in 1976. 1977 and 1978; been inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame (2004); and appointed a Member of the Order of Australia (2009).

 

On her tenth studio album, 2004’s Hinesight, Marcia finally finds favour with a Dylan cover – ‘Forever Young’.

 

 

 

 

To date, there have been over 130 cover versions of ‘Forever Young’, making it the 16^th most covered song in Dylan’s anthology.

 

 

Rebecca Barnard

 

In 1993, Rebecca etched her vibrant mark on the Aussie music scene as a founding member of Rebecca’s Empire. The band released two albums – Way Of All Things (1996) and Welcome (1999) – and had singles success via Triple J Hottest 100 in 1994 (‘Atomic Electric’), 1995 (‘Empty’), 1996 (‘So Rude’) and 1997 (‘Way Of All Things’), before disbanding in 2000.

 

In 2006, Rebecca launched her solo recording career with the album Fortified. The album contains 10 original songs before closing with a cover of Dylan’s ‘Boots Of Spanish Leather’.

 

 

 

 

 

This is such a beautiful interpretation of this song and it is interesting to note how Rebecca subtly shifts a line and a verse and omits two verses as the delicate exchange between the lover leaving for overseas and the lover left behind unfolds.

 

To date there have been close to 70 cover versions of ‘Boots Of Spanish Leather’, making it the 29^th most covered song in Dylan’s anthology. I would argue that Rebecca’s version is the best!

 

 

Rachael Beck   

                 

Rachael is a stage & TV singer-actress, with her best known role being Samantha Kelly in the popular TV sitcom Hey Dad..! – a series that ran from 1991–94.

In 2014, Rachael released her first solo album – This Girl – which included a cover of Dylan’s ‘Make You Feel My Love’.

 

 

 

 

I have previously expressed my surprise that ‘Make You Feel My Love’ has now been covered over 280 times and ranks as the 3^rd most covered song in Dylan’s anthology. Adele’s 2008 cover gave the song a super-charged reboot that will, in all likelihood, see the song remain in the top three and maybe even make a run for 2^nd or 1^st place.

 

 

Monique diMattina    

   

Monique is a highly regarded jazz pianist, singer and composer. Between 2009–2021, Monique has released three solo piano albums and three lyric-based/piano-infused albums. The first two ‘lyric-based’ albums have been mainly original songs.

 

On her 2015 Everybody Loves Somebody album, Monique caresses a diverse range of cover songs in her wonderfully unique way. The opening track of that album is a cover of Dylan’s 1964 ‘All I Really Want To Do’.   

 

 

 

 

 

Monique’s atmospheric version captivates as she moves through five of the original six verses. Whereas, other cover songs featured in this article hold reasonably true to the ‘feel’ of the original song, this version by Monique takes the song and the listener to a different realm altogether.

 

To date, there have been some sixty cover versions of ‘All I Really Want To Do’, making it the 36^th most covered song in Dylan’s anthology.

 

 

The Sunny Cowgirls

 

The Sunny Cowgirls is a country music duo, consisting of sisters Sophie and Celeste Clabburn. They have released seven studio albums between 2005-2016.

 

It was on their sixth studio album, 2014’s My Old Man, that the sisters recorded a cover of Dylan’s ‘Blowin’ In The Wind’.     

 

     

 

 

To date, there have been over 450 cover versions of ‘Blowin’ In The Wind’, making it the most covered song in Dylan’s anthology.

 

 

Delta Goodrum      

         

In May 2018, Delta portrayed Olivia Newton-John in a two-part mini-series titled: Olivia: Hopelessly Devoted To You. The soundtrack album to the series, titled I Honestly Love You, was released two days before the mini-series went to air on the Seven Network.

 

Unsurprisingly, one of the songs covered in the mini-series was the song that Olivia reluctantly covered back in 1971, but ended up being her first international hit and set her up for future stardom – Dylan’s ‘If Not For You’.

 

 

 

 

 

In my third Dylan covers article I provide more detail about Olivia’s journey leading up to and immediately post her recording of ‘If Not For You’.

 

To date, there have been around eighty cover versions of ‘If Not For You’, making it the 26^th most covered song in Dylan’s anthology.

 

 

Tess McKenna        

          

Tess is an independent artist based in Melbourne. Since 1992, she has released five studio albums.

 

To be honest, I don’t know how I came across Tess – she has a fairly low profile – but I am glad that I discovered her 2019 Before You Wandered In album and that I can now share her cover of Dylan’s 1964 ‘The Lonesome Death Of Hattie Carroll’.

 

 

 

 

 

It amazes me that a song of this quality has only received forty YouTube views in the past five years.

 

To date, there have only been around thirty cover versions of ‘The Lonesome Death Of Hattie Carroll’, making it the 75^th most covered song in Dylan’s anthology.

 

 

Emma Swift  

                    

In my second Dylan covers article  I provided a brief summary of Emma’s background and featured her cover version of Dylan’s ‘I Contain Multitudes’. Emma’s 2020 Blonde On The Tracks album is dedicated to Dylan cover songs and any of them would be worthy of featuring in this article – I have chosen ‘Going, Going, Gone’ for two reasons – I: it is a rarely covered song, with only nineteen covers in the fifty years since it was released on the Planet Waves album; and ii: this interpretation by Emma is stunning and deserves to be shared.

 

 

 

 

 

Margaret Kitamura

 

On her self-titled 1968 debut (and only) album, Margaret records a number of traditional folk songs, including ‘The Water Is Wide’, ‘Convict Maid’, ‘Anathea’ as well as a couple of covers: ‘Deportees’ (Woody Guthrie); ‘Chimes Of Freedom’ (Bob Dylan). While several songs from the album remain available on YouTube, I have been unable to find an audio version of Margaret’s cover of ‘Chimes Of Freedom’.

 

Nevertheless, the connection between Margaret and Dylan took a rather interesting and unexpected twist when Dylan visited Australian shores between 13–23 April, 1966 for his first ever concert tour downunder.

 

Dylan’s Gibson Nick Lucas acoustic guitar had been damaged in transit from U.S.A. to Sydney. It so happened, that the acoustic guitar Dylan played throughout the Australian tour was loaned to him by Margaret Kitamura. It had been built for her by her partner, folk singer Don Henderson.

 

The photo below shows Margaret playing her acoustic guitar at a wine bar in 1968.

 

 

 

 

It also happened that Don agreed to repair Dylan’s acoustic guitar. That involved an extensive rebuild, as the body had been crushed at the connection to the fret-board. Don completed the rebuild and shipped the guitar to Perth, Western Australia, just in time for Dylan’s departure for the next leg of the tour, in Stockholm.

 

A full report of the Brisbane press conference and Brisbane Festival Hall concert on 15 April 1966, along with a photo of Dylan playing Margaret’s acoustic guitar can be found here: https://frankneilsen.com.au/gallery/bob-dylan

 

 

Epilogue – ‘Dylan has a way of sneaking into all our affections’

 

While putting together the various bits & pieces of this article, I was pleasantly surprised to find a curious reference to a Dylan covers collaboration between two of the female singer/songwriters featured above. This piqued my interest and I dug a little deeper. While the details are still a bit sketchy and my publishing deadline draws ever nearer, let me share what I have uncovered.

 

Rebecca Barnard and Monique di Mattina created a two-woman show called Dao of Dylan – they both sing, Monique plays piano and ukulele and Rebecca plays guitar. The ‘Dao’ means the ‘Way’ – so it’s a tongue in cheek idolization of the musical path of Bob Dylan – done medium rare in a jazz/roots/blues/funk jus – alongside gags and tall tales about Dylan and them and life and the universe and everything.

 

The Dao of Dylan series took place between 2017 – 2018 and travelled between Western Australia and Victoria.

 

While audio of the shows are hard to find, this snippet of the unique Rebecca/Monique take of Dylan’s ‘Man In The Long Black Coat’ gives a hint of what would surely have been a highlight in any Dylan appreciators journey of the Dylan landscape.

 

 

 

 

More from Karl Dubravs can be read Here.

 

 

 

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