Sunday Supper: Now and Then
Bob Dylan in 1965 (photo by Don Hunstein, PR, courtesy of Sony)
In a monthly column, former "Sunday Supper" host John Platt writes about a new folk release he likes — and reflects on a past "Sunday Supper" session.
Bob Dylan turns 85 on May 24. Any birthday is noteworthy, but 85 is downright special.
For this month's "Sunday Supper: Now and Then," a focus on two area musicians who have something to say about Dylan: Joan Osborne and Willie Nile.
Joan Osborne broke out in 1995 with her album Relish, and the hit song “One of Us.” She’s gone on to represent the best of all kinds of music, blues, Americana, and good old rock ‘n’ roll, with a tremendous voice that makes all of them sound true and deeply felt.
For her 2000 album, Righteous Love, Osborne closed the album with Dylan’s 1997 classic, “Make You Feel My Love” from Time Out of Mind. In 2017, Osborne, guitarist Jack Petruzzelli and keyboard player Keith Cotton, pulled together 13 Dylan-centric songs for Songs of Bob Dylan.
That proved to be such an inspired release that Joan went on tour with Amy Helm, Jackie Greene, and Robert Randolph, releasing eight songs as Dylanology (Live) this past year.
As you can hear on her version of “Tangled Up in Blue" from Songs of Bob Dylan, originally found on Dylan's Blood on the Tracks, she has a sublime way of making his songs uniquely her own. Whether she performs that particular classic at her forthcoming Outpost in the Burbs gig on May 29 remains to be heard, but you can be sure she'll touch on the words and music of Bob Dylan as one of the songwriter's foremost interpreters.
Joan Osborne relocated to New York from Kentucky; Willie Nile is a New York singer-songwriter who moved downstate decades ago from Buffalo. (A side note: Nile's father is 108 years old, one of twenty of the oldest men in the U.S., takes no naps or medications, does 3-4 crossword puzzles every day, and is consistently funny).
Willie is known for his pugilistic rock energy, contrasted with his tender ballads, that has made him a favorite of fellow Dylan fan Bruce Springsteen. Nile's 2017 release, Positively Bob: Willie Nile Sings Bob Dylan, is a tribute to the man that was actually inspired by a 75th birthday anniversary for Dylan at City Winery.
I took the opportunity nearly a decade ago to invite Willie and his longtime partners, Johnny Pisano on bass and James Maddock on lead guitar, for a "Sunday Supper" session and a conversation about Dylan and his lyrics. You can listen to that session again in the player above.
You can find Nile performing on the eve of Dylan’s birthday, May 23, at My Father’s Place in Roslyn, Long Island, and on Bob's birthday, May 24, at Warwick Valley Winery and Distillery’s Bob Dylan Tribute Festival (the Monday festival includes The Mammals and The Kennedys among others).
Looking ahead to June 20, you can celebrate at Symphony Space with "The Songs of Bob Dylan & Paul Simon: 85th Birthday Celebration" with both Osborne and Nile, along with Tom Rush, Larry Campbell and Teresa Williams, Richard Shindell, Chris Smither, Mary Fahl and David Broza.
