There have been any number of Bob Dylans over the years. He's been a poet, a prophet and a revolutionary. He's been a rocker, a folk singer, even a crooner. He's been a singer of love ballads, of protest songs, of country standards.
A whole bunch of those Dylans will be performing at the Creative Alliance on Friday night. In fact, just about the only Dylan who won't be in Highlandtown will be the real one.
Night of 1000 Dylans, set for 7:30 p.m. at the old Patterson Theater, will bring together 10 singer-songwriters from the Baltimore-Washington area, all channeling, in one form or another, America's most versatile songwriter. "Eclectic" only begins to describe what will be going on.
"All these people are influenced by Dylan, but it comes out in different ways," says local music critic Geoffrey Himes, who put the evening together. "Anyone who's interested in songwriting, who comes out of that American tradition and cares about words, Dylan is someone you can't avoid."
The range of performers stretches across the musical map. Cathy Fink & Marcy Marxer are best known for children's songs (in 2004 and 2005, they won Grammys for that), while Andrew Grimm and June Star harken back to '60s and '70s rock. Arlington, Va.-based Mary Battiata has been compared to Rosanne Cash, while Baltimorean Adam Trice, founder of Red Sammy, describes his group as a "graveyard-country-rock band."
Anne Watts has been compared to everyone from Edith Piaf to Frank Zappa, and with her band, Boister, has composed scores for a handful of silent-film classics. Friday, Watts will be onstage as the "lovesick" Dylan, as well as the politically minded one. Her set will include "Forever Young" and "Tales of Yankee Power," two of Dylan's most resonant songs.
"The quality of relevance of his songs is amazing, that transcendence," a clearly awe-struck (and perhaps slightly daunted) Watts says. "How many years has he been writing, 40 years? How can he still be writing songs, and have them make so much sense?"
Actually, it's been closer to 50 years, from "Blowin' In the Wind," which was on 1963's The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, to "I Feel a Change Comin' On," one of the highlights of this year's Together Through Life. For some performers, just picking out a few songs was tough, but all had their favorites.
" 'Forever Young,' it's a hymn and an anthem," Watts says, "and to be able to write an anthem, it's incredible. It's better than 'The Star-Spangled Banner,' you know."
