“The Johnny Rivers [cover of “Positively 4th Street”] was my favorite,” the singer-songwriter wrote.” It was obvious that we were from the same side of town, had been read the same citations, came from the same musical family, and were cut from the same cloth. When I listened to Johnny’s version, I liked his version better than mine. I listened to it over and over again.”
“Most of the cover versions of my songs seemed to take them out into left field somewhere,” Dylan continued. “But Rivers’ version had the mandate down: the attitude and melodic sense to complete and surpass even the feeling that had put into it. When I heard Johnny sing my song, it was obvious that life had the same external grip on him as it did on me.”
I love Johnny Rivers too but wasn't aware of Dylan's adulation. Of course I also remember him saying that after hearing Hendrix version of All along the watchtower, he started playing his song like Jimi did.
“I liked Jimi Hendrix’s record of this and ever since he died I’ve been doing it that way,” adding: “Strange how when I sing it, I always feel it’s a tribute to him in some kind of way.”
Okay, not the same as his favorite cover but...And then I remember reading this:
When Rolling Stone publisher Jann Wenner asked Dylan to name his favorite cover of one of his songs in 1969, he didn’t go with obvious candidates by the likes of the Byrds, Jimi Hendrix or Joan Baez. He instead went with Elvis Presley’s relatively-obscure 1966 take on “Tomorrow Is a Long Time.” Dylan wrote the song in 1962 when his girlfriend, Suze Rotolo, was studying abroad in Italy and he yearned for her to come home. His version wouldn’t come out until 1971’s Greatest Hits Volume 2, but Odetta covered it in 1965 on her LP Odetta Sings Dylan, which captured the attention of the king. His bare-bones take radiates with the heartbreak that Dylan felt when he wrote the song. “That’s the one recording I treasure the most,” Dylan said.Maybe Bob has different favorites on different days?
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