“Sir” Oliver Mally - Mally Plays Dylan (12" vinyl album)

My first encounter with Bob Dylan was definitely a cover version of The Byrds, the American band that owes the unusual spelling of their name to the fact that in the course of Beatlemania, which was rampant at the time, it became fashionable to give groups animal names and analogous to the To alienate Liverpoolers with a letter. That was the reason why there was something like The Monkees or The Byrds. The band's biggest hit was their rocking version of Dylan's "Mr. Tambourine Man”, which reached number one in both the US and UK, something His Bobness has personally never been able to do with his own versions. What made the adaptation of the song so extraordinary was on the one hand the combination of country and bluegrass influences with what was then known as beat music to the new genre of folk rock, but on the other hand above all the characteristic sound of Roger McGuinn's twelve-string electrically amplified Rickenbacker guitar. Of course, alongside this groundbreaking cover version, there were others that hit the charts and became better known than the originals. Julie Driscoll with "This Wheel's On Fire" and Manfred Mann with "Mighty Queen" covered songs from the "Basement Tapes", which were circulating underground as the first bootleg in rock history, long before they were officially released in 1975; Jimi Hendrix raised the bar on Dylan interpretation with "All Along The Watchtower" off 1967's John Wesley Harding; and English folk-rock pioneers Fairport Convention partially translated the largely unknown Dutch-only single "If You Got To Go, Go Now" into French as "Si Tu Dois Partir", creating one of my personal favorite recordings of all times. There is a wonderful term in rock literature called the “portal function”. Just as people of my generation came to the blues originals of Robert Johnson, Willie Dixon or Howlin' Wolf via the music of the early Rolling Stones or bands like Fleetwood Mac or Cream, it was certainly the many Dylan interpretations that ultimately drew one to the original, to the master himself.
The oeuvre of this man, who has been traveling the world on his never-ending tour for decades, has now become a true monolith of popular music, whose individual parts are not only constantly being reinterpreted by himself, but also countless cover versions of the light in the world, who always find new, surprising approaches and make Dylan's work a living classic. Most recently, Marianne Faithfull proved that with a great recording of It's All Over Now, Baby Blue. Oliver Mally follows in big footsteps with this record, which he does with verve and bravura, adding some new sparkling stars to the Dylan universe. By the way, the cover of this publication by pumpkinrecords refers to the album "Byrds Play Dylan". Such references to rock history will delight the connoisseur, but Mally's tribute to the 2016 Nobel Prize winner in literature can be enjoyed without such references.

A
01 One Too Many Mornings
02 Blind Willie McTell
03 Love Minus Zero/No Limit
04 I Want You

B
01 Girl From The North Country
02 All I Really Want To Do
03 Blood In My Eyes
04 Simple Twist Of Fate