Bob Dylan Covers The Grateful Dead, Prepping New Live Set For June

DYLAN COVERS THE DEAD

Bob Dylan proved there are more than a few surprises still up his sleeve. Despite the legendary singer /songwriter playing a pretty static setlist over the past few years, on Wednesday night (April 12th) during his concert at Tokyo's Tokyo Garden Theater, Dylan performed the Grateful Dead's 1970 American Beauty standard, “Truckin',” marking the first time he's ever tackled the song in concert.

“Truckin'” was written by Dylan's sadly departed good friends and periodic collaborators, Jerry Garcia and Robert Hunter. Hunter and Dylan first teamed up fort two songs on Dylan's 1988 Down In The Groove collection, co-writing “Ugliest Girl In The World” and “Silvio.” Nearly a decade later, their collaborated on most of the lyrics to Dylan's 2009 chart-topping Together Through Life album.

Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart recalled to us the thrill of Dylan joining the Dead on the road back in 1987: “My fondest memory was actually completing a song where everybody remembered the lyrics (laughs). Y'know, especially Bob, y'know. . . And, yeah, I thought if we completed a song without incident, that was a great event because it was pretty chaotic onstage. We weren't over-rehearsed and so, we were wingin' it. But I loved it. I just loved to hear all those songs and they took on all those different aspect of our band — as opposed to Dylan's band.”

Bob Dylan performs tonight (April 14th) at Tokyo's Tokyo Garden Theater. Following his Tokyo run, he'll be on the road in Europe through July.

DYLAN RELEASING SOUNDTRACK TO 'SHADOW KINGDOM'

On June 2nd, Bob Dylan will release the long-awaited soundtrack to his 2021 virtual Shadow Kingdom live concert. The set marks the first time the audio from the show has been officially issued and will be available in digital, CD and double-LP 12-inch vinyl formats. The full-length Shadow Kingdom feature film will also be available for download and rental on Tuesday, June 6th.

Although universally renowned as one of the most important songwriters of the 20th century, Bob Dylan explained that there are definitely fundamentals to songwriting that everyone needs to abide by: “Well there are certain rules and regulations to it. I mean, you just don't sit down and write a song, y'know what I mean? There's a certain amount of learning you have to, y'know, go through to get to that point and not only living experience, but, I mean, you have to also play an instrument and carry some kind of tune, I guess.”

The tracklisting to Bob Dylan's Shadow Kingdom is:

“When I Paint My Masterpiece”
“Most Likely You Go Your Way (And I'll Go Mine)”
“Queen Jane Approximately”
“I'll Be Your Baby Tonight”
“Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues”
“Tombstone Blues”
“To Be Alone With You”
“What Was It You Wanted”
“Forever Young”
“Pledging My Time”
“The Wicked Messenger”
“Watching the River Flow”
“It's All Over Now, Baby Blue”
“Sierra's Theme”