Tangled up in Dylan; tribute features four island musicians
Published 3:11 pm Wednesday, August 6, 2014
Born May 24, 1941, in Duluth, Minn., Robert Allen Zimmerman may have seemed at the time the unlikeliest of folk music icons, growing up far from the musical epicenters of the day, New York, Nashville or L.A., but instead near the windswept plains of the American Midwest.
With a reedy, nasally voice, and skinny as a rail, Zimmerman lacked the look and the polished sound of many of his more glamorous, popular contemporaries. But like so many revolutionaries before him, Zimmerman’s arrival on the music scene seems, in hindsight, almost preordained.
He tapped into a growing restlessness on the land and with an unflinching appetite for naked, raw emotion, a gift for storytelling and keen eye for detail, helped change the face—and influence—of the music of his day with such unadorned, gripping, and now classic tunes, as “The Times They are a Changin’,” “Blowin’ in the Wind” and “Like a Rolling Stone.”
Oh yeah, he also changed his name.
The spotlight will shine on one of the most influential songwriters of modern America, as four San Juan Island musicians join forces in a tribute to the music and the meaning of Bob Dylan.
Featured in the Thursday night performance, part of San Juan Community Theatre’s summer concert series, are Daniel Finn, Laura Lee Chorba and singer Susan Williams, accompanied on guitar by Keith Busha.
Music starts at 7:30 p.m. in SJCT’s Gubelman Theatre, preceded by a 30-minute “social time” in the Steele Memorial Garden, with beer, wine and chocolate desserts available for purchase.
Tickets are $12, seating is limited to 65. The Business Partner for SJCT’s summer concert series is Islanders Bank. For tickets or info, call 378-3210, or visit, www.sjctheatre.org.
