Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
A GIFT FOR DYLAN FANS
The local outfit Highway 61 Revival will release five covers on Friday.
The suburban Philadelphia musicians who make up the Bob Dylan tribute band Highway 61 Revival had big plans for this year.
The self-described “Dylan geeks,” who have been celebrating their hero’s birthday with shows at Kennett Flash each May for the past seven years, performing as Mason Porter & Friends, had been working on booking a bunch of shows throughout the spring and summer under their new name. But then the coronavirus pandemic struck.
Disappointed but undeterred, the five members each took to their home studios and set about making the best of a bad situation, recording vocal and instrumental tracks of Dylan songs and sharing them with each other electronically.
The project grew organically, taking on a life of its own, to the point that starting Friday, two days before Dylan’s 79th birthday, Highway 61 Revival will be sharing its first batch of five Dylan covers for free on bandcamp.com.
The band comprises Paul Wilkinson (Mason Porter) on guitar, Daniel Bower (Frog Holler) on drums, Brad Hinton (Hezekiah Jones) on guitar and lap steel, Tim Celfo (Mason Porter) on bass and Ben Smith (Missing Palmer West) on keyboards.
Band leader Wilkinson has set certain rules for his mates, which throughout the life of the band have included doing their darndest never to perform the same song twice — impressive considering they’ve played more than 130 songs together.
“It’s hard to argue with that rule, because we all know how bad-ass it is,” Bower said. “And we all love the catalog that deeply.”
Taking the rule to heart, Smith went searching and discovered the song “Can’t Wait” early in the quarantine.
“I’ll be honest with you, every year I still have the fear of Paul in me, and I want to be sure I pick something that hasn’t been picked before,” he said, laughing.
He found “Can’t Wait” on “The Bootleg Series: Volume 8: Tell Tale Signs,” a collection of rare and unreleased tracks Dylan put out in 2008. Wilkinson, for one, was impressed.
“There’s so much stuff about Bob that everyone’s got their little piece, which is cool,” he said. “When Ben sent us a track and said, ‘Hey,
I’m doing “Can’t Wait,” I fell off my chair. Like, ‘Who the hell would pick that song?’ ”
Also set for release on Friday are “Love Minus Zero” (selected by Wilkinson), “Spanish Harlem Incident” (Hinton), “Time Passes Slowly” (Celfo) and “When I Paint My Masterpiece” (Bower).
The latter is actually a rare repeat for the band.
“We’ve done it in the past,” Bower said, “but we are doing it in our own style . ... We’re not trying to mimic the official versions or anything like that. ‘Masterpiece’ we did with a Chuck Berry, rock ’n’ roll kind of beat to it vs. the half-time version everybody knows from Levon Helm.”
Celfo said he picked “Time Passes Slowly” because it seemed fitting for the times.
“Time is passing slowly, but also at the same time certain days go by really quickly,” he said. “You feel like you have a lot of time and all of a sudden the day is done. But I can relate to the feeling of sort of being in the wilderness, sort of a new frontier, a new reality.”
Smith, the band’s mix master, has several more tracks ready to go for a Volume 2, which they’ll be releasing soon, and they don’t plan to stop at that now that they’ve discovered the joys of virtual recording.
“We just shifted gears, I think, out of necessity,” Wilkinson said. “What’s that they say: ‘Necessity is the mother of invention?’ It’s been fun with these guys. It was awesome to be able to adapt that fast. We just fell into our new creative phase to do our Bob duties.”
The Devon Horse Show and Country Fair is hosting a Virtual Horse Show through May 31on Facebook and Instagram. Included will be interviews with equestrian athletes, junior and amateur competitors and staff, who will share their favorite memories and behind-thescenes secrets.
DOGS & BREWS VIRTUAL HAPPY HOUR
The Reading Public Museum presents a Dogs & Brews Virtual Happy Hour on Sunday, May 24, at noon, with Dave and Amy Lewis of the band Mo7s playing a Facebook Live mini concert from the museum’s Atrium.
VIRTUAL CINEMA
Fox Berkshire, Wyomissing, is offering Virtual Cinema, a selection of current films that you can enjoy from home. To see the lineup and purchase tickets, see www. foxshowtimes.com.