Bob Dylan calls out critics, talks Nashville at tribute

LOS ANGELES -- Chances are fair that the first time you ever heard a Bob Dylan song, Bob Dylan wasn't the one singing it. For as long as the folk-rock icon has been a household name — 50 years and counting — all sorts of music makers have been reinterpreting his tunes, from The Byrds' "Mr. Tambourine Man" and Jimi Hendrix's "All Along The Watchtower" to Old Crow Medicine Show's "Wagon Wheel."

An incredible roster of rock legends and other musical greats carried on that tradition at the Los Angeles Convention Center on Friday night as Dylan was honored as "Person of the Year" by MusiCares, the charitable arm of the Recording Academy.

Bruce Springsteen and Tom Morello built "Knockin' On Heaven's Door" into a towering anthem from the ground up. Crosby, Stills and Nash's harmonies rang clear and true on "Girl From the North Country," and Neil Young delivered a stirring "Blowin' in the Wind" to close the evening.

But no performance was as engrossing as Dylan's 30-minute acceptance speech, after an introduction from President Jimmy Carter. Clutching an inch-thick stack of paper, Dylan veered from debunking his legend to admonishing his critics, sprinkling in recitations of "The Times They Are a-Changin'" or "Ballad of a Thin Man" for good measure here and there. Those, by the way, were as close as guests got to hearing Dylan play one of his tunes.

"I'm glad for my songs to be honored like this," he said. "But you know, they didn't get here by themselves, it's been a long road, and it's taken a long journey. These songs of mine, they're like mystery plays, the kind Shakespeare saw when he was growing up. And I think you could trace what I do back that far. They were on the fringes then, and I think they're on the fringes now."

A couple of Nashville's best-known rock/pop performers made a point to pay homage on Friday. Jack White was the mid-evening wakeup call with "One More Cup of Coffee," sounding at his most possessed on the microphone between blasts of overdriven guitar. Sheryl Crow smoothed things out on a sublime "Boots of Spanish Leather," a deep cut from the "The Times They Are a-Changin'" album.

Along with the rockers who've long worn their debt to Dylan on their sleeve, there were also performers that reflected his own wide range of musical influences, from country great Willie Nelson to R&B fixture Aaron Neville, Chicano rockers Los Lobos and bluesman Taj Mahal. And they chose to take on some of lesser-known tunes.

Neville infused '80s cut "Shooting Star" with falsetto soul and made it his own. That went double for Los Lobos, who translated the second verse of "On a Night Like This" into Spanish as the accordion and saxophone chugged along.

Willie Nelson went with "Señor (Tales of Yankee Power)," though he had to wait for the lyrics to be placed in a spot where he could read them.

Nelson was hardly fazed, and jammed on the intro with the house band — led by producer Don Was and featuring Nashville's own Buddy Miller and Audley Freed — for a few minutes before launching into the song and earning a standing ovation.

It was hard not to sneak a peek or two at the Teleprompter during Alanis Morrisette's "Subterranean Homesick Blues," the song forever entwined with the video of Dylan tossing out cue cards with the song's lyrics. But few other artists dared to touch Dylan's imposing '60s catalog, filled with the likes of "Like a Rolling Stone," "Positively 4th Street" and "Mr. Tambourine Man" — none of which were performed on Friday night.

Instead, they turned to Dylan's many later incarnations.

L.A. punk rock vet John Doe selected his 1980 spiritual anthem "Pressing On." Surprise guest Tom Jones stunned the room with a brilliant take on 1989's "What Good Am I?" Even Garth Brooks, performing in a pre-taped video segment during a concert in Pittsburgh, opted to go with a song from 1997: "Make You Feel My Love."

That brings us back to Nashville. Dylan had a few memories of what he saw as the Music Row Establishment in the early 1970s. He'd read an interview with Tom T. Hall that, for whatever reason, really got to him. According to Dylan, Hall was criticizing James Taylor's "Country Road," lumping it in with a number of new songs he didn't understand.

"Some might say Tom was a great songwriter, and I'm not going to doubt that. But at the time he was doing that interview, I was actually listening to a song of his on the radio. It was called 'I Love.' …he was talking about all the things he loved. It was an everyman song, trying to connect with people. Trying to make you think he's just like you, and you're just like him. You all love the same things, and we're all in this together. Tom loves little baby ducks, slow moving trains and rain. ... now listen, I'm not going to ever disparage another songwriter. I'm not going to do that. Now I'm not saying it's a bad song, I'm just saying it might be a little overcooked. But you know, it was in the top 10 anyway."

He had kinder words for Kris Kristofferson. "He came into town like the wildcat like he was…not your typical songwriter, and he went for the throat."

"You could look at Nashville pre-Kris and post-Kris, because he changed everything. That one song ("Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down") blew Tom T. Hall's world apart. It might have sent him into the crazy house. God forbid he ever heard any of my songs. ... If "Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down" rattled Tom's cage, sent him into the loony bin, my songs surely would have made him blow his brains out, right there in the loony bin.

"I'm going to get out of here now," he said, wrapping up. "I'm gonna put an egg in my shoe and beat it. I probably left out a lot of people, and said too much about some, but that's OK. Like the spiritual song, I'm still just crossing over Jordan, too. Let's hope we meet again sometime, and we will if, like Hank Williams says, 'The good Lord willing, and the creek don't rise.' "

The gala raised funds for MusiCares, which offers financial assistance, educational workshops and other services for members of the music community. Bonnie Raitt joked that while the music business tended to eat its young, "tonight is a good testament to not eating its old. It's a miracle that any of us are still here, and we all deserve to help each other in this tenuous business."