Bob Dylan Showcase: Señor, as never before. Listen, be amazed.

By Tony Attwood

Oh, you are so going to love this!

If you have been to any of the “Showcase” articles before you will know that we offer the chance to readers to put on this site one or two recordings of their own.  It’s not a competition, and we don’t do a critique – it is just that a reader of the site offers us a recording.

So, amateur or semi-professional, or indeed a band breaking through into the professional world.  The only requirement is that we are found because the musician or a member of the band is a reader of Untold.

And to show I know how much nerve it can take, I’ve even put one of my own recordings up.  (And people were very polite).

And now we have Anana Kaye.  Just listen, and enjoy…

Here’s the commentary…

“Covering Dylan, in general, is not a small task because of how revered he is but we always found it interesting that often same, more well-known songs got covered by musicians even though he’s got such a vast catalog.

We feel like his work from mid 70’s and on is very often overlooked. “Street-Legal” is one of our most favorite Dylan albums and “Señor (Tales of Yankee Power)” has been our faithful guide and companion for years. Great songs are like prayers… In fact they are prayers. This surely is one of them. I never thought that we’d even dare to approach it, but you know how it goes, “things have changed”… as its writer said in another one of his masterpieces. I don’t think we planned on releasing it but it felt especially timely now.

“As a singer, I’ve been majorly influenced by Bob Dylan’s musical phrasing and emphasis on lyrics. We produced the track at our home studio and had of a couple of Nashville’s most in-demand musicians (Chris Donohue on bass, Chris Benelli on drums) play on it and everything came together when later it was mixed and mastered by Stephen Leiweke. We also filmed and edited the music video ourselves during quarantine.”

And the PR…

Anana Kaye is a Nashville based husband and wife Duo. Hailing from Georgia (no not the state, but the ancient country on the crossroads of Europe and Asia, where Argonauts sailed to steal The Golden Fleece and where wine was invented some 8000 years ago) Anana Kaye and Irakli Gabriel deliver a unique and distinctly European sound we rarely experience in such potent doses today.

With influences including Bob Dylan, Kate Bush, Nick Cave and David Bowie their music is a genre bending experience akin to twisting kaleidoscope.

“Rich, strong, tender, translucent, and dynamic. The luminous vibrancy simply embraces the listener, enfolding you into sumptuousness.” – The Huffington Post.

“Exquisite, full of uncompromising fluidity, infectious hypnotic rhythms, electrifying sonic sensations, and the nonpareil voice of Anana Kaye.” – MEDIUM

And a personal note…

“Greetings from Nashville, TN.   This song off Street-Legal has been my faithful guide and companion for years. We just released our cover of it. Thought you might like to check it out. Hope you like it, Anana xx”

And Tony’s note (because there is always Tony’s note)…

If you like this half as much as I do, you’ll want to play it again.  So here it is…

The only danger with giving Showcase over to such a beautiful arrangement is that it will put everyone else off.  But really, I insist, Showcase is for everyone, and it can be because we all know the difference between the amateur and the professional, between the song recorded on your phone at home, and the full studio rendition.

And yes, to show that I know, and I believe in the validity of doing it this way, I will put another one of my little efforts up at some time.

The rules are

a) A cover of a Dylan song, which adds something to Dylan’s original

b) A recording of a Dylan song, which Dylan has not recorded.

c) A recording of a song that you have composed which emerges in some way from your interaction with Dylan’s music. So not necessarily a cover – it could be a completely new song but one which has in a way been influenced by Dylan. You don’t have to explain how or why, as long as you feel that there is something “Dylan” within the song, that’s fine.

As I said at the very start, I’m doing this because I’ve worked in the creative arts all my life, and I know how hard it is to get any exposure for one’s art. I’m not saying that record company producers will be queuing up to look and see what we’ve got, but I just have the feeling we might come across something interesting.

So if you would like to send me a recording with the right for me to put it up on this site, please email it to Tony@schools.co.uk. It can be a link to a youtube site, or a recording as an mp3 or mp4 file.

Untold Dylan: who we are what we do

Untold Dylan is written by people who want to write for Untold Dylan.  It is simply a forum for those interested in the work of the most famous, influential and recognised popular musician and poet of our era, to read about, listen to and express their thoughts on, his lyrics and music.

We welcome articles, contributions and ideas from all our readers.  Sadly no one gets paid, but if you are published here, your work will be read by a fairly large number of people across the world, ranging from fans to academics who teach English literature.  If you have an idea, or a finished piece send it as a Word file to Tony@schools.co.uk with a note saying that it is for publication on Untold Dylan.

We also have a very lively discussion group “Untold Dylan” on Facebook with approaching 5000 active members. Just type the phrase “Untold Dylan” in, on your Facebook page or follow this link 

You’ll find some notes about our latest posts arranged by themes and subjects on the home page of this site.  You can also see details of our main sections on this site at the top of this page under the picture.  Not every index is complete but I do my best.

But what is complete is our index to all the 604 Dylan compositions and co-compositions that we have found, on the A to Z page.  I’m proud of that; no one else has found that many songs with that much information.  Elsewhere the songs are indexed by theme and by the date of composition. See for example Bob Dylan year by year.

And please do note our friends at  The Bob Dylan Project, which also lists every Dylan song in alphabetical order, and has links to licensed recordings and performances by Dylan and by other artists, plus links back to our reviews (which we do appreciate).

2 Comments

  1. Tony, I think you’re doing a great job. I really appreciate all the time, work and effort you’ve put in. I like the fact you keep emphasizing kindness and friendliness. I believe it affects the tone of the discussions and keeps things relatively harmonious. We can disagree but we should “let kindness be our guide.” And even though I’ve got all of Dylan’s albums and I’ve been around for quite a while and have seen him in his various incarnations live in concert, I’m still learning about him and this site is helping a lot. Lots of diverse and interesting opinions!
    And this version of ‘Senor?’ Wow! What can I say? It blew me away. So exquisitely different to the original. I’m betting Bob himself would love it. Hope he hears it.

  2. The repetition of “Can you tell me what we’re waiting for senor?” introduced something new, for me, I hadn’t heard before. The potential in the lyric, goes from being rhetorical to literal. Are we waiting, for something? What is it we’re waiting for. What, is there something out there, in the distance, we sense is approaching, yet we don’t quite know what? As it is with all good lyrics the written format sounds trite. But when sung they come to life. As it in this case.

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