Dylan Cover #354 The Jeff Healey Band "When Night Comes Falling From The Sky"

In this ongoing Monday Series we will be exploring various artists versions of Bob Dylan song's. Today's tune is a cover by The Jeff Healey Band playing "When Night Comes Falling From the Sky"

Thoughts on Original:
In the fog and haze of 80's Dylan comes one of his most perplexing songs, "When Night Comes Falling From The Sky". The lyrics are some of his best from this period, but holy god of your choice...the production was the cheesiest of his career. Empire Burlesque had a few flops on it, and it is hard not to say this track is one of them, just check out the original video for it.

What saves this song from the scrap heap is the balls out awesome version on the amazing Bootlegs Series 1-3 which was recorded with Steven Van Zandt and Roy Bitton from The E-Street Band. This yet again shows that Dylan could not pick out his best work when it came time to release it officially from the studio sessions. While the Bootleg version isn't perfect, the vocals in particular are recorded low but sung so strongly it is exciting, it makes the listener examine the tune without the "Disco Dylan" cheese playing in their ear. A song which is perfect for interpretation, and one that should probably get a definitive version at some point as it it is one of Dylan true hidden gems. 

Cover:


Thoughts on Cover Artist:
Coming across Jeff Healey for the first time like a lot of people in 1989 cinematic classic Road House, it was clear that Healey had a lot to offer. His focus on interpreting covers during his early run with The Jeff Healey Band is what he is most known for, outside of Road House, and he did justice to all of them. Unfortunately he passed away in 2008, but he left behind a large collection of Jazz, Blues and Rock records.

Thoughts on Cover:
Starting off, this could be a cover of "All Along The Watchtower" but Healey goes deeper and plucks the 80's Dylan out of the fireplace where his letters to you are burning. It is a good, if a bit too sterile of a cover holding pretty close to the original, even complete with background vocalists and conga drums. Healey has time to solo though, placing his excellent sound upfront, and that is the reason to check out his cover of this over looked track.

For December RTBE will be be dipping into some Dylan songs which we have not featured in this series yet and we are over 350 at this point, so look for some deeper cuts coming.