Dylan Cover #726 Bruce Hornsby "It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry" Live

 In this ongoing Monday Series we will be exploring various artists versions of Bob Dylan song's. Today's tune is a live cover by Bruce Hornsby playing "It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry"

All April RtBE focuses our Monday Dylan Cover Series on artists who are playing this years New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. Today is Bruce Hornsby who plays the festival Saturday April 25th.

Thoughts on Original:
From the first time we tackled a cover of this song:
One of my favorite titled songs in the Dylan catalog, for some reason the title just nails an elusive feeling and perfectly works with the tune. Also contains multiple epic lines, my favorite being "I wanna be your lover babe/I don't wanna be your boss", AMEN brother Bob.  A pretty straight forward blues number musically that lends itself to cover attempts, leading to...

Cover:

Thoughts on Cover Artist:

We, like the majority of people, came to know Hornsby by his monster single, "The Way It Is" which is still a great song. Then we fell in love with his early 90's work with the Grateful Dead, who he shot new life into during tough times. He also was with The Other Ones in 1998 when we caught the guys playing a fun Dead set (which included "The Way It Is"). He s obviously still going strong, with a new record out in April, so stay tuned. 

Thoughts on Cover:

This cover starts with "Sunflower Cat" Hornsby's own tune based on The Grateful Dead's "China Cat Sunflower" so this is almost like a two-fer this Monday. The opening song is a fun upbeat romp for over five and half minutes. The Dylan cover is sung by Hornsby with energy and passion while the band continues in the "Sunflower Cat" musical motif. 

This pairing is interesting, and while we like both separately, together it is a bit odd. While not our favorite cover in this series, we would be stoke to catch it live at the Fairgrounds.