Dylan Cover #728 Blind Boys of Alabama "Every Grain of Sand"

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 Blind Boys of Alabama playing "Every Grain of Sand"

All April RtBE focuses our Monday Dylan Cover Series on artists who are playing this years New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. Today is Blind Boys of Alabama who play the festival Thursday April 23rd

Thoughts on Original:

From the first time we tackled a cover of this song:
A monster of a song and crowning achievement during his born again Christianity phase. The version RtBE always goes back to is from the Bootleg Series Vol 1-3 with backup vocals from Jennifer Warnes and the gorgeous scene it sets. It was the pinnacle of his song writing during this era and signaled the end of his Christian phase moving back to more universal themes and a throw back to William Blake style poetry. Who knows what goes on inside the Bard's mind, but getting this one recorded seemed to help him move back into secular music, some of which showed up on Shot of Love with this tune closing out the disk and that phase of his career.   

Cover:


Thoughts on Cover Artist:
The Blind Boys of Alabama are excellent, a gospel group who is willing to experiment. 

Thoughts on Cover:

Back in 2013 when RtBE reviewed the album that this was released on, we had this to say about the song: 

 The cover of Bob Dylan's "Every Grain Of Sand" is inspired but an odd drum progression keeps it from soaring.  

The drums didn't hit us this go around, it was more Bon Iver's vocals in the mix. I would have liked to have kept the music the same, but just let The Blind Boys handle the singing next time.