Why the Bob Dylan Birthday Bash is one of my favorite Knoxville events | Mike Strange
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On a Saturday evening in early June, the sun was boring down, the temperature flirting with 90. You didn’t need a weatherman to know summer had blown into Knoxville.
We had gathered at Ijams Nature Center for a birthday party. Bob Dylan’s.
The annual Bob Dylan Birthday Bash is one of my favorite Knoxville events. This was the 17th edition. I can’t claim perfect attendance, but have followed the bash from the East Tennessee History Center to World’s Fair Park to Market Square and now to Ijams.
One guy who hasn’t missed a show is the creator and musical director, Steve Horton.
Horton has been playing music in various groups around the area for more than 50 years. And he shares a birthday – May 24 – with the American songwriting icon.
So in 2005, Horton conceived of the Bob Dylan Birthday Bash. The concert would celebrate the master’s work and raise a little money for a local cause. More important, it would convene local musicians to have a good time playing and listening to each other.
The big winner is the audience. Being a Dylan fan helps. It’s not a requirement. Local artists play a short set of their interpretations of Dylan songs, then yield the stage to the next artist.
Horton is the self-described “Dylan Nazi” who reviews set lists to make sure there aren’t three versions of “Positively Fourth Street” on a given evening. Since Dylan penned more than 600 tunes, there’s plenty of options.
The initial bash, at the Laurel Theater, was modest. “Pretty much friends of mine,’’ Horton told me this year while we listened to the gentle version of “The Times They Are A-Changin’ ‘’ by Will Boyd on jazz flute.
It was after WDVX, a local alternative radio station, got on board that the bash moved to Market Square for a long run in the “First Friday” series.
“We went from crowds of maybe 350 to a couple thousand almost immediately,’’ Horton said. “You had all these people milling around looking for something to do.’’
Then a Market Square renovation took the roof off the stage. That’s a problem for a musician holding an electric guitar or a microphone when inclement weather hits.
In fact, 2019 got rained out. COVID-19 shut things down in 2020 and ’21.
Seeking shelter from the storm, the bash re-emerged at Ijams in 2022 and this year.
“It’s back down to 200 or 300,’’ Horton said. “That’s fine for the people interested in Dylan.’’
Horton got interested in Dylan as a high school “folk nerd” in North Carolina in the 1960s. The ground-breaking albums like “Highway 61 Revisited,” “Bringing It All Back Home” and “Blonde on Blonde” still resonate with him.
Still, there are decades of Dylan to pick from. Horton’s set with a band and son Will Horton singing lead included a sweet version of “End of the Line,” from Dylan’s Traveling Wilburys collaboration with Tom Petty, George Harrison, Roy Orbison and Jeff Lynne.
I missed most of Kelle Jolly’s set standing in line at the taco food truck. Ashton Browne Williams rocked several classics, including “Just Like a Woman” and “All Along the Watchtower.”
Eli Fox and his fiddle delivered a stark, effective “Tangled Up in Blue.” Brian Waldschlager’s band turned up the volume for a set that included “Jokerman.”
Family business called me away before the finale. But I wandered out in the night through the trees to the parking lot to the lovely strains of R.B. Morris, accompanied by a cellist, singing the lyrical “Visions of Johanna.’’
A perfect ending to an evening of Bob Dylan.
Mike Strange is a former writer for the News Sentinel. He currently writes a weekly sports column for Shopper News.
This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: Bob Dylan Birthday Bash is one of my favorite Knoxville events
