Influential heroes of the genre covered by long-standing experts who would last for decades at the peak of music history are a dream. Those blurs of Chuck Berry and Bob Dylan are as incredible as it sounds. Johnny B. Goode has fast become a legendary song for its place in contemporary spirits. There will be many whose first experience with the rocking classic was with Back to the Future. Nothing wrong with that, especially when the longevity of the song has outlasted most other songs of the time. What a rare treat it is to hear such quality. Dylan is clearly moved by it too and covers it during this performance on the Rough and Rowdy Ways tour. St. Missouri never knew what hit them. An exceptional cover from an artist with a spring in their step thanks to a tour which has revived interest once more in the tones and construct of lesser-known periods in Dylan’s discography.
There is always room for a cover of two and the Rough and Rowdy Ways setlist has rarely shied away from those adaptations. No matter the artist those opening riffs of Johnny B. Goode remain timeless. Before Dylan has opened his mouth listeners are aware of the turn. His strange fixation on manipulating his vocal range into a haggard and out-of-breath production comes to a head with the excitement of the instrumental displays. Rough and Rowdy Ways is a bulky set and there are moments where Dylan leans into his aged vocal performance. There is nothing he can do about this. But he trialled and often failed those gruff notations in his voice throughout the 1990s and 2000s. Something within him must be convinced by it and for all the immaculate, swinging styles presented to this Johnny B. Goode cover, the real weakness is Dylan.
It is a sad reality but there is no escaping that. His lack of conviction for the chorus and the almost flippant way of elongating the simpler shots of energy detract from the story woven into the Berry original. Attempting not to improve but implant his own voice on it leaves a welcome and worthy listen but a piece where Dylan’s piano work is far more exciting than his vocal display. It is not replication Dylan needs to utilise nor the familiarity, the latter is confirmed by the swinging, blues-like structure of adapting Johnny B. Goode in the first place. What it needs is the similar care his other pieces have been given – the other covers and his own works are rattled through with those same vocal pangs and cries only a seasoned performer can bring but this cover feels clunky.
Still, we are better for having heard it than not at all and it lingers as another solid cut from the Rough and Rowdy Ways tour. Where would we be without Berry, and Dylan too? Bolt upright in your chair as the freestyle piano rises and a shot of percussion brings on the wonderful, never-changing guitar work Berry popularised for this track. As blessed we are to hear yet another Rough and Rowdy Ways performance the mixing for vocal to piano on Dylan’s end is flubbed slightly in the beginning. It does well to cover up the performance in those early bits, which sound like the time Elton John performed I’m Still Standing in his garden. Dylan shakes those weaker pockets off and makes for another decent cover in a late-stage career-defining tour.
