Steve Wynn

Charity Chic's weekly 'Dylan Covered' series pitches an original Bob Dylan recording in direct competition with another artist's version of the same song, leaving the reader to cast a vote for one performance or the other. Most of the time (see what I did there Bob aficionados?) this doesn't pose a problem for me. I've spent more hours of my life listening to and thinking about Bob Dylan than is probably healthy for a man of my age, so Bob will usually get the nod. He's far from infallible though and I'm happy give credit to a good interpretation where it's due. But Charity Chic has twisted the decision making knife a little further on a couple of occasions, by pitching Bob directly against another of my favourite artists. Already in the series I've had to mull over Dylan vs Robyn Hitchcock (see here for the result of that encounter) and this week, Dream Syndicate's fabulous reading of 'Blind Willie McTell' is up for the popular vote against Bob's sublime original (here). I've been a fan of The Dream Syndicate since 'The Days of Wine and Roses' in 1982, which seems an awfully long time ago now that I come to think about it. The band split in 1989 and I've continued to follow Steve Wynn's busy career as a solo artist in the years since. I'm slightly horrified to note the paucity of Steve's music in my back pages, so by way of recompense, here's the title track from his 1999 LP, a personal favourite and a song which was the highlight of a concert I caught around the turn of the century.

Steve Wynn - My Midnight