Bob Dylan Gives Tribute To Jerry Lee Lewis – Listen
via Zeus / Youtube
Bob Dylan did a cover of “I Can’t Seem to Say Goodbye” originally sung by Jerry Lee Lewis. It was an encore on his concert in England last Friday night as part of paying tribute to the recently departed icon.
In the video posted online, Dylan introduced the song by saying:
“I don’t know how many of you know, but Jerry Lee’s gone. We’re gonna play this song, one of his. Jerry Lee will live forever – we all know that.”
The singer and pianist Jerry Lee Lewis who died at the age of 87 had been ill for some time. His publicist said that the icon suffered from the way he’d “abused his body so thoroughly as a young man.” His publicist added:
“Somewhere in the world, in a mean little honky-tonk or big music hall or church basement rec room, someone is playing a Jerry Lee Lewis song.”
The two crossed paths before while working in the same studio in 1969. Dylan said in an interview that same year that, he wrote “To Be Alone With You” for Lewis. Although the song appeared on Dylan’s own country-influenced Nashville Skyline, Lewis covered Dylan’s 1976 B-side “Rita May” when he returned to the rock ’n’ roll scene by 1979.
Meanwhile, Dylan is touring across the UK with six shows remaining before it wraps up this November. Watch his performance below.
