Bob Dylan‘s summer tour came to a close August 1 at the Ascend Federal Credit Union Amphitheater in Nashville, Tennessee. It was a tumultuous run of dates marked by the sudden exit of two longtime guitarists, and the emergence of three replacement members who came and went from the tour in unprecedented fashion. And in Nashville, Dylan continued the endless game of guitarist musical chairs by inviting opening act Jimmie Vaughan onto his stage for three songs.
It began five songs into the night when Vaughan wandered onto the stage for the Rough and Rowdy Ways tune “False Prophet.” “Jimmie got very close to Bob, was playing to him and Bob was smiling, laughing and actually singing some pointed lyrics at Jimmie,” Henry Bernstein, host of the Dylan podcast Songs of Experience, noted in his review of the show for Ray Padgett’s indispensable Flagging Down the Double E’s newsletter. “Julian looked like all of us. Bob gave several approving nods. Vaughan started off quiet but then got more and more brave with his solos.”
Vaughan remained on the stage for Bo Diddley’s 1961 deep cut “I Can Tell,” which Dylan has played 84 times over the past two years. “Right away Jimmie had no problem launching into some really slick solos,” Bernstein noted. “Since the aesthetic of his Tilt-a-Whirl band is sort of a 1950s thing, this song was perfect for him…. The ‘No no no no no more baby’ was more demonstrative, especially over Jimmie’s solos, than I’ve ever seen. Bob then gave a final nod/bow to Jimmie and said very clearly through a laugh, ‘Thank you Jimmie!’”
Vaughan exited for the next eight songs, but came back one last time for Rough and Rowdy Ways‘ “Goodbye Jimmy Reed” near the end of the set. “Bob audibly laughed, when saying once again, ‘Hehe, thank you Jimmie!’” Bernstein wrote. “It was the biggest smile I’ve ever seen.”
Dylan’s relationship with Jimmie Vaughan goes back to the 1990 Under The Red Sky sessions, where producer Don Was brought many superstars into the studio, including David Crosby, George Harrison, Elton John, and Slash. Jimmie Vaughan and his late brother, Stevie Ray Vaughan, are featured on “10,000 Men,” “God Knows,” and “Cat’s in the Well,” and Jimmie Vaughan alone plays on “Handy Dandy.”
On April 6, 2024, Jimmie Vaughan performed nine songs with Dylan at the Moody Theater in Austin, Texas. Guitarist Doug Lancio walked off the stage whenever Vaughan came out. And Lancio walked out of Dylan’s band seemingly forever this year following a June 17 show at the Santa Barbara Bowl. He was replaced by jazz guitar prodigy Julian Lage. Two weeks later, guitarist Bob Britt, who joined Dylan’s band in 2019, quit the tour with a sudden “Sayonara Bobby” Facebook post.
This created some real complications since Lage has a busy schedule and wasn’t able to appear at every show. Chicago based jazz and blues guitarist Joel Paterson joined up with the tour on June 29, and initially handled all the guitar parts on his own. He was eventually joined by Memphis-based R&B guitarist Jad Tariq, though Lage would reappear as his schedule allowed. Whenever that happened, Tariq would vanish; he’s essentially Lage’s understudy. (There’s almost no precedent for anything like this in Dylan’s long history as a touring artist, with the exception of the summer of 2013 when Duke Robillard left the band, and Charlie Sexton and Colin Linden took turns replacing him for a few weeks due to Sexton’s commitments to the Court Yard Hands.)
Dylan is off the road until he begins an extensive string of European dates in Oslo, Norway, on October 17. Lage will be touring America at that point, and won’t be able to fly over until mid-November. And a December 5 booking in Katonah, NY, means he’d have to miss at least a couple Dylan shows at London’s Royal Festival Hall. (These are rather historic gigs since Dylan hasn’t played there since 1964.)
In all likelihood, Paterson and Tariq will be in the band for the majority of the European tour, if not the entire thing. But as always, it’s impossible to say anything definitive about the makeup of Dylan’s band on any particular night until they walk onstage.
