Blind Willie McTell

About Blind Willie McTell

"Blind Willie McTell" is a song written and performed by Bob Dylan, titled after the blues singer Blind Willie McTell. It was recorded in the spring of 1983, during the sessions for Dylan's album Infidels, but was left off the album and officially released only in 1991 on The Bootleg Series Volumes 1–3 (Rare & Unreleased) 1961–1991. The melody is loosely based on "St. James Infirmary Blues". For the song, Dylan, seated at the piano and accompanied by Mark Knopfler on acoustic guitar, sings a series of plaintive verses depicting allegorical scenes which reflect on the history of American music and slavery. Each verse ends with the same refrain: "Nobody can sing the blues like Blind Willie McTell". Two versions exist. An acoustic version with Mark Knopfler and an electric version with Mick Taylor playing slide guitar can be found. Following three albums with overt Christian themes, Infidels struck most major rock critics as dealing largely with secular concerns, and they hailed it as a comeback. When bootleggers released the outtakes from Infidels, the song was recognized as a composition approaching the quality of such classics as "Tangled Up in Blue", "Like a Rolling Stone" and "All Along the Watchtower". According to Dylan biographer Clinton Heylin, the song is regarded by many as "Dylan's one indisputable masterpiece of the early eighties.""Blind Willie McTell" was a concert staple for the Band throughout the 1990s. They also recorded it for their 1993 album Jericho. Dylan later claimed in a Rolling Stone interview that hearing the Band's version of the song inspired him to begin performing it at his own concerts: more »