12 Wallflowers Basic Rock Collaborations

If you find yourself the offspring of a well-known musician, your final title turns into each a burden and a curse.

That is very true for those who determine to even be a musician. Whereas having a well-known mother or father may help you meet the appropriate folks, it could additionally immediate comparability after comparability. As Wolfgang Van Halen, son of Eddie Van Halen, as soon as put it: “Certain, the title does assist open some doorways, however I don’t assume it helps to maintain them open.”

Jakob Dylan, son of Bob Dylan, has confronted comparable challenges and has spent years of his musical profession doing what he can to forge his personal path away from the shadow of his father’s profession. Objectively talking, he is executed a reasonably good job of being profitable together with his personal band, the Wallflowers, which he fashioned in 1989. Between the band and his solo title, there have been three Grammy wins and tens of hundreds of thousands of albums offered. (Satirically, the Wallflowers received a Grammy for Finest Rock Efficiency by a Duo Or Group With Vocal on the identical ceremony his father received Album of the 12 months in 1997.)

One perk of being Jakob Dylan, in fact, is that legendary rock musicians may be extra keen to contribute to your albums. For those who mix that truth with Dylan’s personal singular expertise, you have bought a reasonably stable recipe for good music. Beneath, we’re having a look at 12 instances Dylan and/or the Wallflowers collaborated with basic rock artists.

1. Mike Campbell of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

Not many youngsters get to go on the street with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, however Dylan did when his dad employed them to be his backing band within the mid ’80s. In different phrases: Dylan bought to see up shut and private how a completely fashioned, touring rock band functioned and it clearly had a final impression on him. A few years after that, guitarist Mike Campbell appeared on the Wallflowers’ 1996 album Bringing Down the Horse. “I performed on [‘Sixth Avenue Heartache’],” Campbell recalled to UCR in 2024, “which was actually enjoyable and I’ve all the time been happy with his profession.”

2. Adam Duritz of Counting Crows

We’re really going to stick with “sixth Avenue Heartache” for a second as a result of Campbell just isn’t the one well-known visitor on it. The voice you hear singing the backing vocals is none apart from Adam Duritz of Counting Crows, who principally bought the half down instantly. The Wallflowers’ supervisor known as him up one night and requested if he might come to the studio that night time. “I lived up within the Canyons,” Duritz recalled to Stereogum in 2021, “so I simply drove right down to the studio within the Valley, bought a beer, they usually performed me the tune. I requested them to play it once more, I grabbed one other beer, after which I sang it a couple of times. We listened to it, and I left. It was very easy. I heard it and I knew what to do straight away. Generally you simply nail it.”

3. Elvis Costello

When Dylan wrote “Homicide 101,” a observe that appeared on 2000’s (Breach), he knew what it wanted: Elvis Costello‘s voice. “With out him on that tune, it seemed like anyone making an attempt to do their tackle Elvis Costello,” Dylan defined to Stereogum in 2021. “Moderately than keep away from that, I assumed nice, simply go get the man. Do not run from it, go proper at it. … He’s a kind of folks you may say can sing the telephone ebook and he’ll elevate no matter he’s doing from OK or mundane to good materials. I don’t assume we ever even performed that tune. I believe it was my very own private enjoyment of having the ability to sing with Elvis Costello.”

4. Frank Black of Pixies

There’s one thing type of candy about Dylan having a fellow determine from the ’90s various rock increase be a visitor on “Letters From the Wasteland” from (Breach). We’re talking about Frank Black of Pixies, who sang backing vocals on the observe.

5. Mitchell Froom of Crowded Home

Mitchell Froom of Crowded Home is the person liable for arranging the horns on (Breach). Froom, curiously, additionally labored on Bob Dylan’s 1988 album Down within the Groove, taking part in keyboards on a tune known as “Had a Dream About You, Child.”

6. Mike McCready of Pearl Jam

This is one other instance of a fellow ’90s rocker lending Dylan a hand. For 2002’s Purple Letter Days it got here within the type of Pearl Jam guitarist Mike McCready, who performed on a number of of the album’s songs. Conserving the Pearl Jam connection going, the Wallflowers enlisted producer Brenden O’Brien, who labored on plenty of Pearl Jam releases, for his or her subsequent album, 2005’s Insurgent, Sweetheart.

7. Mick Jones of the Conflict

Dylan was actually a child when he first heard he music of the Conflict, and it instantly spoke to him. “I might see that they have been clearly descendants of a lot nice music and naturally the Beatles in the way in which they put songs collectively,” he advised Acoustic Guitar journal in 2010. “I nonetheless play that Telecaster due to Joe Strummer. That’s the one clarification.” In 2012, Mick Jones of the Conflict appeared on two songs from the Wallflowers’ album Glad All Over, “Misfits and Lovers” and “Reboot the Mission.”

8. Jack Irons of Purple Sizzling Chili Peppers and Pearl Jam

However wait there’s extra. For those who listened to the above observe you might have observed Dylan sing “welcome Jack, the brand new drummer / he jammed with the mighty Joe Strummer.” That is a transparent a reference to the album’s drummer, Jack Irons, a founding member of Purple Sizzling Chili Peppers and a member of Pearl Jam for a stint within the mid ’90s. “They handled me actually properly,” Irons mentioned of the expertise to Rolling Stone in 2022. “I all the time felt like a visitor, in a way. I used to be a band member, however these guys had been in a band for years, with all of the ups and downs that comes with that. I used to be a visitor. I loved our inventive course of within the studio, for positive.”

9. Beck

The subsequent 5 entries aren’t technically Wallflowers releases — they’re from a soundtrack album Dylan made in 2019 known as Echo within the Canyon, which accompanied a documentary movie in regards to the music of Laurel Canyon, California within the ’60s. For it, Dylan collaborated with plenty of well-known rock mates. Beck joined him for a rendition of Pete Seeger‘s “The Bells of Rhymney,” made well-known by the Byrds in 1965.

10. Neil Younger

Then Dylan was joined Neil Younger for, of all issues, a canopy of the Seaside Boys‘ “I Simply Wasn’t Made for These Instances.” (In addition they recorded the Byrds’ “What’s Occurring.”) Younger is one other individual whose ebook Dylan has taken a web page out of. “I am going to by no means be executed refining issues,” he defined to Forbes in 2021. “So there have been issues I went again to revisit. And I realized that lesson from Neil Younger years in the past. He’d put songs on information that have been 34-year-old demo tapes and he discovered them simply as related right now.”

11. Stephen Stills and Eric Clapton

The one factor higher than collaborating with one basic rock legend is collaborating with two on the identical tune. For Buffalo Springfield‘s “Questions,” Dylan enlisted Stephen Stills and Eric Clapton. The Wallflowers and Clapton have additionally toured collectively on a number of events.

12. Josh Homme of Queens of the Stone Age

To conclude this listing, we’ll convey it again to the concept of Dylan collaborating together with his fellow ’90s rockers. Final however not least is Josh Homme of Queens of the Stone Age, who joined him for a canopy of the Monkees’ “She.”

77 Rock Stars Whose Youngsters Are Additionally Musicians