By Luke Voogt
Singer-songwriter Jeff Jenkins was never a “huge fan” of Bob Dylan but after almost every show he would get the same response.
“Someone would come up and say ’geez you sound like Bob Dylan’,” the Yarra Valley local told the Indy Monday.
“In my head, when I was singing I always thought I sounded like Bruce Springsteen, but clearly not.”
Jenkins had been playing his own music across the valley for 15 years. But two years ago, he decided to create a “homage” to Dylan.
“I read everything I could get my hands on about Dylan and pulled all the fascinating stories together,” he said.
“Dylan is an intriguing subject because of his constant evolution as an artist, immense catalogue of work and his personality; he’s a man who always marches to the beat of his own drum.”
In DYLANesque Jenkins tells the revered songwriter’s journey from hitchhiking to New York with $10 in his pocket to winning the Nobel Prize for literature.
“I’m basically being me talking about Bob Dylan and sounding like him when I play his songs,” he said. “It’s kind of turning people on to Bob Dylan, his music and his life.”
“It’s a fascinating journey that he had. We don’t just go bang, bang, bang and knock out 40 songs.”
He follows Dylan’s career, relationships and break ups and his profound impact on pop culture – with “a little artistic licence”.
“He’s resisted being pigeon-holed his whole life,” he said. “Everyone who ever wrote a song owes something to Bob Dylan.”
Many know Jimmi Hedrix’s All Along the Watchtower or Eric Clapton’s and Guns N’ Roses’ Knocking on Heaven’s Door, but few realise Dylan wrote them, Jenkins said.
“We put a lot of songs in that were big for other people, but were actually written by Bob Dylan.”
Jenkins brings his musical theatre experience to the show. In the ’80s he was in the original Australian production Cats and other iconic plays in Melbourne.
“I just wanted to marry together all of my skills,” the 58-year-old said.
Bob Dylan still performs at the age of 76. But most of the “mercurial” artist’s recent shows would include current work, obscure songs and “just a few of his hits”, Jenkins said.
“(A Dylan show) will either be one of the greatest things you ever see or one the worst. I think we’re putting on the Bob Dylan show that people really want to see.”
Jenkins performs in Geelong for the first time his life when he takes to the stage at Geelong Performing Arts Centre on 17 June.
“I’ve got quite a few friends down that way in Barwon Heads – so I’m looking forward to it,” he said.
