Bob Dylan Continues His Grateful Dead Cover Streak By Breaking Out ‘Stella Blue’ in Spain

Prior to a couple of months ago, Bob Dylan had only played covered four Grateful Dead songs (“Friend of the Devil,” “West L.A. Fadeaway,” “Alabama Getaway,” “Black Muddy River”) throughout his entire career as a live performer. He added two more into the mix (“Truckin’” and “Brokedown Palace”) during a Japanese leg of the Never Ending Tour in April, and during a stop in Barcelona, Spain on Friday night he broke out a beautiful rendition of “Stella Blue” from the Dead’s 1973 LP Wake of the Flood:

Since returning from a nearly two-year break from the road in November 2021, Dylan has stuck with a relatively rigid setlist tilted heavily towards songs from 2020’s Rough and Rowdy Ways along with older deep cuts like “I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight,” “Every Grain of Sand,” and “When I Paint My Masterpiece.” The 1979 gospel tune “Gotta Serve Somebody” is the closest thing in his rotation to a hit song.

But surprises started surfacing in recent months with the addition of the Dead songs along with the 2016 Bob Weir solo tune “Only a River,” Buddy Holly’s “Not Fade Away” (which was regularly covered the Dead), Van Morrison’s “Into The Mystic,” and the Love and Theft favorite “Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum.”

It’s unclear exactly why Dylan is focused on the Dead’s music at this point, though Dead and Company are in the final weeks of their farewell tour, which wraps up July 16 at Oracle Park in San Francisco. They played “Stella Blue” themselves June 21 at New York’s Citi Field.” They’ve also sent love back to Dylan this year by playing “All Along The Watchtower” and “Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door.” Over the past few years, they’ve also trotted out “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall,” “When I Paint My Masterpiece,” “Queen Jane Approximately,” “Quinn the Eskimo,” and “Maggie’s Farm.”

Dylan’s European tour concludes July 9 in Rome, Italy. That gives him plenty of time to jet over to San Francisco to join Dead and Co. at their last show. That’s probably not going to happen, but let’s hope he decides to go into the studio soon and record these Grateful Dead covers. He nearly has enough of their music in his repertoire now to fill up a whole record.