Dylan might well have approved. On the off chance you’re wondering, the gent in question is legendary Nobel Prize-winning octogenarian troubadour Bob Dylan, not the iconic late firebrand Welsh poet Dylan Thomas. The former’s portfolio forms the core of the Dylan Dyalana show, which is to take place at the Yellow Submarine on April 9 (doors open 8:30 p.m., show starts 9:30 p.m.).
Dylan Dyalana – a neat alliterative play on words in Arabic meaning “our Dylan” – is the brainchild of singer-guitarist, actor, and storyteller Roee Fadida and ethnic-leaning saz and wind instrument player and singer Ittai Binnun, with Fadida responsible for artistic direction and Binnun doing all the song arrangements. The Jerusalem gig sees them unfurl a broad-ranging repertoire of Dylan numbers alongside bass player Nitai Marcos, percussionist Amitai Ezrony, and vocalist Noa Ben Shoshan.
Dylan Dyalana, I learn, has been brewing for some time.
“Both Roee and I have been engaged with this material for over a decade,” Binnun notes. “I did Masters of War for the Ittai & The Toys record in 2016, and Roee has been running his [Dylan] tribute show for at least five to six years.
The titular possessive pronoun gives the rationale game away. “Around two-thirds of the songs have been translated into Hebrew,” Binnun tells me when we meet up in his home studio in leafy Ein Kerem. “And they are wonderful translations, by Eran Reiss. He did a good job,” he adds.
But it is not just about singing Dylan numbers in the language spoken by the majority of the people who live in this country.
“Roee and I began to collaborate around two and a half years ago,” Binnun explains. “The first one we did was Shelter from the Storm [from Dylan’s 1975 release Blood on the Tracks], to see if we could do it. Roee comes more from the textual side. He’s a Dylan professor,” Binnun laughs. “That comes into the show, the connection between Dylan’s biography and his writing, the different periods of his writing – his religious period, his secular period. Roee talks about that [in the show].”
Dylan’s legendary meandering timeline
There is clearly plenty to dig into, not just Bob Dylan’s legendary meandering timeline but also the base scores and how they can be refashioned as extensions of the multifarious cultural and musical strands that feed into Israeli society. Binnun is in charge of that aspect of the project.
“We don’t try to Easternize the vocals. It is more about the arrangements, the rhythms, the instruments,” he says. “I play saz and different Eastern wind instruments. They gives it the vibe.” That creates an intriguing brew which marries the seemingly disparate parts of the cross-cultural synthesis. “Even the songs that are not translated into Hebrew are translated into something local, from here, in musical terms.”
“Local,” I posit, leaves Binnun et al. with plenty of options. This country is a veritable panoply of sights, smells, and sounds from all parts of the Earth and informs our musical output, which is one of the most richly varied to be found anywhere on the planet.
Binnun has long subscribed to the eclectic side of the artistic tracks. “I worked for years under the title of ‘Music from the Streets of Jerusalem.’ That’s a title that allows me to do anything I want,” he chuckles.
FIFTYSOMETHING Binnun’s love affair with Dylan started as he was beginning to sort out his place in the world.
“I started getting into Dylan when I was 16. I was a kid with long hair and a guitar. I heard ‘Blowin’ in the Wind’ and ‘The Times They Are a-Changin’.’”
The lyrics of the latter struck home for the teenage-rebellion-stage youngster. “There’s the stanza that opens with ‘Come mothers and fathers.’ When you’re 16, that really means a lot,” he laughs. “That and Cat Stevens’s number ‘Father and Son.’” That, too, talks about generation gaps and the older folks’ poor grasp of their offsprings’ evolving handle on the world.
It was a powerful catalyst for the 16-year-old and launched what turned out to be a lifelong fascination with Dylan’s lyrics and music. “His work has stayed relevant for me throughout. At every station in my life, there is a Dylan song that gives me the feeling that it was written yesterday about today.”
'Israelifying' Dylan's relevance
Binnun says there are all-round benefits to be had for us all, regardless of age group. “His songs are simply relevant. It is not just about politics that appear in newspaper headlines. His songs show you how to live, how to be a human being, how to gain a greater understanding of the world, of yourself, relationships!”
Back then, did the long-haired teenager with a beef with his parents, and the other “grizzlies,” consider the possibility of performing his idol’s oeuvre in his own mother tongue?
“At the age of 16? No, I certainly didn’t think about that.”
The confluence with Fadida provided the spark for getting serious about “Israelifying” Dylan’s songs. “The idea of the textual translation wasn’t so important for me until I met Roee. I was interested in translating the music. Roee is the text person.”
Things soon came together.
“Of course, you can’t do anything with the music without relating to the text,” Binnun continues. “I would say that the text is the main ingredient.”
Then again, when he got down to the nuts and bolts of the original melodies, he got a pleasant surprise. “Mind you, when I began to work on the songs and to deconstruct them musically, in order to reassemble them in my own style I discovered that the charts weren’t so simple or obvious. There are some very complex songs in there. They may sound simple – they sound as if they have only two chords – but they aren’t.”
That complexity is down to the words. “Suddenly you discover a back-to-front chord, and you have half a bar. That’s because of the text.” So, Dylan adapted the music to the lyrics? “Yes,” Binnun confirms. “If there needs to be an extra beat, there will be one. The drummer will have to learn to count it in,” he laughs.
“Dylan had the budget to bring in musicians who can handle that, and we, thankfully, have drummers who know how to count.” Ezrony will, no doubt, be on his toes on April 9.
Two young fans mature with the iconic songwriter
FADIDA IS similarly taken with Dylan’s six decade-plus portfolio.
“The words and the way he performs, there are so many things about him I admire,” he declares.
The degree of adulation has changed for Fadida over the years as he matured as a person and as an artist. “It depends whom you ask. You can ask the 15-year-old boy who heard Dylan for the first time, who was blown away and took a few days to take it on board, or you can ask who I am today.
“I have been examining Dylan’s journey, together with my own journey, for many years. You’d get a different answer from me now.”
It has been something of an odyssey for Fadida, following Dylan’s progression from a powder keg of creativity as he immersed himself in the deep seams of American folk music, to the titan he is today. “I got bitten by the Dylan bug when I was 15, and I’m still hooked on him. What grabs me about Dylan now is the change, the fact that he is always moving on and looking for something new.”
Not a bad way to go about things in general, not just in the musical sphere. “That is a sort of credo for life, a spiritual path he takes. That comes across in his music, which has that quality, and also in his persona, which is constantly changing. His songs constantly take on new twists and readings. And his musical direction can vary very widely, from Frank Sinatra-style to hillbilly songs and blues. That is what interests me and draws me powerfully to Dylan.”
In spite of his textual leanings today, the 42-year-old Fadida says he is also taken with Dylan’s musicality. “The 15-year-old kid I was then didn’t understand all the nuances of the English-language words Dylan used. I think it was more about his presentation of the material, and his spirit, and the sense of freedom, his presence – that is what grabbed me.”
With over a decade between their ages, Binnun and Fadida represent two different generations of music fans.
Fadida says that one’s entry point to Dylan’s rich overarching repertoire is not critical.
“The first record of his I heard was Time Out of Mind, in 1997. It was brand new then. I didn’t know his back catalogue.” That isn’t entirely accurate, even though Fadida’s knowledge of a Dylan classic came to him via a vicarious route. “I heard Dylan’s ‘Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door’ played by [American hard rock band] Guns N’ Roses [on their 1991 album Use Your Illusion I]. I liked it. Then the brother of a friend gave me the [1997] record to listen to, and I fell in love with it.”
Fadida began to follow his Dylanesque muse, performing his works solo, until his and Binnun’s paths crossed. “Since then, I have been keeping tabs on anything he does, for 25 years, and I keep digging into his past to discover treasures I hadn’t heard before.”
We all Dylan at the Yellow Submarine
SOME OF those gems will feature in the Yellow Submarine show, seasoned with Middle Eastern spices courtesy of Binnun’s saz, a long-necked Persian string instrument, and an array of wind instruments rooted in this part of the world. Some songs, such as “One More Cup of Coffee,” off the 1976 release Desire, which will be performed in Hebrew, neatly lend themselves to a trill-leaning reading. “Shelter from the Storm” gets a more faithful – Hebrew-language – rendition, with Fadida’s guitar dovetailing smoothly with Binnun’s saz.
The original English lyrics side of the show playlist takes in three numbers from Dylan’s early days – “Girl from the North Country” and “Masters of War,” both from The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, which came out in 1963, and “The Times They Are a-Changin’,” the title track off the record released the following year. “Make You Feel My Love,” from the first Dylan record Fadida wrapped his teenage ears round, also makes the English-language cut.
The Hebrew side of the program spans great swaths of Dylan’s discography, including “Hard Rain” from the mid-’70s, “Mother of Muses,” which was released in 2020, “Man Gave Names to All the Animals” from 1979 album Slow Train Coming, shortly after Dylan converted to Christianity, “Every Grain of Sand” from 1981, and “One Too Many Mornings” off The Times They Are a-Changin’.
Binnun and Fadida openly express deep emotion when they talk about Bob Dylan and his music and his continuing relevance to this day and age, even as the times they keep on a-changin’. Sadly, often that is not for the better, but at least for now, we have Dylan and his music to bolster us, regardless of the language.
It is “our Dylan” indeed.
For tickets and more information: yellowsubmarine.org
