Bob Dylan played a cover of Chuck Berry’s “Roll Over Beethoven” at his concert in Fort Myers, Florida, on Thursday night.
You can hear fan-captured audio of the cover below.
“In my universe, Chuck is irreplaceable,” Dylan said to Rolling Stone of Berry in 2009. “All that brilliance is still there, and he’s still a force of nature. As long as Chuck Berry’s around, everything’s as it should be. This is a man who has been through it all. The world treated him so nasty. But in the end, it was the world that got beat.”
The day before that, Dylan threw in a cover of Johnny Cash’s “Big River,” which is also available to listen to below. It was the first time he’d played the song since 2003 when Dylan sat in with the Grateful Dead on a co-headlining tour.
Dylan’s Recent Cover History
Dylan’s current set list focuses primarily on songs from his 2020 album Rough and Rowdy Ways, but he’s been slipping in covers from time to time. During the past few legs of his tour, he’s played songs by Jerry Lee Lewis, Leonard Cohen, Van Morrison, John Mellencamp and more.
Dylan is currently scheduled to continue his own tour until April. After that, he’ll hit the road with Willie Nelson, Robert Plant, Alison Krauss and Celisse for this year’s Outlaw Music Festival tour. (Mellencamp and Brittney Spencer will also perform on the tour beginning in late July.)
Listen to Bob Dylan Cover Chuck Berry’s ‘Roll Over Beethoven’
Listen to Bob Dylan Cover Johnny Cash’s ‘Big River’