Willie Nelson, Bob Dylan, John Mellencamp: Outlaw Music Festival

Willie Nelson will hit the road this summer for his annual Outlaw Music Festival tour, and Bob Dylan will join all 26 shows. They will be accompanied in the first match by Robert Plant and Alison Krauss, and John Mellencamp in the second. Billy Strings, Brittney Spencer, Celisse and Southern Avenue will also perform with them at different stops along the route. It will begin June 21 in Alpharetta, Georgia.

“This year’s Outlaw Music Festival tour promises to be the biggest and best ever with this lineup of legendary artists,” Nelson said in a statement. “I’m excited to get back on the road with my family and friends to play the music we love for the fans we love.”

Dylan joined the Outlaw Festival for a few shows in 2017, but this is his first time participating in the entire tour. His friendship with Nelson, however, dates back several decades. They co-wrote the song “Heartland” together in 1993.

“(Willie) is like a philosophical poet,” Dylan said that year. “He quickly gets to the heart of the matter. He takes it out and then it’s over. It leaves listeners thinking. His guitar playing is quite phenomenal. I never see anyone giving him credit as a musician. In my book he is at the top. He takes everything he sings about and makes it his own. There aren’t many people who can do that.

In the summer of 2004, Nelson and Dylan played together in minor league baseball parks across America. In 2009, they took John Mellencamp with them when they iterated on the concept. Dylan rarely shares the stage with other artists, but he frequently invited Nelson in 2004 for duets on “I Shall Be Released”, “Heartland” and “Milk Cow Blues”. They first performed together in 1976 when Nelson appeared at a Rolling Thunder Revue stop in Houston for “Gotta Travel On.”

In recent years, Dylan has largely confined himself to intimate theaters during his tours of America. But in the summer of 2013, he hit the summer amphitheater circuit with Wilco and My Morning Jacket. “The whole concept of the tour was supposed to be super collaborative,” My Morning Jacket frontman Jim James told Rolling Stone a few months after the tour ended. “We expected to be sitting around the campfire with Dylan at two in the morning and saying, ‘Let’s talk about the whole Desire tomorrow!’ » We had all these dreams.

Jeff Tweedy of James and Wilco, however, had the chance to play with Dylan on a few occasions. They were brought out near the end of his set for the band’s traditional folk song “Twelve Gates to the City” and “The Weight.” “His bass player, Tony (Garnier), did all the communication with us about who was going to sing which verse,” James said. “They were changing keys literally a minute before we went on, like ‘Bob wants to do it in E flat.’ It was really cool and something I can tell the grandkids about.