Blind Lemon Jefferson / 2:44
Musician
Bob Dylan: vocals, guitar
Recording Studio
Columbia Recording Studios / Studio A, New York: November 20, 1961
Technical Team
Producer: John Hammond
Sound Engineers: George Knuerr and Pete Dauria
Bob Dylan’s first album ends with a blues song by Blind Lemon Jefferson (recorded in October 1927 for Paramount), a pioneer of Texas blues and a mentor of Leadbelly and Lightnin’ Hopkins, then musicians of blues rock and folk rock in the 1960s. “See That My Grave Is Kept Clean” is actually an adaptation of a spiritual, “One Kind Favor.” There have been multiple versions by everyone from the Grateful Dead to Lou Reed, and from Canned Heat to Dave Van Ronk. Bob Dylan’s recording is quite different from Jefferson’s version—the first is dark, the second brimming with life. But both singers ask one favor: that someone keep their graves clean!
Dylan delivers an incredible interpretation of this haunting blues song. He plays his Gibson J-50 with conviction and inspiration with an open tuning in D, even if he slightly tangles his fingers at 1:08. His voice is poignant and tormented; the shadow of Robert Johnson is omnipresent—Dylan adored him. Of all the covers, it is certainly the one that sounds the most authentic. Even B. B. King does not hold a candle to Bob Dylan’s version. And he was only twenty years old… Dylan would later say: “What’s depressing today is that so many young singers are trying to get inside the blues, forgetting that those older singers used them to get outside their troubles.”11 It took four takes, after a false start, to record the song. The last is judged the best and retained. “See That My Grave Is Kept Clean” had another life in the Dylan discography, since he rerecorded the song with the Band on The Genuine Basement Tapes in 1967.