Best of Dylan Fest Night 1: Kesha, Boz Scaggs, Ruby Amanfu, Emmylou, Wynonna and More

Happy birthday, Bob Dylan! Popular music's most influential living songwriter (or most influential songwriter period) turns 75 today. It's a milestone Nashville celebrated in style last night with the first of two star- and semi-star-studded Dylan Fest tributes at the Ryman. In case you're wondering, The Bob himself didn't make a surprise appearance, and though you can catch him in the flesh at Fontanel next month, he was at the Ryman in spirit, with 27 songs from his half-century-spanning catalog channeled by the likes of Emmylou Harris, Kesha, Kurt Vile, Boz Scaggs and others.

Go to a Dylan show today (or pretty much anytime in the past decade or so) and you're going to see the singer be an enigmatic shadow of himself. He does play crowd pleasers, though the crowd can't always recognize them. He still has an iconic presence, even if you're looking a backlit silhouette all night. He's there, fading into the sunset show by show. That made last night's celebration — a benefit for Thistle Farms put on by freewheelin' rock-legend-homaging institution Best Fest — feel more like a revue of rolling thunder than an actual Bob Dylan concert does now, and in turn, more like a wake than a birthday bash.

The show also reinforced Dylan's uncontested relevance. With a mournful rendition of "The Times They Are A-Changin’," Holly Williams breathed life into a song that's been covered to death. And she did so at a moment when it's clear that the times still are a-changin' (as times tend to do), but this pensive take raised the question: are they a-changin' for the better? (Looking at you, Donald Drumpf.) 

In Martin Scorsese's 2005 documentary No Direction Home, Dylan somewhat emphatically proclaims that he is not a topical songwriter. Perhaps that's because his songs are timeless. That came through in Kesha's stirring, soulful rendition of "I Shall Be Released" — the most poignant (and one of the most impressive) performances of the night. "We hope that she'll be free to do her thing," house band bassist and de facto emcee Austin Scaggs said introducing the singer, who's been embroiled in a bitter legal battle with her label, Sony Music, and her producer, Dr. Luke. In a lawsuit, Kesha claims the label was enslaving her by holding her to a contract with the producer, who she alleges raped her in 2005 and subjected her to years of physical and emotional abuse. Not only does Kesha's saga make her a fitting performer for a show benefiting Thistle Farms — an organization that advocates for female survivors of abuse, addiction, trafficking and prostitution — it made "I Shall Be Released," a song about a prisoner seeking redemption from an unjust justice system," a fittingly topical selection. And now anyone in the house who only knew Kesha only for pop hits like "Tik Tok" and "Die Young" knows she can really sing. 

And leave it to Emmylou Harris to casually show up to the Mother Church and bring down the house. Joined by Wilco's Pat Sansone, Harris didn't miss a beat when her faulty guitar strap came undone during her arresting version of "Every Grain of Sand." Even Ryman security guards looked transfixed, not to mention the night's earlier performers watching in the wings. Some of them — Wynonna Judd, Lane, Amanfu and Shelly Colvin — came out next to sing backup for Harris and Heart's Ann Wilson on another later-era Dylan chestnut, "Ring Them Bells." But it was Wilson's take on "Like a Rolling Stone" that brought people out of the pews, galvanizing the crowd and transcending the night. It's a song that — even 75 years after Dylan is gone — will never cease to do that.