Blonde On Bob Million Dollar Birthday Bash, City Screen, York - May 24

Chris Euesden and co will be doing so tomorrow night, but the event will be all the more special for two reasons: today is Dylan’s 70th, a landmark that prompted Chris to set in motion a collection of covers by British and American folk and roots musicians for release last week on his label Fat Cat Records.

“I had the idea about 18 months ago when it occurred to me that this year was going to be significant birthday for Dylan and I thought it would be a great idea to put out an album,” says Chris.

“Chris While and Julie Matthews are my main artists on the label and I knew that was a starting point [they recorded Mississippi and To Make You Feel My Love respectively].

“Then I started asking around. Clive Gregson was next; I asked him when he played York and he said ‘yes’ straightaway. He went back to the States – he lives in Memphis now – and a month later this CD arrives with his track, Tomorrow Is A Long Time.”

Chris had envisaged a single CD at first but it expanded quickly to a double disc of 30 tracks. “Everyone I asked said ‘yes’ to being involved. I either saw them in person or wrote to them, and the idea was that I didn’t want them all to be well-known. I wanted good quality, but young as well as older,” he says.

“Going down to the Black Swan Folk Club, you find his songs being covered by young musicians, and so that’s why we’re featuring Rosalie Deighton, Edwina Hayes, Dan Wilde, Ewan McLennan and Costanza [Chris’s son Tom’s band].”

The familiar likes of Chris Smither, Dave Burland, Christine Collister, Martin Simpson, Steve Phillips and Jez Lowe contribute covers too, as do Blonde On Bob, of course.

“The great touch that finished it perfectly for me was Ian McMillan, the Barnsley bard, doing an introduction. I saw him at the Radio 2 Folk Awards this year, and at that point the album was due to be pressed the next week, and I said it would be great if he could do a new poem. A day later, he emailed it to me and I went to see him in Barnsley to record it in his front room,” says Chris.

He reports “a lot of interest” in the one old recording, the late Tony Capstick’s 1972 concert version of To Ramona. “It came through contacts in South Yorkshire who knew Tony well and it turned up on a reel-to-reel from a mixing desk,” says Chris. “Though he was better known for his comedy, he could really put over a song.”

The diversity of musicians on Younger Than That Now affirms Dylan’s appeal across the generations in a career stretching to nigh on 50 years. “I think his trick is that he’s never stood still in terms of his creativity. His style has always changed,” says Chris.

“People still go on about when he went electric – I was at the Gaumont in Sheffield in May 1966 when half the audience was trying to boo him off as he was seen as a traitor to the folk cause – but since then he’s been through loads of phases. The country phase, the three gospel albums and, more recently, the blues songs: people expect him to be one thing and he’s another.”

Chris dismisses “the number of bad reviews Dylan has had”. “He never stops touring, and he’s still at the top of his form. I would argue that he’s just doing a different thing and he’s always done a different thing; who’s to say it’s the best of his phases but it’s always interesting,” he says.

“The thing with Dylan is that he’s not nostalgic; he’s always contemporary. He’s got this touring band where night after night the set list changes – and he’s now 70. It’s incredible.”

Chris notes how Dylan’s songs resonate through the years. “I’ve called the album Younger Than That Now – it’s a line from My Back Pages – as it sums up how Dylan keeps on regenerating,” he says.

“And when people say ‘I don’t like Dylan’s voice’, I ask ‘Which one?’ because he has so many voices.”

Blonde On Bob and Rory Motion play the Blonde On Bob Million Dollar Birthday Bash tomorrow night in The Basement, City Screen, York, 8pm.

The album can be bought online at circuitmusic.co.uk. All proceeds will go to Oxfam.