Local musician gets help from friends for Dylan tribute

Local musician Jason Bennett hopes to take Bob Dylan to the Grammys.

Or at least his music. Bennett produced and performed on an album of Dylan covers, “Positively Pikes Peak: The Pikes Peak Region Sings Bob Dylan.” 

“I found out a few years ago that the Grammys are open to anybody,” Bennett said. “You just have to get the record company through. I said, ‘Shoot, I got seven albums out, I’ve sold in about 30 different countries, maybe I’ll give it a shot.’”

His shot hit the mark. Bennett recently received a confirmation letter from the music guild that his company was accepted. Next, his album will be screened, and then has a chance to be an entrant nomination in the Best Folk Album category.

Bennett, who started writing music as a teen and has continued to pen his own songs ever since, has long drawn inspiration from Dylan’s unusual sound.

“It was so raw, so rugged,” he said. “It wasn’t what you heard on the radio. Sandpaper voice and real lyrics — it wasn’t pristine and polished stuff. That’s what drew me to it.”

The 13-track album is a collaboration between the same number of Colorado Springs-based musicians and a benefit for COPPeR, the Cultural Office of the Pikes Peak Region. The artists are trying to raise $3,000 for the nonprofit organization, which uses art to address such issues as economic development, education, tourism, regional branding and civic life.

It isn’t the first philanthropic venture for Bennett, who takes time from his “typical, uninspiring corporate America business job” to raise funds for those in need.

Bennett produced performed in a concert that helped send Colorado Springs Children’s Chorale performers to South Africa. When the Nicaraguan government razed a women’s health center in Mulukuku, he participated in an album of the same name to help raise money for repair.

He said changing the world isn’t his goal, but helping the community in any way he can is.

“I’ve always been into doing anything to help out,” he says. “I don’t expect to make a lot of money for my music anyway; I’m not the big commercial type.”

Though he’s received a little national recognition before — his song “Too Much Paperwork” was featured on PBS’ “Roadtrip Nation” — his ultimate goal is to have a major artist record one of his songs.

“I fancy myself more of a writer than a performer,” Bennett says.

Bennett’s eighth album, “Walsenburg Line,” a four-song EP, is slated for release in late summer.

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Contact the writer at 636-0257.