She Sings Dylan Reimagines a Legendary Songbook at River Jam at The Hounds
She Sings Dylan at The Hounds brings a different perspective to one of American music’s most familiar songbooks Tuesday, September 22, when the Connecticut-based band takes over The Hounds Terrace in Stonington for the latest chapter of River Jam.
The concert runs from 6 to 9 p.m. and features She Sings Dylan, a group built around an intriguing premise: take Bob Dylan’s enormous catalog and approach it through the voices and interpretations of women.
It’s also music for a cause.
The evening supports the Pawcatuck Neighborhood Center, with guests encouraged to bring a can of dog food to donate to the center’s pet-support efforts. Light bites from Dogwatch Catering are included with admission. The Hounds operates a cash bar, and guests should bring their own chairs.
Dylan’s Songs, From a Different Point of View
She Sings Dylan isn’t built around impersonating Bob Dylan.
That’s the point.
The band describes its approach as Dylan’s catalog “reimagined through a female lens,” taking songs listeners may have known for decades and changing the voices, arrangements and perspective around them.
That concept has plenty of historical precedent.
Dylan’s songs have always had lives beyond Dylan.
Joan Baez became one of his most important early interpreters. Nina Simone transformed The Ballad of Hollis Brown and Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues. Linda Ronstadt recorded I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight. Sheryl Crow has repeatedly explored Dylan’s catalog.
She Sings Dylan explicitly cites Baez, Simone, Ronstadt and Crow among the artists informing its approach.
That gives the band plenty of room to work.
This isn’t necessarily about reproducing the records.
It’s about the songs.
The Band Grew Out of a Rolling Thunder Project
The group’s roots go back more than a decade.
In 2014 and 2015, musicians who would eventually form She Sings Dylan performed under the name Rolling Thunder Revival.
That project had a significant connection to Dylan’s actual musical history: the performers worked alongside Rob Stoner, Dylan’s bassist and musical director during the famed Rolling Thunder Revue era.
Stoner played bass on Dylan’s Desire and toured with him during the Rolling Thunder Revue and subsequent performances.
The Rolling Thunder Revue itself was one of the strangest and most celebrated periods of Dylan’s career.
Beginning in 1975, Dylan assembled a traveling collection of musicians and artists that included Joan Baez, Roger McGuinn, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, Scarlet Rivera and others. Instead of simply mounting a conventional arena tour, the ensemble moved through smaller cities and venues with the loose atmosphere of a traveling musical caravan.
She Sings Dylan eventually emerged from its own Rolling Thunder-inspired project with a more distinctive idea.
The women took the lead.
Meet She Sings Dylan
The current lineup is anchored by Kate Hubbard on lead vocals and Sophia Coppola on vocals, mandolin, melodica and clarinet.
They’re joined by:
Jeff Martinson – guitar
Bill Carbone – drums
Sean Elkind – keyboards
Marty Moroney – bass
Collectively, those musicians bring connections to a sizable chunk of the Northeast’s jam and roots-music world, including Max Creek, The Z3, 10 Ft. Ganja Plant and Mystic Dead.
That background is particularly useful when you’re playing Dylan.
His songs can survive radical rearrangement.
They’ve been played as folk, country, blues, gospel, rock, soul, reggae and virtually everything in between. Dylan himself has spent decades changing tempos, melodies and arrangements of his own songs onstage.
A band doesn’t need to treat the studio recording as sacred to treat the song seriously.
Don’t Expect a Greatest-Hits Tribute Show
She Sings Dylan says its repertoire includes both classics and deep cuts.
That’s an important distinction.
Dylan has been releasing music since his self-titled debut arrived in 1962. His catalog stretches from early acoustic folk through electric rock, country, gospel, blues, traditional American music and the reflective songwriting of his later career.
The obvious songs alone could fill an evening: Blowin’ in the Wind, The Times They Are A-Changin’, Mr. Tambourine Man, Like a Rolling Stone, All Along the Watchtower, Tangled Up in Blue.
But Dylan’s catalog rewards going much deeper than that.
She Sings Dylan’s approach gives the band freedom to pull from that broader songbook rather than presenting a predictable procession of hits.
And the Stonington show comes just three days after the band is scheduled to perform at Wormtown Music Festival in Greenfield, Massachusetts.
After The Hounds, She Sings Dylan heads to Mohegan Sun’s Wolf Den on October 1.
Dylan Going Electric Is Part of the Story
The concert’s promotional material singles out one of the most famous moments in American music history: Bob Dylan “going electric” at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival.
It’s a good piece of trivia, but the story is more interesting than the shorthand.
Dylan appeared at Newport on July 25, 1965, strapped on an electric guitar and performed with a plugged-in band that included members of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band.
The set included Maggie’s Farm and Like a Rolling Stone.
The reaction has become legendary.
Some people booed.
Exactly why they booed remains debated. Some objected to Dylan abandoning the acoustic folk presentation with which he’d become identified. Others may have been reacting to the sound quality or the unusually short electric set.
What isn’t really debatable is what happened next.
Dylan did not go back.
His move toward electric rock had already begun on record, but Newport became the symbolic moment when one of folk music’s biggest stars publicly broke with expectations.
It helped redraw the boundaries between folk and rock.
More than 60 years later, musicians are still finding new ways to rearrange those songs.
She Sings Dylan is part of that continuing tradition.
River Jam Is Different This Year
There’s another story behind the September 22 concert.
For a decade, Mystic River Jam meant a summer weekend at Mystic Shipyard.
The annual two-day festival brought together regional rock, reggae, blues, country and jam bands while raising money for local charitable organizations. Mystic Dead became one of its recurring headliners, and the event developed a loyal local following.
But organizers announced in January that the traditional Mystic River Jam festival would not take place in 2026 after its 10-year run.
That didn’t mean River Jam disappeared.
Instead, the organization has moved into a different format.
This year, River Jam has been bringing individual concerts to The Hounds in Stonington, allowing the community-music and charitable sides of the old festival to continue without staging the full two-day Mystic Shipyard production.
The series began earlier this year with Mystic Dead at The Hounds.
She Sings Dylan is the September installment.
The Troublemakers follow on October 27, and Mystic Dead returns for a New Year’s Eve show on December 31.
So River Jam isn’t really gone.
It’s having a very different year.
The Hounds Provides a New Home
The Hounds sits at 769 Stonington Road, between Mystic and Stonington Borough.
The event venue occupies a property overlooking coastal marshland, with its Terrace providing a covered outdoor gathering space adjoining the main Quarterdeck Room.
It’s a very different environment from the former River Jam setup at Mystic Shipyard.
Instead of a full weekend festival with multiple bands and vendors, these Hounds evenings are smaller, individual concerts.
The September 22 event takes place on the Terrace.
And there’s one practical detail worth remembering before leaving home:
Bring a chair.
The organizers specifically ask guests to bring their own chairs for the concert.
Your Ticket Includes Food
The night isn’t just the concert.
Light bites from Dogwatch Catering are included in the ticket price.
Dogwatch Catering is part of the same local hospitality family associated with Dog Watch Cafe in Stonington and has extensive experience handling weddings, private parties and community events around southeastern Connecticut.
Beverages are handled separately.
The Hounds will operate a cash bar during the concert.
That gives the evening a format somewhere between an outdoor concert and a casual catered gathering: bring your chair, find a spot on the Terrace, grab something to eat and settle in for three hours of Dylan.
Bring Dog Food, Too
The charitable component is particularly specific this time.
Mystic River Jam is asking attendees to bring a can of dog food for the Pawcatuck Neighborhood Center.
The center serves residents of Stonington, Pawcatuck, Mystic, North Stonington and Westerly, providing food assistance and a much broader range of social and essential services.
Its food pantry alone serves more than 2,200 people, according to River Jam.
But households facing financial hardship don’t stop having pets.
Food assistance programs increasingly recognize that helping people keep their animals fed can be part of keeping a household stable. When money gets tight, pet food becomes another expense competing with groceries, rent, utilities and medication.
That’s why this concert’s dog-food collection matters.
The cows in Mystic River Jam’s wonderfully strange promotional graphic may be the ones telling you to attend.
The dogs are the ones you’re being asked to help.
River Jam’s Charitable Roots Run Deep
The charitable element isn’t something added to River Jam this year.
Giving back has been central to the organization for years.
The former Mystic Shipyard festival raised money for organizations including the Pawcatuck Neighborhood Center and Sails Up 4 Cancer.
In 2024, River Jam received the Pawcatuck Neighborhood Center’s Good Neighbor Award for its support of the community.
The traditional festival also relied heavily on local volunteers and businesses, helping turn it into something more than a weekend concert series.
That history makes the move to smaller benefit concerts at The Hounds feel less like abandoning River Jam and more like preserving the part that mattered most.
Music still brings people together.
The gathering still helps somebody.
A Tuesday Night for People Who Really Like Songs
There’s also something appealingly uncomplicated about this one.
No giant festival grounds.
No six-stage schedule.
No need to decide between two bands playing at the same time.
Bring a chair.
Bring a can of dog food.
Have something from Dogwatch Catering.
Get a drink from the bar.
Then spend three hours with a band digging into one of the deepest song catalogs in American popular music.
Bob Dylan has spent more than 60 years refusing to perform his own songs exactly the way people expect.
A band called She Sings Dylan doing the same thing seems entirely appropriate.
Details
Event: She Sings Dylan at The Hounds
Series: River Jam at The Hounds
Date: Tuesday, September 22, 2026
Time: 6–9 p.m.
Venue: The Hounds Terrace
Address: 769 Stonington Road, Stonington, CT 06378
Performers: Kate Hubbard, Sophia Coppola, Jeff Martinson, Bill Carbone, Sean Elkind and Marty Moroney
Music: Bob Dylan classics and deep cuts reimagined through a female-fronted perspective
Food: Light bites from Dogwatch Catering included with the ticket
Drinks: Cash bar provided by The Hounds
Seating: Bring your own chair
Donation Requested: Bring a can of dog food to support the Pawcatuck Neighborhood Center’s pet-support efforts
Beneficiary: Pawcatuck Neighborhood Center
Questions: Courtney Moore, 860-961-0246
Upcoming River Jam at The Hounds Shows: The Troublemakers, October 27; Mystic Dead New Year’s Eve, December 31
More information is available at the Event Website link below.
To purchase tickets, click the Event Ticketing link below.
Featured image is an artistic representation inspired by the event and may not depict the actual people, location, or activities shown.