PREVIEW: The Wallflowers. 10:15 p.m. Saturday, Miller Lite/99X stage.: YOUR GUIDE TO MUSIC MIDTOWN: KINDA LIKE A ROLLING STONE

05.01.97 As published in The Atlanta Journal and Constitution.

Many songwriters have been called "the next Dylan" over the years --- Bruce Springsteen, Mark Knopfler and Elvis Costello, to name a few ---but none so literally as the frontman for current chart sensations the Wallflowers. He's Jakob Dylan, roots-rocker, MTV hunk of the moment and, oh, yeah, son of Bob.

Like most famous children of very famous people, 26-year-old Jakob seems of two minds about his legendary lineage. He tends to dance around the subject of family in interviews. Note his vagueness in describing his childhood in a September issue of Newsweek (he's the youngest of five children by Bob Dylan and Sara Lowndes): "There was a divorce (in 1977). Everything else was pretty much your standard situation."

And he pointedly avoids claiming his father as an influence. When asked in a recent issue of Entertainment Weekly to name his favorite album, he picked the Clash's "London Calling" over his papa's many masterpieces.

But it's not Joe Strummer who immediately leaps to mind when you hear the nasal twang embedded in Jakob's smoky delivery. And it' s heartland rock and its progenitor, '60s folk, not '70s British punk, that permeates the abstract sketches of American life on the band' s double platinum sophomore album, "Bringing Down the Horse."

Close your eyes while listening to the propulsive "One Headlight, " and you may imagine yourself rollin' down Highway 61.

It was Adam Duritz, lead singer for Counting Crows and soulful backing vocalist on the Wallflowers' breakthrough song, "Sixth Avenue Heartache," who professed, "I want to be Bob Dylan," on his band's biggest hit, "Mr. Jones. " The Wallflowers want to be Bob Dylan, too. But charges of nepotism make it impossible to say so.