Theme Time Radio Hour: setting the agenda, yet again

This week’s airing by BBC Radio 2 of six of the Theme Time Radio Hour shows (out of sequence, by the way) is a reminder to Dylan’s UK admirers of the sheer depth of the man’s talent.

Just as Dylan’s writing is steeped in classical literature, from The King James Bible to TS Eliot, so it’s deeply anchored in the great American tradition of popular music - the blues, country, folk, jazz and the Broadway songbooks which would eventually be swept away by rock.

And, having been partly (if accidentally) responsible for the demise of pre-rock popular music, Dylan appears to be using his radio series as an act of atonement: he seems to be trying to open up the music he discovered in his youth to a new mass audience which has become too absorbed in rock.

Yet again, Dylan, the creative powerhouse of the age, is setting the agenda.


A reminder of the broadcasts:

* Bob Dylan's Theme Time Radio Hour on BBC Radio 2:
23.12.06 @ 1900-2000
24.12.06 @ 1630-1830
25.12.06 @ 1900-2000
26.12.06 @ 1900-2000
27.12.06 @ 1900-2000
28.12.06 @ 1900-2000

21.03.07 @ 2100-2200
28.03.07 @ 2100-2200
04.04.07 @ 2100-2200
06.04.07 @ 2000-2100
07.04.07 @ 2000-2100
08.04.07 @ 2000-2100
09.04.07 @ 2000-2100
11.04.07 @ 2100-2200
18.04.07 @ 2100-2200
25.04.07 @ 2100-2200

07.05.07 @ 2100-2300 (2 shows)

www.bbc.co.uk/radio2


* BBC 6 Music
1 January at 2100, and 2100 every Friday from 12 January.


And remember – BBC Radio shows are streamed online and also accessible from their websites for seven days after broadcast (UK only, for licensing reasons).




Gerry Smith