The Bible and Dylan (2)

Thanks to Martin Cowan:

“This from Wikepedia, about John Wesley Harding:

‘The dark, religious tones that appeared during the Basement Tape sessions also continues through these songs, manifesting in language from the King James Bible.

‘In The Bible in the Lyrics of Bob Dylan, Bert Cartwright cites more than sixty biblical allusions over the course of the forty minute album, with as many as fifteen in "The Ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest" alone. An Old Testament morality also colors most of the songs' characters.

“Not sure if the Bert Cartwright book is still in print, and sadly Bert is no longer with us.”

Bob Dylan: Blues – compilation CD at £5.99

Don’t know how I missed it on release, but Bob Dylan: Blues, a US import compilation, is available at discount (£5.99, with free delivery) until 1000 on Tuesday 30 January.

The idiosyncratic track list appears to contain no previously unreleased titles (though there might be unreleased versions – anyone know?):

She Belongs To Me
Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat
It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry
Down In The Flood
Meet Me In The Morning
Gotta Serve Somebody
The Groom's Still Waiting At The Altar
Seeing The Real You At Last
Everything Is Broken
Dirt Road Blues
High Water (For Charley Patton)
Blind Willie McTell

For that price it’s not worth ripping and burning from the 12 different source albums, and, for £6, you get the artefact, including album artwork.

www.cd-wow.com


Gerry Smith

The Bible and Dylan

Think of Dylan and The Bible and you automatically think of the trio of Gospel albums much discussed on The Dylan Daily - Slow Train Coming (1979), Saved (1980) and Shot Of Love (1981).

But the influence of The Bible – more specifically, the King James version, from the early 17thC, with its striking, archaic language – is much wider - it can be discerned across a wide range of Dylan’s work.

I’d like to explore The Bible in Dylan, and would welcome the help of readers: specifically, can you recommend any books, chapters, articles, websites etc which cover the ground well?

I realise the dangers here – I’m no God-freak, and have no wish to lambast readers with silly missionary messages from zealots and fruitcakes. But if you are a Christian with serious ideas to offer, you are, of course, very welcome to contribute.

The obvious starting points covering Dylan and the Bible are:

* Gilmour, Michael J. Tangled Up In The Bible: Bob Dylan And Scripture, Continuum, 2004, 146pp, pbk.

* Marshall, Scott. Restless Pilgrim: the spiritual journey of Bob Dylan. Relevant Books, 2002, 188pp, pbk

* Williams, Paul. Dylan: What Happened? And Books, 1979, 125pp, pbk.

* Vernezze, Peter and Porter, Carl J, Bob Dylan And Philosophy: It’s Alright Ma, I’m Only Thinking, Chicago, Open Court, 2006, 205pp, pbk.

I’ll be discussing these, and others, in coming weeks, with the aim of collating a succinct summary of what’s known about The Bible and Dylan. I have no religious axe to grind, but acknowledge, despite my atheism, that The Bible’s influence is essential in getting to grips with Dylan’s great art.



Gerry Smith

Dylan and Bryan Ferry: encore

Thanks to Tricia, in Australia:

“With regard to links between Ferry and Dylan, and previous Ferry cover versions of Dylan songs, don't forget the Polar Prize ceremony.

“When Dylan was awarded the Polar Prize in Sweden on 15 May 2000, Brian Ferry performed 'A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall' - with Dylan in the audience almost directly in front of him!

“How scary would that be? Although, if I remember correctly, there were some attractive back-up singers onstage, so he may have been safe.

“Some video (not sure if it includes Ferry) and pictures at:

www.polarmusicprize.com/newSite/cerm2000.shtml

Guitar scratch plate – autographed by Dylan - yours for only £595

Though not a serious Dylan collector, I’m generally curious about what’s being sold, at what price.

This week’s offerings from eil.com, the English collectables traders, include this intriguing artefact:

“BOB DYLAN Autographed Guitar Scratch Plate (Superb Red 'Fender Strat' style guitar scratch plate which has been AUTOGRAPHED by the legendary man himself at the Liverpool, Summer Pops 2002 festival.

“Obtained by a well documented collector who has met Bob on numerous occasions and as Dylan is widely known as being difficult for autographs, we are delighted to offer this amazing item.

“We would recommend mounting & framing or even buying a Fender Strat to put this on - Superb! **Complete With Certificate Of Authenticity**. £ 595.00, USD 1,136.45, € 874.65.”

Their Dylan collectibles section is always worth a look – it currently lists 19 pages of weird and wonderful Dylan-related artefacts:

www.eil.com


Gerry Smith

Theme Time radio – a weekly delight

I can’t remember the last time I sat down for an hour every week to listen to a radio series, but I’ve been cancelling everything to get into my favourite armchair to hear Theme Time Radio Hour as it’s broadcast.

Dylan’s series, now playing in England on Fridays at 9pm on BBC 6 Music, is a weekly delight. Just as he did with Chronicles, Dylan is displaying his mastery of yet another medium.

Last week’s show, Fathers, was typical of the quality of the series: a delicious setlist which, inter alia: underlined the sheer quality of Hank Williams’ writing and performing; revealed the little-heard country side of the timeless Everly Brothers, and reminded you why John Hiatt was widely regarded as the coming man in the 1980s, when Dylan was still in his least productive period (note to self: dig out Slow Turning, Hiatt’s masterpiece from 1988).

You’d be very hard-pressed to find a more telling introduction to 20thC American popular music than Bob Dylan’s theme Time Radio Hour series.

Dylan’s scripts are so beautifully written - and delivered - that they’re bound to be stitched together, without the music, by hardcore Dylanistas. And the cod-nostalgic production style, replicating (but slyly, in a Dylanesque, Post-Modern way) the style of radio before TV, is inspired.

Theme Time Radio Hour, like the other media in which Dylan has worked (OK, maybe not film), shows a peerless creativity in action. I’ll be surprised to hear of any Dylan aficionado who doesn’t own a complete series of recordings before too long.

This week’s programme tackles the theme of Weddings. Can’t wait!


Gerry Smith

European tour: are YOU going to any of the gigs?

If you’re planning to attend any of the gigs on the European tour and would like to submit a very short review for Dylan Daily readers, please contact me (eurotour@dylandaily.com).

I’m looking for a string of correspondents to send brief details straight after each show, in a prearranged format. You don’t have to be a budding novelist to submit the brief details required – I’ll guide you so you’ll be able to compose and send all that’s required in less than 5 minutes.

Here’s a reminder of the itinerary for Dylan’s Euro 2007 spring tour:

March: 28 Stockholm; 30 Oslo.

April: 1 Gothenburg; 2 Copenhagen; 4 Hamburg; 5 Münster; 6 Brussels; 8 and 9 Amsterdam; 11 Glasgow; 12 Newcastle; 14 Sheffield; 15 London; 17 Birmingham; 19 Düsseldorf; 20 Stuttgart; 21 Frankfurt; 23 Paris; 25 Geneva; 26 Turin; 27 Milan; 29 Zürich; 30 Mannheim.

May: 2 Leipzig; 3 Berlin; 5 Herning.



Hoping to hear from you soon…


Gerry Smith

Dylan perplexed at Springsteen tribute

Thanks to Lawrence Kirsch for this link to a video clip of Dylan looking perplexed at a fulsome tribute by Broooooooooooce Springsteen, while flanked by some dudes who look vaguely familiar:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ik9J5Hq2Lqw

Dylan’s new house in Scotland

Reports of Dylan buying a big house in Scotland have me baffled.

Surely it’s a pure investment play? If Dylan were seeking a convenient location for increased Euro touring, he wouldn’t have selected somewhere so absolutely remote. Just look at a map – Inverness, the local town, is convenient for… absolutely nowhere.

Maybe Dylan likes playing lots of golf in the rain? Or perhaps he’s a closet mountaineer?

It’s a curious move: you couldn’t pay me to live in the Scottish Highlands, even in such a lovely house.

Of course, the Scots are revelling in their luck – “Dylan has often drawn on the poetry and folk music of Scotland for his songs…”, claims one over-excited scribe. Absolute horse crap: coupla mentions, OK, but let’s not get too carried away.


Gerry Smith

Don’t Look Back on DVD - biggest Dylan event of 2007 to date

The DVD re-release of Don’t Look Back, the classic fly-on-the-wall documentary, looks like being the biggest Dylan event of 2007 to date. Pre-orders on amazon.com have already put it inside the online retailer’s top 10,000 DVD titles.

The film tracks Dylan at his iconic, sneering, imperious peak (as well as his court of jesters) on the 1965 English tour. It has long been a must-have for aficionados.

There’ll be two new DVD versions of Don’t Look Back – a single disc release of the original film, remastered, plus a new 2DVD package:

Disc 1:
* Bob Dylan: Don't Look Back
* Commentary by director D.A. Pennebaker and tour road manager Bob Neuwirth
* Five additional uncut audio tracks
* Alternate version of the Subterranean Homesick Blues cue-card sequence
* Original theatrical trailer
* Pennebaker filmography
* Bob Dylan discography
* Cast and crew biographies

Disc 2:
* Bob Dylan 65 Revisited – new documentary compiled by Pennebaker from over 20 hours of unseen footage
* Commentary by Pennebaker and road manager Bob Neuwirth
* book (168pp) including a complete transcript, over 200 photos, and a new foreword by Pennebaker
* Collectible Subterranean Homesick Blues flipbook

Don’t Look Back on DVD is due for release in N America on 27 February, so presumably in the UK on Mon 26 February or Mon 5 March.

The new two disc set is a must-buy, even for those of us who’ve had the VHS and original DVD versions for years – it's a well-conceived new product, with loads of added value in the package.


Gerry Smith

Dylan, Dylan, everywhere… : encore, encore, encore

Yet another example of Dylan in the ether – this week’s edition of The Sunday Times’ superior Culture mag has a cover feature on Factory Girl, the new Edie Sedgwick biopic, with a discussion of her Dylan link.

It’s newsworthy because of the Dylan angle. Surely. Without it, the film would hardly have the same pull – Andy Warhol and his pals have more limited appeal than Bobby Z. Not that I’ll be watching Factory Girl – at least not until it comes to free-to-air TV.

Thanks to several readers who’ve sent me notes about Simon Cowell (American Idol)’s comments on Dylan. I don’t know who he is or what it is. And I don’t want to know, either - life’s far too short to care what show biz celebs think about Dylan (or anything else, for that matter).


Gerry Smith

Huck’s Theme - new Dylan song on film soundtrack

Thanks to Lawrence Kirsch:

“Billboard is reporting that Huck's Theme is a new Dylan song on the soundtrack of a forthcoming film about gambling, Lucky You. The soundtrack also has two Springsteen songs, The Fever and Lucky Town. The CD is set for US release on 6 March, with the film following on 16 March.”

Bryan Ferry and Dylan songs

Thanks to Bernard McGuinn:

“Bryan Ferry did It ain’t me babe, on Another Time Another Place, the follow up to These Foolish Things. His next album after that was Let's Stick Together, which, of course, is a song Bob covered on the largely forgettable Down in the Groove. Ferry’s next album, In Your Mind, carries a version of Rock of Ages, a song Bob's been known to sing on occasion.”


Bernard was responding to my plea for details of Ferry/Dylan links in the article, New Bryan Ferry album of Dylan songs:

Bryan Ferry - last seen as a model in ads for Marks & Spencer clothing – is set to release Dylanesque, a CD of 11 Dylan songs, on the Virgin label in early March.

The tracklist includes Dylan classics like:

All Along The Watchtower
All I Really Want To Do
If Not For You
Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues
Positively 4th Street
Knocking On Heaven's Door
Simple Twist Of Fate

The album will be a must-buy for all fans of Ferry/Roxy Music and many in Dylan’s fanbase (count me in, twice over). Although the cognoscenti regard all the Ferry solo releases as inferior to all the Roxy Music albums, his cover versions generally garner high praise.

Many Dylanistas will, no doubt, fill out the new CD with bonus tracks of previously released Ferry covers of Dylan compositions - notably A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall from the first solo album, in 1973; It's All Over Now, Baby Blue, and Don't Think Twice, It's All Right from 2002's Frantic. (Are there any more?)

Ferry’s 1999 album, As Time Goes By, a collection of standards by the great Broadway writers such as Cole Porter, is a beautiful CD. It’ll be instructive to see how Dylan’s work sounds alongside The Great American Songbook.

The re-invigorated Ferry will also be appearing on the first new Roxy Music studio album for a quarter of a century, due later this year. He’s also touring the UK this spring.


Gerry Smith

Dylan, Dylan, everywhere… : encore, encore, encore

Two more examples of Dylan in the ether:

* BBC 6 Music are quietly repeating the 10-part Radio 2 series from 2001, The Bob Dylan Story. And so they should – it’s one of the best programmes BBC Radio has ever aired.

* Thanks to Martin Cowan: “Further to your recent ‘Dylan everywhere’ round-up, he has now been featured in this month's issue of kid’s mag Q, whose front page screams ‘500 of the greatest lost tracks’.

Dylan gets his own 20 song list which, despite the odd factual error, is a remarkably incisive selection, including Turkey Chase, the oft-mentioned Hard Rain version of Idiot Wind, and the Union Sundown B-side, Angels Flying Too Close To The Ground.

Hard Rain – YouTube clip shows need for a DVD release

Thanks to Martin Cowan:

“Further to Bob Munro's recent post, he's right about it being at Fort Collins, as this clip is from Dylan's TV special Hard Rain which was recorded on 23 May 1976 and broadcast on TV in America and the UK in September 1976.

“In my view, the Hard Rain show ranks as Dylan's finest hour in front of the TV cameras and its lack of a video or DVD release (or, come to that, ever being repeated on television) is inexplicable.

“Maybe Dylan's ‘people’ will see the light one day and bring out a CD/DVD set to cover both of the shows that feature on the current Hard Rain CD so that all Dylan fans are able to appreciate the brilliance of these performances.”


www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDspwfG5V1I



Please send your top three Dylan clips on YouTube, in rank order, and I’ll compile a Top 10 list. (email: info@dylandaily.com)

Why not do it now? I’ll close the list at the end of next week – 0001 on Friday 19 January.


Gerry Smith

New Bryan Ferry album of Dylan songs

Bryan Ferry - last seen as a model in ads for Marks & Spencer clothing – is set to release Dylanesque, a CD of 11 songs written by Bob Dylan, on the Virgin label in early March.

The tracklist includes Dylan classics like:

All Along The Watchtower
All I Really Want To Do
If Not For You
Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues
Positively 4th Street
Knocking On Heaven's Door
Simple Twist Of Fate

The album will be a must-buy for all fans of Ferry/Roxy Music and many in Dylan’s fanbase (count me in, twice over). Although the cognoscenti regard all the Ferry solo releases as inferior to all the Roxy Music albums, his cover versions - including Dylan’s A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall on his first solo album, in 1973 – generally garner high praise.

Ferry’s 1999 album, As Time Goes By, a collection of standards by the great Broadway writers such as Cole Porter, is a beautiful CD. It’ll be instructive to see how Dylan’s work sounds alongside The Great American Songbook.

The re-invigorated Ferry will also be appearing on the first new Roxy Music studio album for a quarter of a century, due later this year. He’s also touring the UK this spring.



Gerry Smith

Dylan, Dylan, everywhere… : encore, encore

Thanks to Martin Cowan:

“Further research has shown that the cover of Dylan's "Hard Rain" being used in the Mitsubishi ads is by an Australian rock star, Jack Barnes.

“No, me neither... !”

Top Dylan clips on YouTube?

Thanks to Bob Munro in Christchurch, New Zealand for a wonderful suggestion:

“YouTube appears just too good to be true. Before the copyright writs start, should we compile a 10 best Dylan clips?

“You started us off nicely with the one with the Stones in Brazil. I'd like to nominate this version of 'Idiot Wind' at (I think) Fort Collins, Colorado 1976.”


www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDspwfG5V1I

So, let’s run with Bob Munro’s excellent idea: send me your top three Dylan clips on YouTube, in rank order, and I’ll compile a composite, expert Top 10 list.

(please email youtubelist@dylandaily.com)

Why not do it now? I’ll close the list at the end of next week – 0001 on Friday 19 January.



Gerry Smith

Dylan, Dylan, everywhere… : encore

Dylan’s in the ether at the moment… you just can’t miss him.

Today’s Sunday Times has another big story about Factory Girl, the forthcoming Edie Sedgwick biopic.

www.times-online.co.uk/sunday-times

Please keep those Dylan, Dylan, everywhere… titbits coming.

Gerry Smith



Thanks to Gerald Bamford:

“In response to the TV ad: It seems to me to be a soundalike version of Bryan Ferry singing 'A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall', a song he had a top ten hit with back in 1973.”



Thanks to Martin Cowan:

“Further to your "Dylan everywhere" summary last week, I just heard the bard himself warbling "Don't Think Twice" in the background as Channel 4 trailed More4's "The Trial of Tony Blair"!”

Dylan, Dylan, everywhere…

It’s remarkable. The Dylan bandwagon just seems to pick up more and more speed. The man seems to be everywhere. In the space of 36 hours recently I had numerous public encounters with things Dylan:

* Dylan on Dylan, the new(ish) interviews collection, was being displayed, face out, at half price in Asda supermarket’s book section

* UNCUT’s Bob cover issue was still on sale at my (tardy) local newsagent

* the admirable Amy Winehouse, England’s hottest pop sensation, led the massed choir in a rousing version of The Mighty Quinn as the finale to Jools Holland’s New Year’s Eve rockpop show on TV

* Hard Rain (sung by someone I didn’t recognise) provided the soundtrack to a new TV ad for a rugged Mitsubishi commercial/hard man leisure vehicle. I know I didn’t dream it because reader Andy Miller saw it, too

* BBC 6 Music started its run of Theme Time Radio Hour with the baseball programme

* and the Sunday Times carried an ad for the April tour.

Blimey – what’s it going to be like when Dylan’s in the country in the spring? He’s never been so visible in England as he is at the moment.



Gerry Smith

TIME magazine on Dylan

Thanks to Lawrence Kirsch in Montreal for a link to a substantial appraisal of Dylan from the TIME magazine Free Archive.

Originally posted on Dylan’s 65th birthday, the feature by Richard Corliss re-states the case that Dylan re-made nearly every aspect of popular music – with his innovations in subject matter, singing style, song titles, song length, physical appearance and his example to singers writing their own material.

So far, so good. Corliss then tracks the morphing of the folk/protest singer into pop’s first writer of grown-up lyrics, written and delivered with bite (occasionally, bile, too).

Corliss is less convincing in his attempt to diminish Dylan’s post-1966 catalogue, implicitly dismissing, inter alia, masterpieces like John Wesley Harding, Planet Waves, Blood On The Tracks… all the way through to Modern Times.

Tendentious, then, but thought-provoking and nicely written; well worth a look:

http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1197784,00.html


Lawrence Kirsch’s compelling archive of rock photography, also well worth a look, is at:

www.musicfoto.com



Gerry Smith

The Dylan Daily Newsletter - 2 January 2007

(New issue of the Newsletter - emailed to subscribers yesterday. To ensure you receive your own free copy of future issues, please subscribe using the box in the left column of the Dylan Daily web site - www.dylandaily.com)



The DYLAN DAILY Newsletter

Welcome to the 2 January 2007 issue of the Dylan Daily newsletter. It lists articles recently published on The Dylan Daily web site (http://www.dylandaily.com), helping you catch up on any articles you may have missed.

I value your info and insights on matters Dylan - particularly your gig reviews - info@dylandaily.com

The “Dylan industry” shows no sign of slowing down, so make sure you log on to The Dylan Daily first thing every working day: the daily update is now posted before the start of the European workday.

Thanks for your interest.


Gerry Smith,
editorial@dylandaily.com



EUROPEAN TOUR 2007

The big Dylan news at the moment concerns the spring Euro tour and Theme Time Radio Hour. Here’s a reminder of the itinerary for Dylan’s Euro 2007 spring tour:

March: 28 Stockholm; 30 Oslo.

April: 1 Gothenburg; 2 Copenhagen; 4 Hamburg; 5 Münster; 6 Brussels; 8 and 9 Amsterdam; 11 Glasgow; 12 Newcastle; 14 Sheffield; 15 London; 17 Birmingham; 19 Düsseldorf; 20 Stuttgart; 21 Frankfurt; 23 Paris; 25 Geneva; 26 Turin; 27 Milan; 29 Zürich; 30 Mannheim.

May: 2 Leipzig; 3 Berlin; 5 Herning.

And, for UK readers, here’s the schedule for the remainder of the BBC Radio broadcasts of the wonderful Theme Time Radio Hour series:

BBC 6 Music at 2100 every Friday from 12 January.
BBC Radio 2:
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)

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


NEW ARTICLES ON THE DYLAN DAILY - http://www.dylandaily.com

* Dylan on baseball
* Tickets for Dylan Brit shows still on sale
* Theme Time Radio Hour – encore
* Theme Time Radio Hour: setting the agenda, yet again
* Dylan in Europe, spring 2007

* Those dates again for Dylan's Theme Time Radio Hour on BBC Radio
* Dylan’s literary influences outlined in a fine website
* More Dylan collectables
* The £300/$600 Dylan book - for the fan who has everything
* Renaldo & Clara

* Smaller venues on Dylan’s Euro tour, March-May 2007
* For the Dylan fan who has everything…
* Stunning new video – Thunder On The Mountain
* Euro tour, March-May 2007
* Four April 2007 English gigs - booking starts 0900 Friday 8 Dec

* Dylan covers dominate magazine racks in 2006
* Dylan cover/major feature make new MOJO a must-buy
* Dylan/Stones’ Like A Rolling Stone: rock’s highest peak
* Greil Marcus on Dylan
* Highway 61 Revisited: a fine new book

* Rare Tracks in The Collection, from Apple iTunes
* The (Dylan) Collection from iTunes: a suitable Xmas present?
* Rare Tacks in The Collection, from Apple iTunes
* The (Dylan) Collection from iTunes: a suitable Xmas present?
* New de luxe version of Don’t Look Back due in February

* Promising new study Of Highway 61 Revisited
* Programme themes/setlists for the Dylan-as-DJ series on BBC radio
* BBC to broadcast Dylan’s US radio series
* Trager v Gray: a tale of two encyclopedias


EARLIER ARTICLES ON THE DYLAN DAILY - http://www.dylandaily.com

* Dylan Daily – first anniversary
* First the Encyclopedia… now, the T shirt
* No Dylan in Top 100 albums
* Back Pages gig coming soon
* Top 20 albums: comment

* Dylan – The Musical
* The ideal Dylan backing band: encore
* Your 3 second guide to the latest gig: Toronto, 7 Nov 2006
* Your ideal Dylan backing band?
* Dylan on Dylan - at 50% discount

* Dylan Top 20 albums: an alternative view
* Modern Times – Album Of The Year in new issue of Uncut
* Roger McGuinn does Dylan in mesmerising London gig
* Bob Dylan Convention/6th Annual John Green Day: a third view
* Bob Dylan Convention/6th Annual John Green Day: another view

* Spanish boots?
* Saturday’s Bob Dylan Convention/John Green Day
* Bob Dylan - the Musical
* Dylan’s literary borrowing: the 1960s?
* Lyrics 1962-2001 – new, paperback edition

* More on: Ovid, and on The Top 20 albums poll
* Modern Times and Ovid
* The Bob Dylan Encyclopedia – reprint, with updates and corrections
* The Top 20 Dylan albums – new expert ranking
* Rough Guide: competition winners

* Modern Times Is Rubbish
* High praise for Modern Times songs on new N American tour
* Spanish books of…
* Rough Guide winners - and more copies to win in new competition
* Boots of Spanish plastic?

* Last call: win a free copy of the new Rough Guide to Bob Dylan
* Rare acetate being auctioned: to you, $2,000
* Free copy of the new Rough Guide to Bob Dylan
* Win a free copy of the new Rough Guide to Bob Dylan
* Modern Times's influences analysed in new issue of Uncut

* Free from The Dylan Daily – the new Rough Guide to Bob Dylan
* Bob Dylan Album File & Complete Discography: encore
* Free! New! The Rough Guide to Bob Dylan - from The Dylan Daily
* New - Bob Dylan Album File & Complete Discography
* Dylan’s literary influences

* Al Kooper – the overlooked
* Modern Times blooper
* Michael Gray’s Bob Dylan Encyclopedia at 33% discount
* Series of D...ylan films at New York’s Morgan Museum
* Must-hear Dylan lecture series at New York’s Morgan Museum

* Must-see Dylan programme at New York’s Morgan Museum
* Modern Times and Henry Timrod again
* The new Rough Guide – encore
* Modern Times lyric fragments from Civil War-era poet?
* High praise for the new Rough Guide to Bob Dylan

* Rolling Stone Dylan cover, and the new edition of The Rough Guide
* New: Dylan on Dylan - The Essential Interviews
* A sad ol’ lonesome day
* Blonde On Blonde does the trick
* Slate’s review of Modern Times – encore

* Modern Times DVD – yet another missed opportunity
* Honest With Me: Musical Stories on Bob Dylan




ADMIN
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(c) Music for Grown-Ups Ltd 2007

Dylan on baseball

If you’d told me that I’d ever sit down for an hour to listen to a radio programme about baseball, you’d have been referred to a simpatico psychiatrist I know.

Many aspects of American culture enthrall me. But not the US’s parochial major sports. Baseball? American football? Basketball? I’d rather watch paint dry.

So when BBC 6 Music started its broadcasts of Dylan’s Theme Time Radio Hour series last night, somewhat bizarrely, with the baseball programme, I decided to give it five minutes - just to ensure the tape was running OK.

I listened. And was captivated - by the DJ’s voice, the witty delivery, the beautifully crafted script. No matter that he and his chosen music concerned baseball, here was radio at its very best – engaging, stimulating, even occasionally challenging.

For the first time in many decades, I sat in front of the radio, listening intently, without distraction – no magazines, no books, no mobile phones, no conversation, no booze. Just me and the radio. Dylan’s mastery of the medium had enticed me back to the days before rock n roll… before TV… before limitless choice.

Masterful, must-listen radio.



Bob Dylan's Theme Time Radio Hour continues on BBC 6 Music at 2100 every Friday from 12 January.

And on BBC Radio 2:
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

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




Gerry Smith

Tickets for Dylan Brit shows still on sale

I was surprised to see the UK shows on Bob Dylan’s spring 2007 tour advertised in today’s Sunday Times.

The tickets – for five April shows (11 Glasgow, 12 Newcastle, 14 Sheffield, 15 London, and 17 Birmingham) – went on sale on Friday 8 December. With Dylan reaching unprecedented levels of popularity in England in 2006, I had expected all five venues to sell out rapidly.

Admittedly, they’re all arena venues for 15-20,000 audiences; maybe venues that size always take several weeks to sell out?

But I wonder - just wonder - whether the Bob shows are starting to come up against consumer resistance? I’d expect the generic rock fans, those recently enrolled on the Dylan bandwagon, and newbies curious to check out what all the fuss is about, to be buying tickets in droves.

But I wonder whether some hardcore fans are beginning to opt out of the Never Ending Tour? I am, and I know a few others who will be.

Why? Quite simple: unsuitable venues. I used to shell out silly money to see shows in venues not fit for serious musical enjoyment. Not any more. Henceforth, Dylan, and anyone else, will need to play decent venues to get my gig dollar. If they play arenas, they’ll be doing it without little old me.



Gerry Smith