Is It Rolling, Bob? Talking Dylan

Michael Bonner, editor of music magazine Uncut, takes on Dylan’s 2022 UK concerts, as well as The Philosophy of Modern Song (“Dylan mimicking the critical noise around Dylan”). Other topics include an in-depth dissection of Key West (“ambient, amniotic and immersive”), Dylan’s “thing that he has about dual guitarists” and a couple of unfortunate Donovan concerts. Plus David Lynch, Sam Shepard, Tom Verlaine, Nick Cave and novelist Jim Thompson. Bonner considers the difference between “artists who allow themselves to be manacled to the expectations of their fans” versus an artist who continues to be concerned with “what’s real and what is not” in this rough and rowdy episode.For Uncut, Michael Bonner has interviewed Paul McCartney, the Rolling Stones, Robert Plant, Jimmy Page, David Gilmour, Willie Nelson, Jeff Tweedy and Daniel Lanois, among many others. After working for magazines including Melody Maker and Deadline, he joined Uncut in 1997 as Film Editor, before becoming editor in 2018. He masterminded two of Uncut's most successful free CDs, both about Dylan: a Best Of The Bootleg Series (2018) and a 2021 album of bespoke cover versions, released as part of Uncut's celebrations of Bob’s 80th birthday.WebsiteTwitterTrailerEpisode playlist on SpotifyListeners: please subscribe and/or leave a review and a rating.Twitter @isitrollingpodRecorded 29th November 2022  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Comedian and columnist Stewart Lee remains “grateful to the people who brainwashed me into listening to Bob Dylan during a period of emotional and physical weakness.” He remembers seeing Dylan live at Hyde Park with his kids (“one of the greatest nights of my life”) as well as the time he alienated the audience at a Teenage Cancer Trust Benefit. “It was a good gig. 'Cause it was true. Self-sabotage keeps you alive. Chaos and confusion create a bubble that protects you.” Stew namechecks Dylan, Mark E. Smith, Jerry Sadowitz, William Blake, Roky Erickson and Mozart as fellow artists who “develop a split personality that says: what if I make him do this?” Warning: listeners should keep in mind that Mr Lee is “a cultural bully from the Oxbridge Mafia who wants to appear morally superior but couldn’t cut the mustard on a panel game.” (Lee Mack)This is a review (Dominic Maxwell, The Times) of Stewart’s current show, Basic Lee: "If someone says they’re going back to basics, can they be trusted? When Stewart Lee tells you he is going back to basics you sniff only fresh mischief in his chortlingly bold smush of sarcasm, satire, self-commentary and alternately lugubrious and exultant flights of fancy. It is hard, Lee tells us, to try to be funny in these days of frenetic social and political change. So he bookends this new show, which he wants to stay relevant until its tour ends in 2024, with a reworking of a routine he first performed at the start of his career in 1989. Self-plagiarism? Actually, Lee could profitably spend the rest of his career rejigging old routines, much as Miles Davis was able to find endless new takes on Stella by Starlight. At his best, as he delivers a comedy show that is a kind of lecture about comedy shows, he cheeks the crowd so surely that the effect is insulting yet intimate. Basic Lee is one of his more pretzel-shaped evenings. If its inner logic isn’t always easy to grasp, who cares when something is rendered with this much wit and verve? What’s it all about? It’s all about two hours long, it’s all very clever, but, basically, Basic Lee is very funny.""What would it be like if Bob Dylan from the 60's took a look a stand-up comedy today?"The Dream Syndicate's cover of Blind Willie McTell (1988)Steve Wynn, Murder Most Foul (2020)WebsiteTwitterTrailerEpisode playlist on SpotifyListeners: please subscribe and/or leave a review and a rating.Twitter @isitrollingpodRecorded 16th November 2022 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Writer Matt Rowland Hill is well placed to comment on Dylan’s ‘Property of Jesus’ years: “the kind of fire-and-brimstone Christianity that I grew up with was exactly the kind that Dylan converted into. He was ripe to be captured”. At the age of 17, Matt wangled his way past security in London, hoping to accost his hero, only to told by members of Dylan’s band that “Bob’s getting his pre-show acupuncture”. He did, however, manage to spend a drunken evening with legendary literary critic Christopher Ricks, discussing Dylan. As a former addict, Oxford literature graduate Matt is also well placed to give advice on what to do if you’re being watched while waiting for your man (“the police won’t pay any attention to anyone waiting to buy Class A drugs if they’re reading Jane Austen”). This is an episode that accesses areas we have never entered before. Don’t miss it.Matt Rowland Hill grew up as the son of a preacher man in an evangelical Christian church in South Wales. After a loss of faith in his late teens, Matt began his search for salvation elsewhere, turning to books before developing a growing relationship with drugs. He became addicted to crack and heroin in his early twenties, an ordeal that stretched over a decade. His memoir of that time, Original Sins, published in 2022, was nominated for the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction. Matt has also written for The Independent, The Guardian, The Literary Review, The New Statesman and The Daily Telegraph. He lives in London.TwitterTrailerEpisode playlist on SpotifyListeners: please subscribe and/or leave a review and a rating.Twitter @isitrollingpodRecorded 26th October 2022 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jeff Hanna, founder member of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, is a team player. He has played with Little Richard, Chuck Berry, Johnny Cash, Jackson Browne, John Prine, Levon Helm, Emmylou Harris, Alison Krauss, Rosanne Cash, Linda Ronstadt and Matraca Berg. Oh, and Roger McGuinn, Jason Isbell, Rodney Crowell, Jerry Douglas, Sam Bush, Larry Campbell and... Lee Marvin. Plus Mother Maybelle Carter (“my first guitar hero”), June Carter Cash, Earl Scruggs, Doc Watson, Roy Acuff and Vassar Clements.Whether labelled Americana, Country Rock, Bluegrass or Traditional Country, the NGDB have come a long way since their early days as a Southern Californian jug band. Their most recent album is Dirt Does Dylan. Jeff sums it up: “Dylan was our North Star. He was always in the conversation. We would analyse every morsel of that sandwich”. Bring your appetite: this is a particularly tasty episode.Jeff Hanna has hundreds of recording credits as a composer, vocalist, arranger, producer and acoustic, electric, steel, slide and twelve-string guitarist. The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band recorded their first hit “Buy For Me The Rain” in 1967. An even bigger hit followed in 1970: a cover of Jerry Jeff Walker’s “Mr. Bojangles,” with Jeff on vocals and guitar - it was eventually inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. In 1971, the band and Jeff recorded Will The Circle Be Unbroken, one of the most influential albums of the era, introducing a generation of young musicians to the generation that came before. Two other Circle albums followed. In 2006, Hanna’s composition “Bless The Broken Road” won a Grammy Award for Best Country Song. The NGDB celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2016 with a sold-out concert at the Ryman Auditorium and the live album “Circlin’ Back”. “Dirt Does Dylan” was released in 2022.WebsiteTwitterTrailerEpisode playlist on SpotifyListeners: please subscribe and/or leave a review and a rating.Twitter @isitrollingpodRecorded 21st September 2022 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Australian singer/songwriter Emma Swift's highly acclaimed Blonde On The Tracks album, with guitar backing by life partner (and former podcast guest) Robyn Hitchcock, was her breakthrough recording. Emma swears that "singing Dylan's songs is like wearing a magical cape. Suddenly you have special powers. My job is to give each song a different emotional angle".Currently based in London and East Nashville ("where you go into the grocery store and everybody looks like an extra from The Last Waltz"), Emma is devoted both to Elvis ("I love a man in a leather suit") and The Traveling Wilburys ("Dylan was the curmudgeonly uncle of the group"). If you get the chance, we recommend catching her live set ("if people are laughing, engaged and sometimes crying, that's why I do it!'")Emma Swift was born in Australia but splits her time between the UK and the USA. Inspired by Joni Mitchell, Marianne Faithfull and Linda Ronstadt, her sound is a blend of Folk, Americana and Indie Rock. Blonde On the Tracks received "Best of 2020" accolades from Rolling Stone, No Depression, the Guardian and more. In 2021, Rolling Stone named her version of Queen Jane Approximately as Number 17 in the 80 best Dylan covers of all time. Emma is currently recording two non-Dylan albums.WebsiteTwitterTrailerEpisode playlist on SpotifyListeners: please subscribe and/or leave a review and a rating.Twitter @isitrollingpodRecorded 2nd August 2022 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Prize-winning poet and playwright Caroline Bird reminds us that “we’re all poets when we’re asleep. Writing is trying to find a way to dream while we’re awake”. On Bob Dylan: “You always hear him choosing the dark side of the road”; “What I love is that his songs are full of denial. Whenever the emotion gets too real, he runs away” and “He’s so naïve about love”. On Mr. Tambourine Man, first heard at age eight: “It goes past the point where he’s trying to find a truth”. On Dylan’s lyrics: “He holds the pain lightly in order for it to resonate”. On a characteristic she shares with Dylan: “Writing is like dancing on hot sand. You can’t stand still”.Simon Armitage said of Caroline: “You don’t know if a bullet will come out of the barrel or a flag with the word 'BANG' on it”. We do know that we’ve rarely had more fun recording a podcast.Caroline Bird was one of the five official poets at the 2012 London Olympics. A two-time winner of the Foyle Young Poets Award, her first collection, Looking Through Letterboxes, was published in 2002 - when she was fifteen. Her 2020 collection, The Air Year, won the Forward Prize and was chosen as a Book of the Year by The Guardian and The Telegraph. Her most recent book, Rookie: Selected Poems (2022) is taken from her first six poetry collections. Caroline’s plays include her version of Euripedes' The Trojan Women, The Trial Of Dennis the Menace, Chamber Piece, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, The Iphigenia Quartet and Red Ellen.WebsiteTwitterTrailerEpisode playlist on SpotifyListeners: please subscribe and/or leave a review and a rating.Twitter @isitrollingpodRecorded 13th July 2022 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Patti Smith Group guitarist and author Lenny Kaye reminds us that “Bob Dylan is still experimenting, seeing who he might be, putting on the weirdest shows ever, upending barriers”. Almost in one breath, Lenny gives forth on working with or listening to Suzanne Vega, John Coltrane, Gayle, The Stooges, Brian Eno, The Byrds, Bing Crosby and Janis Joplin (“I wanted her to be my girlfriend”). His colleague Patti Smith fought for “the freedom to have a field of noise, beyond language. But also: a hit single.” Elvis “is an extraterrestrial: a mutation”. And after two tours supporting Dylan, he confirms that “Bob is private backstage. You’re instructed not to look at him. But that was OK. I don’t want to meet my idols”. A wise man. And a perfect podcast guest.Lenny Kaye has been the guitarist for The Patti Smith Group since the band's inception in 1974. He produced Patti’s first single and worked on the band’s hugely influential 70s albums: Horses, Easter, Radio Ethiopia and Wave. Lenny has also produced and/or played with dozens of artists such as R.E.M., James, Soul Asylum, Kristen Hersh and Allen Ginsberg. His seminal anthology of 60s garage rock, Nuggets, defined the genre. His first book was Waylon, The Life Story of Waylon Jennings. You Call It Madness: The Sensuous Song of the Croon was published in 2004. His current book is Lightning Striking: Ten Transformative Moments in Rock and Roll. Lenny also wrote the liner notes to the accompanying double CD (he has been nominated three times for Grammy awards in the liner notes category). As a freelancer, he has written for a wide range of periodicals, including Melody Maker, Creem and Rolling Stone.InstagramTrailerEpisode playlist on SpotifyDark Eyes (duet between Dylan and Patti Smith)Listeners: please subscribe and/or leave a review and a rating.Twitter @isitrollingpodRecorded 28th June 2022 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Film director/screenwriter Justin Trefgarne talks about Dylan, but also about fathers, sons, archetypes and coincidence. “Bob has been the guardian angel and surrogate father for my entire adult existence,” he tells us. From his first encounter with Like A Rolling Stone (which he played for five hours straight), “everything was up for grabs”. Hear how young Justin paid off a bouncer in Seattle to get seats to his first Dylan concert. How he won a Dylan soundalike contest in Las Vegas. And that time he and Bob had a close encounter in the doorway of the Grateful Dead Tattoo Parlour on Venice Beach.For the first time on this podcast, we tackle Robert Bly (author of Iron John), Joseph Campbell (author of The Hero’s Journey) and Federico Garcia Lorca’s concept of duende. Oh and - Justin’s pilot father flew three of the Beatles to see Dylan perform at the Isle of Wight Festival (probably).Justin’s debut feature film as writer-director was the 2015 sci-fi thriller NARCOPOLIS, starring Jonathan Pryce (with a cameo from Kerry Shale). The film spawned a successful graphic novel spin-off. He was head writer on the Nickelodeon reboot of children’s classic PETER RABBIT, for which he was nominated for an Emmy. Justin devised and wrote all ten episodes of the YouTube Original series SHERWOOD, which has had over 70m views. Other writer/director credits include DESIRE, starring Damian Lewis, which opened the Sundance Film Festival. He has also written screenplays for Film4, The BFI and Ruby Films. Justin recently wrote and directed on THE RAZUMOV FILES, a six-part audio-series starring Jessica Brown Findlay.IMdBTwitterTrailerEpisode playlist on SpotifyListeners: please subscribe and/or leave a review and a rating.Twitter @isitrollingpodRecorded 16th June 2022   Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Singer/Songwriter/Actor John Doe tells terrific tales: hanging with Dennis Quaid and Winona Ryder in Memphis, gigging with Nick Lowe in London and hearing his voice come out of Christian Bale’s mouth in Todd Haynes’s Dylan biopic I’m Not There.Did John’s appearance with LA punk band X on the Letterman Show in 1983 inspire Dylan’s wild 1984 set with The Plugz? What did he say when he suddenly found himself face-to-face with Bruce Springsteen at that Grammy thing? Did Jerry Lee Lewis actually call him a "fucking asshole" the first time they met? John raves about Tulsa’s new Bob Dylan Center and answers all the above questions, as he presses on…John Doe and his bandmates in X made 6 studio recordings from 1978-1993. He has recorded 9 solo records, collaborating with Patty Griffin, Dan Auerbach, Aimee Mann, Don Was, Kathleen Edwards, Dave Alvin and Greg Liesz. Doe has acted in over 50 films and television productions including Road House, Great Balls of Fire, Pure Country and Roswell. His musical side projects include work with The Knitters and The Sadies. Doe co-wrote the definitive book about the LA punk rock scene, Under The Big Black Sun. His new album, Fables In A Foreign Land, was inspired by John Wesley Harding. John currently lives in Austin, Texas.WebsiteTwitterTrailerEpisode playlist on SpotifyListeners: please subscribe and/or leave a review and a rating.Twitter @isitrollingpodRecorded 13th May 2022   Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Belfast’s Steven Cockcroft (co-host of leading Beatles podcast Nothing Is Real) offers unexpected takes on The Boys and Bob: “Roll On John isn’t about an individual, it’s about the sanctification of Lennon” and “The Travelling Wilburys was a calculated move by George”. Also on the menu: Dylan’s questionable harmonies on an obscure Ringo album track and his controversial cover of Paul’s Things We Said Today. Plus: did you know that John asked Bob to play piano on Cold Turkey? Have you discovered the reference to Ringo on Don’t Fall Apart On Me Tonight? Ever hear Dylan’s in-concert cover of The Long and Winding Road? Or hear about the accusatory T-shirt he was gifted by George?How good is our Beatles episode? This Englishman said fab.Steven Cockroft is a partner in a law firm in Belfast. He co-hosts Nothing Is Real, the best Beatles podcast out there. Born in 1963, he grew up firmly believing the 1960s were the Golden Age. In the late 1970s, he sat out the 'punk wars', listening to Bob Dylan, The Beatles and Van Morrison. Hosting the podcast came about after Steven and co-host Jason Carty won the Beatle Brain of Ireland competition. They have interviewed Kevin Godley, Mark Lewisohn and several ex-members of Wings but are best known for their humorous and forensic following of the Fabs and their post-Beatles projects.TwitterTrailerEpisode playlist on SpotifyListeners: please subscribe and/or leave a review and a rating.Twitter @isitrollingpodRecorded 25th February 2022 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Our special culinary episode with critic Eric Asimov includes the story of long-time Dylan bass player Tony Garnier’s delicious Christmas gumbo and Dylan’s wine-making venture, Planet Waves (“the wine has aged better than the album”). A fan since hearing “I Want You” the age of eight, Eric is “drawn to the atmosphere Bob creates. It’s misty. It’s archaic. You can’t place it in time. It stretches back into history”.Eric’s take on the live performances is simple: “his devotion to his art takes precedence to his devotion to entertainment”. Although Oh Mercy is not a favourite (“too thick and oozy”), there are plenty of Five Star moments in his tasty overview. He concludes, “I can’t think of any other artist who has had that span of creativity. An 80 year-old guy doing his new songs? It’s unheard of”. Bob Dylan is clearly food and drink to Eric Asimov.Eric Asimov is the chief wine critic of The New York Times. His freelance work as a wine and food critic has appeared in Food and Wine Magazine, Details and Martha Stewart Living. For a number of years, he was co-author of The New York Times Guide to Restaurants and other books and guides. At the NYT, he was also editor of the Living section and Styles of The Times. Eric is a graduate of Wesleyan University and the University of Texas at Austin. He lives in Manhattan.'No-Sweat Answers To Some Basic Wine Questions', December 30th 2021TwitterTrailerEpisode playlist on SpotifyListeners: please subscribe and/or leave a review and a rating.Twitter @isitrollingpodRecorded 19th January 2022 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Singer, songwriter and saxophonist Curtis Stigers tells us true stories with a cast of characters including Van Morrison, Eric Clapton and Bob Dylan. A fan from way back (“Bob is the perfect creation. He’s an art form in himself”), his jazzy cover versions include Things Have Changed (“people go nuts for that song. Their heads explode”). A committed conversationalist with a huge wealth of musical knowledge, Curtis has strong opinions about Shawn Colvin, Jim Croce, The Carter Family, Neil Diamond, Jimmie Rodgers, Frank Sinatra, Bertolt Brecht and Larry Klein (who produced both Joni Mitchell and Curtis). His cover of Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right “always lights up the room”, he says. We feel the same about Mr. Stigers.Born in Los Angeles, Curtis Stigers grew up in Boise, Idaho. His interest in music began as a teen when he played in punk and blues bands. He moved to New York to pursue rock music but attracted label attention as the saxophonist/vocalist of a jazz trio, signing a deal with Arista and releasing his self-titled first album in 1991 (the multi-platinum album included the Billboard Top Ten single I Wonder Why). He contributed a cover of (What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding to the soundtrack of The Bodyguard, which spent 20 consecutive weeks at Number 1 on the Billboard album chart. Curtis’s third album, Brighter Days, featured appearances by Jackson Browne and Benmont Tench. From 2001, he began to concentrate on jazz albums, including Real Emotional and Lost In Dreams. In 2012, he released the country-tinged album Let’s Go Out Tonight, featuring covers of songs by artists like Steve Earle and Richard Thompson. One More For The Road, a live salute to the Sinatra At The Sands album was another big success. Curtis is currently touring the UK, promoting his new album This Life.WebsiteSongs From My KitchenTour DatesTwitterTrailerEpisode playlist on SpotifyListeners: please subscribe and/or leave a review and a rating.Twitter @isitrollingpodRecorded 8th February 2022 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Comic actor Thom Tuck discovered Bob Dylan when, growing up in Bangladesh, he caught the promo for Subterranean Homesick Blues on MTV Rewind. His family eventually returned to Leeds, where his outsider status was made even worse/better by his obsession with all things Bob. At university, he didn’t improve his lot by writing a play called “One More Layer of Skin”. Despite it all, Thom maintains that Dylan remains his “prism by which to understand the world”.Opinions: Thom reserves a special place in hell for songs like Make You Feel My Love (“Adele heard the Billy Joel version and now every idiot does it”), whilst continuing to rate Under The Red Sky (“as an album to go to sleep to”). Along the way, we swap dozens of the best Dylan cover versions, from bluegrass to hard rock to the “deep thunder” of Tom Jones.Thom Tuck is an actor, writer and comedian. He is currently on tour in the acclaimed Birmingham Rep production of The Play What I Wrote. His theatre work includes Death Of A Salesman (Royal & Derngate), Three Sisters (Southwark Playhouse), Brexit (Spontaneity Shop), A Slight Ache (Pleasance) and Gutted!: A Revenger’s Musical (Assembly Theatre). Thom’s television work includes The Crown, Fresh Meat, Horrible Histories, Babylon and Drifters. As a comedian, Thom was nominated Best Newcomer at the Edinburgh Fringe for his show Thom Tuck Goes Straight-To-DVD, which was adapted for BBC Radio and is now out on DVD. His other solo shows are Thom Tuck Flips Out, The Square Root Of Minus One and An August Institution. Thom is one third of the acclaimed sketch troupe The Penny Dreadfuls.https://britishtheatre.com/the-play-what-i-wrote-tour/TwitterTrailerEpisode playlist on SpotifyListeners: please subscribe and/or leave a review and a rating.Twitter @isitrollingpodRecorded 14th December 2021 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Fellow podcaster Laura Tenschert’s Definitely Dylan contains multitudes of theories and insights which she shares in this eye-opening episode. German-born Laura learned English by listening to Bob, which gave her sharper ears than most. Dozens of songs are given forensic treatment, ranging from classics like Lord Protect My Child and Buckets of Rain to oddities like Fur Slippers and Dirty World.Topics covered include Dylan commenting on his creativity via his songs, where the next generation of Bob’s fans will come from, his penchant for “Dad jokes” and the tight connection between To Ramona and False Prophet. Laura even manages to explain the difference between Tulsa’s Bob Dylan Institute, Tulsa’s Bob Dylan Archive and the Bob Dylan Centre in (yes) Tulsa. An ideal companion for anyone walkin’ down the Dylan highway.Dylan scholar Laura Tenschert is the creator of Definitely Dylan, a podcast exploring the work of Bob Dylan and its relevance in our culture from a modern, feminist perspective. She is a board member at the Institute of Bob Dylan Studies at the University of Tulsa and contributed to the 2021 book Dylan At 80: It Used To Go Like That, And Now It Goes Like This.WebsiteTwitterTrailerEpisode playlist on SpotifyListeners: please subscribe and/or leave a review and a rating.Twitter @isitrollingpodRecorded 1st December 2021 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Writer and musician Richard Strange insists “If you don’t want to be Bob Dylan, you shouldn’t be writing songs”. He takes us on a journey that starts in his Brixton comprehensive (“I was always bunking off, going to art galleries and the haunted, dingy Soho flesh-pot folk clubs”). He discovers “the boy band of Beat literature: Burroughs, Kerouac and Ginsberg”. And he reminds us that Another Side of Bob Dylan still provides “an embarrassment of riches, lyrically and emotionally”. From witnessing a 1964 Kinks concert (“it blew my mind and changed my life”) to eventually working with Marianne Faithfull and Anita Pallenberg, Mr Strange proudly concludes that “Bob Dylan still haunts me”.Richard Strange is a writer, musician, composer, nightclub host, curator, actor and adventurer. His proto-punk rock band Doctors of Madness first performed in 1975 (supported by the Sex Pistols). He founded the influential mixed-media Cabaret Futura in 1980 and has subsequently worked as an actor, appearing extensively in films (Batman, Mona Lisa, Robin Hood - Prince of Thieves, Gangs of New York and Harry Potter) and on television. His many stage appearances include Tom Waits’ musical fable The Black Rider. His memoir, Strange - Punks and Drunks and Flicks and Kicks was published in 2005. Richard currently presents the weekly radio show Dark Times Radio and is recording again with Doctors of Madness.WebsiteTwitterTrailerEpisode playlist on SpotifyListeners: please subscribe and/or leave a review and a rating.Twitter @isitrollingpodRecorded 10th November 2021 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.