Is It Rolling, Bob? Talking Dylan

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Recorded 30th March 2020

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James Shapiro Apr 19, 2020

Show notes

Bestselling Shakespeare authority James Shapiro joined us on the Bob Phone from New York, just before the world locked down and the Shakespeare-laden Murder Most Foul unexpectedly dropped. “In a time like this,” he told us, “I find great comfort in the complete works of William Shakespeare and Bob Dylan”. He goes on to link them more closely: “we think of Shakespeare as a word guy - but he collaborated with the greatest musicians of his day. He understood that music is magic” and he happily agrees that “both of them were professional, creative thieves”. Join us for an important episode that celebrates, as James puts it, “the extraordinary simplicity and range” of our two favourite artists.

James Shapiro is Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University. He’s the author of numerous books including 1599: A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare, awarded the Samuel Johnson Prize for the best non-fiction book published in Britain; and The Year of Lear: Shakespeare in 1606, awarded the James Tait Black Prize. His latest book, Shakespeare In A Divided America, was a Radio 4 Book of the Week, read by podcast co-presenter Kerry Shale. His essays and reviews have appeared in the New York Times, the New Yorker, the Guardian, the London Review of Books, the New York Review of Books, the TLS, the Sunday Times, the Irish Times, the New Statesman and the Financial Times.

Website: jamesshapiro.net

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Recorded 19th March 2020

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Nish Kumar Mar 22, 2020

Show notes

Comedian Nish Kumar says: “Bob Dylan is the most enduring and important creative relationship of my life. If you can’t think of one Dylan song you like, then a part of your humanity may be missing”. When Bob and his band played the Hendrix arrangement of All Along The Watchtower at his first (and only) Dylan concert, it was “one of the greatest moments of my life”. In other words, he’s our sort of chap.

Cheerfully agreeing that “there’s no bore like a Dylan bore”, Nish gives us his takes on Tangled Up In Blue (“I don’t think he’s ever finished it”), The Lonesome Death Of Hattie Carroll, Bob Dylan’s 115th Dream and I Shall Be Released. We get the inside story on using Bob as a role model when being booed (“bloody-minded obstinance in the face of people being dicks is very inspiring”) and for personal grooming inspiration (“my hair grows the way it grows because of the Blonde On Blonde album cover”).

Nish Kumar grew up in Croydon, South London. He has a degree in History and English from Durham University. His sold-out solo shows have won awards at the Edinburgh Fringe and toured nationally and internationally to huge acclaim. Nish’s TV appearances include a Netflix Special, The John Bishop Show, Have I Got News For You, Alan Davies As Yet Untitled, QI, Mock The Week, and Live At The Apollo. He has been the presenter of the topical comedy show Newsjack on Radio 4 Extra, hosts television’s very popular The Mash Report on BBC Two and chairs The News Quiz on BBC Radio 4.

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Recorded 24th February 2020

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David Greig Feb 23, 2020

Show notes

Scottish playwright David Greig was first “cracked open” to Dylan when he heard Desire in a remote part of South Africa “under the influence of the most extraordinarily strong dope”. “That’s it”, he thought, “I’M GOING IN!” He has yet to come out.

David wrote his version of Euripides’ The Bacchae by playing the Hard Rain album over and over while drinking red wine and channelling “Dylan as Dionysius, Dylan as shaman”. Quotes that leap out of this most Scottish of episodes: “Bob Dylan couldn’t exist except for Edinburgh”, “I secretly love the glorious oddness of his bad rhymes” and his favourite bit of advice from Bob: “an artist should always be in the state of becoming” (from Scorsese’s No Direction Home). Other names lightly dropped include Kris Kristofferson, Robert Burns and David’s recent collaborator Mark Knopfler. Join us for a special episode that’s as warming as a wee dram.

David Greig is Artistic Director of the Royal Lyceum Theatre in Edinburgh. His many plays and adaptations, staged in Scotland, London and around the world, include: Europe, Tintin In Tibet, Caligula, The American Pilot, The Bacchae, Midsummer, Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Lanark, The Lorax, Touching The Void and this summer’s Old Vic production of Local Hero.

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Recorded 6th February 2020

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Neil Gaiman Jan 24, 2020

Show notes

Writer Neil Gaiman fell in love with A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall via Bryan Ferry’s cover version. It ended up influencing the imagery of his novel American Gods (as well as the Amazon TV series). The song also provided a few gloomy pronouncements (“we’re in an apocalyptic state of mind: the doomsday clock is ticking”) in our otherwise jolly discussion. Colourful Bob theories are espoused: “if I were going to go cold turkey, I would have taken three months off to live with the local pharmacist” and sad information about that chaise longue is dispensed: “it has become somewhat damaged by cats over the years”. The location of the iconic piece of furniture is also discussed: “a weird and lovely faux-Dutch farmhouse… haunted by the ghost of the still-living Bob Dylan”. Tune in for Neil’s insights about Lou Reed, Elvis Costello, Joan Baez, Andy Warhol, Lord Buckley, Penn & Teller and Gilbert and Sullivan.

Neil Gaiman is a British writer. His first book was a paperback biography of Duran Duran. Since then, his works have included the cult DC Comics series The Sandman, which won him nine Will Eisner Awards (including the award for best writer four times). His six-part TV series for the BBC, Neverwhere, was broadcast in 1996. Stardust, an illustrated prose novel in four parts, began to appear in 1997. American Gods was published in 2001 and won all the awards going. He co-wrote Good Omens with Terry Pratchett (now a hit TV series). Coraline, his first novel for children, was another international bestseller. And the hits kept coming: Anansi Boys, The Graveyard Book, The Ocean At The End Of The Lane (adapted into a hit play at the National Theatre). Neil has appeared as himself on The Simpsons.

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Recorded 13th December 2019

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Barney Hoskyns Dec 26, 2019

Show notes

Rock journalist Barney Hoskyns comes on board for a special episode that focuses on The Band, with Dylan as their “weird” sideman. Tears Of Rage is compared to Philip Roth’s novel American Pastoral. Barney suspects it might just be “an anti-hippie song”. His “deeply emotional” attachment to the town of Woodstock is explored in depth: “overwhelmed by the mythology of the place”, he raised his kids there and explored its musical history in his book Small Town Talk (title taken from the song by Bobby Charles).

After writing the acclaimed Band book Across The Great Divide, he reports on the feedback he received from Robbie Robertson: “Oh Barney, Barney, Barney, Barney…” while he praises the remarkable Woodstock-based novella Music From Big Pink by John Niven. He remembers an awful interview with Prince: “he sat like a sadistic cat, waiting to maul me” and connects the Minnesotan “Imp of the Perverse” with Bob. Is Barney ultimately a Dylan man? While admiring the early work, he’s also put off by its “sadism and cruelty”.

“Barney Hoskyns is the finest British rock writer of his generation” - Charlie Gillett.

He graduated from Oxford with a First Class degree in English and began writing about music for Melody Maker and New Musical Express, British Vogue and The Times, The Guardian, The Independent, and The Observer. He has also contributed to Harper's Bazaar, Interview magazine, Spin magazine and Rolling Stone. He was Associate Editor and then U.S. Editor of Mojo. Barney has written over fifteen books: investigating Bowie, Prince, Led Zeppelin and The Doors; plus Say It One Time For The Brokenhearted: Country Soul In The American South, Across The Great Divide: The Band And America and Joni: The Anthology.

His 2006 Rolling Stone piece on James Brown

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Recorded 2nd December 2019

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Jonathan Lethem Dec 15, 2019

Show notes

On the BobPhone from the USA: it’s award-winning writer Jonathan Lethem, author of Motherless Brooklyn, with a supremely quotable episode. On his “Big Kahuna” interview of Bob for Rolling Stone: “he was direct and generous; we had a good time”. An advocate for Dylan’s latter-day stuff, he believes that “humour is underrated as a feature of the operation”.

Among Jonathan’s many provocative thoughts: “The power of (Dylan’s) negativity is a form of creative dynamism” and “how many people could have turned down the coronations he’s been offered”? He praises the “fiasco methodology” of Under The Red Sky, has mixed feelings about Together Through Life (“if you underrate a thing it can kick your ass”) and condemns the Sinatra years as “a fatally tasteful hiding place”. Did Dylan stay in Mississippi a day too long? Join us and find out.

Jonathan Lethem is an American novelist, essayist and short story writer. His first novel Gun, with Occasional Music, which mixed elements of science fiction and detective fiction, was published in 1994. In 1999, Lethem published Motherless Brooklyn, a National Book Critics Circle Award-winning novel that achieved mainstream success: the movie adaptation by Edward Norton has just been released. In 2003, he published The Fortress of Solitude, which became a New York Times bestseller. His most recent novel is The Feral Detective. A Brooklyn native, Jonathan lives and teaches in California.

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Recorded 19th November 2019

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Andy Kershaw Dec 01, 2019

Show notes

Broadcaster, journalist and “swivel-eyed Dylanologist” Andy Kershaw, “a radio station within a radio station” during his time on Radio 1, gives us his unvarnished thoughts. From arguments with his dad about Bob’s greatness to his first sighting of “the human American bald eagle” at Earl’s Court in 1978, to his unravelling of the identity of the “Judas!” heckler, to Bob’s actual response (“he doesn’t say “play fucking loud!”), this is a delightful and surprising episode. Andy’s encounters include a meeting with Keith Richards (“he nicked my cigarette lighter!”), tracking down long-lost soul singer James Carr in Memphis; and his impromptu November 1985 visit to Dave Stewart’s Crouch End recording studio: “I gave Bob a jar of hedgerow jam. It was like handing a mobile phone to a chimpanzee”.

What hasn’t Andy Kershaw done? He was Billy Bragg’s roadie, a presenter of Whistle Test and Live Aid, and a subversive yet respected DJ. His shows on BBC Radio 1 and 3 provided an outlet for his love of world music, soul, reggae and blues. He married this with many forays into journalism, reporting on the Rwandan genocide and travelling to 97 countries including Iran, Iraq and North Korea. When he moved from London to the Isle of Man in 2006, he continued to host his radio show there and organised concerts featuring Robert Plant, The Who, The Kinks and Lou Reed. Andy currently reports for BBC 1’s The One Show. His autobiography, No Off Switch, is “an amazing read” according to Stephen Fry. Stephen is correct.

Twitter: @THEAndyKershaw

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Recorded 7th November 2019

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Piney Gir Nov 17, 2019

Show notes

As an early Thanksgiving treat, Luke and Kerry welcome American singer Piney Gir. Piney (real name Angela), hails from “a very strict part of the Bible Belt”, where she grew up listening to cassettes of wholesome Christian music and a few of the “less psychedelic” Beach Boys tracks. One day, Dylan’s Slow Train Coming caused chaos in her parents’ car: her dad, a born-again Vietnam vet, loved it but her mom hated it (“or maybe she might have hated my dad”).

Piney’s parents’ church was hardcore: “speaking in tongues, fainting, dancing - and album burning in the church car park”. She finally broke away from Christian Rock and entered the world of secular music via Depeche Mode and The Cure. Eventually, Edie Brickell’s cover of A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall and Scorsese’s No Direction Home brought her to the Church of Bob: “I’m interested in his relationship with faith”. Join us for a surprising journey in and out of the heartlands of America.

Piney Gir was born in Kansas but has been based in the UK since 1998. She has been described both as a musical chameleon and as “the Indie Dolly Parton". As well as being a fixture on the London music scene, she has toured to venues like Glastonbury and South By Southwest. Her songs have appeared in TV programmes including Grey’s Anatomy, Private Practice, Made In Chelsea, Waterloo Road and Being Human.

Piney’s latest album is You Are Here. https://circuitsweet.co.uk/2019/11/piney-gir-album-you-are-here-out-now-new-live-dates-announced/

Twitter: @PineyGir

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02yxmxw

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Recorded 8th October 2019

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Ian McMillan Nov 03, 2019

Show notes

Is Bob Dylan a poet? We ask Ian McMillan, one of the UK’s best. Ian compares Bob to Dylan Thomas, both of them “great poets who can rub vowels against consonants and make a kind of smoke come out of them… a kind of music.” “Meaning doesn’t matter”, he says. “The basis of poetry is being able to mint a phrase like “Lay, lady, lay”. I was so excited when Dylan won the Nobel Prize. Dylan’s stuff will last forever”.

Yorkshire-born Ian recalls arguing with his Andy Stewart-loving Scottish father about the merits of Lay Lady Lay, over the washing up. How he was so moved hearing Sad-Eyed Lady Of The Lowlands that he wrote a poem about it. Other topics include in-depth dissections of One More Cup Of Coffee and Subterranean Homesick Blues, Paul Simon and John Cheever’s short fiction, Dylan’s Tarantula and Gerry Rafferty’s Baker Street. Join us for a free-flowing episode with plenty of literary smoke.

Ian McMillan is a poet, journalist and broadcaster. He presents poetry programme The Verb on BBC Radio 3 and is a regular on BBC Breakfast, Pick of the Week, You & Yours, Last Word and The Arts Show. He’s been a castaway on Desert Island Discs (where he famously chose John Cage’s 4'33"). His television work also includes The Review Show and Have I Got News For You. He has written many volumes of poetry, in addition to his verse autobiography Talking Myself Home. Ian was resident poet for the English National Opera, was Yorkshire TV’s Investigative Poet and Humberside Police’s Beat Poet.

Twitter: @IMcMillan