At age 14, journalist Dorian Lynskey had a “huge resentment” towards Bob Dylan and the “horrible old has-beens” in the Traveling Wilburys: “SCREW YOU! GET OUT OF THE WAY!” Young Dorian continued to be unmoved by Dylan’s 1997 heart condition: “Oh, I guess he’s dying now: Time Out Of Mind is the mortality album”. He has since revised his opinion. “I like his weird, apocalyptic psycho-geography of America.” He admires the man’s indifference: “Piss off. I’m going to disappoint you again”. In-depth d...
Jun 16, 2019•44 min•Ep. 20
Actor Jonjo O’Neill tells the true story of how Bob Dylan changed his life. Coming to Blowin' In The Wind through a dodgy guitar teacher in Catholic Belfast, moving on to full-blown Dylan conversion through Scorsese documentary No Direction Home , realising that Bob is “a messianic boy who ends up, like Jesus, saying: "Why, Father?"” He continues: “I placed myself as the character of 'Bob'. I felt totally intoxicated by playing him. I felt the drama of what he was doing. I wanted to be Bob Dylan...
Jun 02, 2019•39 min•Ep. 19
Professor and playwright Dan Rebellato sets out his stall by praising Dylan’s simplicity, his humour and his relationship to the spiritual world. “I was raised on Bob Dylan. The album John Wesley Harding gave me nightmares but I love it for its religion – it’s exactly as Christian as I like my Bob.” If you don’t know John Wesley Harding, this episode is your way in. If you do know it, Dan will take you deeper. “Suddenly, he becomes a storytelling songwriter. He’s no longer mocking the convention...
May 19, 2019•35 min•Ep. 18
From New York, it’s the legendary Larry “Ratso” Sloman , author of On The Road With Bob Dylan , the up-close-and-personal story of the 1975 Rolling Thunder tour . Ratso shoots the breeze with Luke and Kerry about Bob, Joan, Sara, Joni, Roger, Renaldo, Clara and the rest of the gang. The Scorsese Rolling Thunder Revue doc is previewed and his new album discussed. From his beginnings as a suburban teenage accountant to hanging out with the foulmouthed Fugs , blagging his way into Rolling Stone mag...
May 05, 2019•52 min•Ep. 17
In a specially extended edition, beloved Barking bigmouth Billy Bragg tells Kerry and Luke how he first encountered the works of Dylan in the early 1970’s, “through the portal” of Simon & Garfunkel and Rod Stewart. “Greatest Hits, Volume 2 really messed with my head and my songwriting”. We learn that when Chrissie Hynde asks him to come backstage to meet Bob post-concert, Billy flees into the night, terrified of disgracing himself in front of his hero. Wiggle Wiggle, Woody Guthrie and Wilco ...
Apr 21, 2019•58 min•Ep. 16
Jude Rogers , Guardian music critic and interviewer , shares her thoughts with Kerry while Luke is in rehearsals. She tells of growing up with The Smiths and REM, “terrified” of the “intimidating” man who “influenced all of pop music” until she discovers the “non-intimidating” Bob on Nashville Skyline and Self Portrait. Jude eventually realises that “Bob Dylan was all these different people” and begins to see the light. An interview she conducts with Mavis Staples seals the deal, complimented by...
Apr 07, 2019•40 min•Ep. 15
Direct from New York City, our first transatlantic podcast features singer, songwriter and journalist Jeff Slate , who went from life in a small town in suburban Connecticut to gigging with his own band to being invited into the Dylan office “for coffee” to writing the liner notes for More Blood, More Tracks . Jeff spills the beans on future Bootleg Series releases and the music business in general: “physical product, sadly, is dead”. On hearing a preview of Shadows In The Night , he says “I was...
Mar 24, 2019•34 min•Ep. 14
Film producer Robin Guise is our knowledgeable guide through Dylan’s major cinematic works. In our longest episode yet, we look back at Dont Look Back , Eat The Document , Pat Garrett And Billy The Kid, Renaldo & Clara , Hearts Of Fire and Masked And Anonymous . On the way, Robin discusses Let It Be , the Radiohead documentary Meeting People Is Easy and the upcoming Rolling Thunder project. Acting is discussed: Tom Waits and Kris Kristofferson can; Bob Dylan can’t . Or can he ? Fasten your s...
Mar 10, 2019•52 min•Ep. 13
Kathryn Williams , singer-songwriter, laughs like the flowers as she talks about Dylan as inspiration and Cat Stevens as her secret crush. Outsiders and identity are themes; she listened to Janis Joplin every morning to get through school. Kath confesses to some ”wild” teenage years: listening for hours to tapes of Dylan in a Liverpool pub car park. Lay Lady Lay was “a wakening into the adult world”, her “massive daily song: saucy and sexy”. Her songwriting is illuminated: “how to make truth rin...
Feb 24, 2019•36 min•Ep. 12
David Baddiel , a Bowie man to his core, pronounces Dylan “incredibly subversive and instinctively funny” while comparing him to Larry David. Bob’s voice is “like a buzzing fly”; Mr Tambourine Man is “a pure piece of surrealistic poetry that signals the start of the 60’s - in 1964”. There’s more: “Dylan takes leaps of the imagination that he doesn’t know he’s taking” and “Bob is John The Baptist to Leonard Cohen’s Jesus”. Don’t miss this outstanding episode. David - comedian, novelist and screen...
Feb 10, 2019•46 min•Ep. 11
Peter Fincham , television producer, tells a hilarious story concerning Dylan’s manager and a Bob tribute band. He moves on to Every Grain Of Sand and the Bootleg Series (“Angelina is impenetrable” but it’s “a magnificent vocal performance. He sings it as if his life depends on it”). At boarding school, Peter rejected his peers’ predilection for Deep Purple and found a taste for “songs with acoustic guitars”. Dylan’s trip into the Sinatra songbook is considered, plus missing tracks from Shot of ...
Jan 27, 2019•37 min•Ep. 10
Tom Sutcliffe, journalist and broadcaster, gave his fourteen year-old son a birthday iPod with a quote from Forever Young engraved on it. He swears: “I don’t randomly quote Bob Dylan” and describes Bob’s Bringing It All Back Home as “a cold shower/warm shower of an album”. Concentrating on BIABH, Tom calls Maggie’s Farm “an ordeal” and certain famous lyrics “trite” and “twee”; and admits to an irrational hatred of the tambourine, but praises Gates of Eden as “a great tune”. Tom Sutcliffe studied...
Jan 13, 2019•35 min•Ep. 9
Jon Canter , comedy writer, reminds us of Bob’s physical resemblance to The Marx Brothers and of his “predictably perverse” humour (“I don’t think I’d heard sarcasm in popular song before Dylan”). He goes on to equate Bob’s Jewishness with his constant restlessness, whilst quoting a Randy Newman song about Bruce Springsteen . Jon somehow manages to relate the work of Dylan to Brexit, via a discussion of Bob’s attitude to “experts”. He praises the genius of Dylan’s early bootlegs and marvels at t...
Dec 30, 2018•35 min•Ep. 8
Sid Griffin, musician and writer, compares Dylan to Miles Davis but concludes “he’s a surprisingly normal person in an incredibly abnormal situation.” Other subjects: Bob’s open attendance at Minnesota sporting events, Dylan’s penchant for taking buses into rural Ireland and the secret of his 1960s skinny black jeans. We also discuss originality. Sid’s view: “If you take two lines from a Henry Timrod poem in the American Civil war and then have a line of your own and then you have two lines from...
Dec 16, 2018•38 min•Ep. 7
Sylvie Simmons , author of the definitive Leonard Cohen biography “ I’m Your Man ”, confesses to discovering both Bob and Leonard on the same tacky compilation album. Further revelations include her reaction to witnessing Born-Again Bob (“it was just a really boring show”) and Leonard’s unhappy reaction to the news of Bob’s conversion (“he was yelling and screaming”). Other topics include Dylan and Cohen’s Jewishness, their use of smoke and mirrors and, from the mouth of their mutual producer Bo...
Dec 02, 2018•38 min•Ep. 6
Olivier Award-winning actor Kenneth Cranham wraps his RADA-trained vocal cords around Visions of Johanna and never stops. "You’ve got to go and see this guy Bob Dylan at the Royal Festival Hall,” he remembers being told in 1964. “He smokes joints all the time." So he bought four tickets - for a pound. Get ready for countless stories including Sam Shepard’s unique directing technique, a fond remembrance of Roger Lloyd Pack and blowing the minds of the Salvation Army with Dylan on his side. West E...
Nov 18, 2018•35 min•Ep. 5
In Episode 4, acclaimed writer Paul Morley - not widely known as a Bob Dylan man - proves his love. “Punk demolished a lot of people but...you weren’t going to demolish Bob. I always think of Before The Flood as like a proto-punk album.” Paul Morley is an English music journalist, well known for his work with the New Musical Express . He was a co-founder of the record label ZTT Records and was a member of the synthpop group Art of Noise . He has been a band manager, promoter, television presente...
Nov 04, 2018•35 min•Ep. 4
In Episode 3, singer and writer Barb Jungr compares Dylan and Leonard Cohen (having extensively recorded both), and talks about the constant relevance of Dylan’s lyrics: his “understanding of humanity…that really relentless gaze”. An award-winning song-stylist incorporating jazz, blues and European cabaret, Barb’s approach often includes radical re-readings of known writers (Bowie, Springsteen, The Beatles, Joni Mitchell) as well as original material. She has also written for children’s and musi...
Oct 21, 2018•38 min•Ep. 3
In Episode 2, actor David Morrissey and his son Gene discuss Dylan’s take on heartbreak and darkness, as well as the art of listening to albums all the way through; especially Blood On The Tracks. David Morrissey started acting at the Everyman Youth Theatre in Liverpool, where he was born and raised. Following graduation from RADA, he worked with Cheek By Jowl, the Manchester Royal Exchange and the Royal National Theatre. The British Film Institute described David as "one of the most versatile E...
Oct 07, 2018•42 min•Ep. 2
In our first episode: noted journalist, broadcaster and author David Hepworth talks about Dylan's jokes, the Nobel Prize and the time he interviewed him. David joined Smash Hits in 1979 and became the editor. He helped start magazines like Just Seventeen, Q, Empire, Mojo, More, Heat and The Word. He presented Whistle Test for the BBC; and Live Aid, in front of the largest TV audience in history. He interviewed Bob Dylan a year later, in July 1986. His books "1971: Never A Dull Moment" and "Uncom...
Sep 24, 2018•44 min•Ep. 1
