Theme Time Radio Hour: With Your Host Bob Dylan -- the greatest shuffle-run on Dylan's MP3 player
Ive spent the past two days seriously rocking out to the two-disc set Theme Time Radio Hour: With Your Host Bob Dylan, a collection of pop songs with fascinating written introductory material from Dylan. The variety of genres spanned here is amazing, from old reggae to swing to coutnry and western to the White Stripes, and Dylan mixes in rare finds with classics to make a collection that might as well be called "Pop: this is that it's all about" -- 50 incredibly catchy, funny, songs that use a deceptive accessibility to convey all kinds of messages.
Though many are just plain fun -- and amazing. I love Paul Chaplain and His Emeralds's cover of "Shortnin' Bread" -- if you've heard The Cramps version of this, now you know where they got it, a raunchy, rockabilly version with a mad drummer and a crisp, clapped Bo Diddley beat that makes it just rock. Other standouts are Betty Hall Jones's "Buddy, Stay Off the Wine" (imagine Anita O'Day attaining Mae West's cynicism and then singing lyrics by Gilbert and Sullivan); Slim Gaillard's "How High the Moon" (an arrangement so gonzo it might have originated with the Marx Brothers); The Sons of the Pioneers' "Cool Water" (not the version I knew -- a much more upbeat arrangement that makes you want to clap along), two back-to-back covers of "Pistol Packin' Mama" that show just how wide the distance between interpretations can be; and dozens of others.
It's like hitting shuffle on Bob Dylan's MP3 player and hitting the sweetest run of tappin' tracks serendipity has to offer.
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i love the white strips.
The White Strips and coutnry are my favourites.
#1- HA!
Bob Dylan's weekly Theme Time Radio Hour program on XM (and now Sirius) is great. I wish they'd sell complete seasons of the show on DVD-ROM or iTunes. I should start recording myself.
You can download them all for free online...let me find it...
Oh, I guess they are not there anymore...I guess I downloaded the first few years worth on http://www.whitemanstew.com/ does anyone know of another place?
Dylan never ceases to amaze me. =D
Frank Zappa did a radio show too.
You can listen to a few of these on the BBC website - probably only the most recent ones they've broadcast though:
http://search.bbc.co.uk/search?uri=%2Fradio%2F&go=toolbar&q=bob+dylan+theme+time
Sounds kinda along the same lines as 'Randy's Vinyl Tap' with Randy Bachman of BTO and The Guess Who. It airs on CBC radio here in Canada. Randy has an amazing knowledge of rock and roll history and includes stories of his own, sometimes about meeting the artist in question. My favorite was when he met Jerry Lee "The Killer" Lewis.
you know what Dylan's track selection reminds me of?
the basement tapes.
Both are cases of Bob just playing what he likes.
Imagine Dylan and the Band playing these songs and having a great time. Fun!