Is It Rolling, Bob? Talking Dylan Lucas Hare, Kerry Shale

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.
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Recorded 29th November 2022
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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)
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Recorded 16th November 2022
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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.
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Recorded 26th October 2022
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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.
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Recorded 21st September 2022
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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.
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Recorded 2nd August 2022
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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.
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Recorded 13th July 2022
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