The Dylantantes The FM Podcast Network

An Experience of Erasure, Dissonance, and the Consequences of Collection to Collective Memory



Back in September 2022, I posted a piece on The Dylantantes called My Fraught Visit to the Bob Dylan Center. It tells the tale of my friend and I traveling to the Center for the first time and our experience with activists in the Greenwood section of Tulsa, Oklahoma. Greenwood was the neighborhood famously known as Black Wall Street at the turn of the twentieth century, and it was also the site of the horrors of the Tulsa Race Massacre in May and June of 1921, almost exactly 103 years ago as of this writing.



My piece was an attempt to summarize the Race Massacre, which many still have never heard of, and to grapple with the placement of the Bob Dylan Center Archive in the neighboring Tulsa Arts District, itself a site of considerable racial tension.



I am revisiting the piece because of recent news that a decades-old attempt by survivors of the Massacre to obtain reparations has finally failed in the Oklahoma Supreme Court. As unlikely as it sounds, two women who were child victims of the riot are still with us: Lessie Benningfield Randle (109) and Viola Fletcher (110). With this state court decision, any hope for even a sliver of justice for these women or the Black residents of Tulsa expires forever, just like the long-ago casualties of the racist rampage.



I wish I were revisiting this piece for the opposite reason — that these survivors have prevailed — but even that stunted degree of justice is simply not the way of Oklahoma apparently. Even if you agree with the ruling—perhaps, to be generous, on strictly legal grounds — it becomes impossible to ignore the persistent injustice still visited upon these innocent people. Indeed, it becomes impossible to deny that the cruelty is the point — a feature, not a bug, to lean on a cliche. Oh, and the racism. The cruelty and the racism.



The Tulsa Race Massacre is the century-old crime that just keeps on giving, it seems.



I hope you read or listen to this piece to the end even if you encountered it before. As Dylan fans we have a special responsibility, I believe, to understand a little better the context of the placement of the Bob Dylan Center and the horrific history of that place.



This revisited version is lightly edited from the original .







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A Million $ Bash Roundtable



Only one year after the triumphal release of “Oh Mercy,” Dylan came out with 1990’s “Under the Red Sky.” The album is known for its all-star musicians—George Harrison, Slash, David Crosby, Bruce Hornsby, Al Kooper, David Lindley, and others—and was produced by Don Was. It is filled with the language and structure of children’s songs and music—which is befitting an album dedicated to “Gabby Goo-Goo,” likely Dylan’s then-toddler daughter, Desiree Gabrielle Dennis-Dylan. There are counting songs, fairytales, and echoes of nursery rhymes. But the songs often sport an ominous feel that is hard to shake, which, if we are being fair, is not too different from traditional children’s folk literature.



For instance, “The Cat’s in the Well” is based on an old nursery rhyme about—you guessed it—a cat in a well.  The weirdest aspect of Dylan’s take, though, is the driving blues melody that backs the lyrics. It’s a rockin’ number that belies the quaintness of its verses.



Some songs, such as “Born in Time,” are stellar, while others are the targets of endless knee-jerk derision. No song falls more into that latter category than the album’s opening track, “Wiggle Wiggle.” Personally I’ve always seen “Wiggle Wiggle” as a harmless bit of fun, like “Country Pie” or “Every Grain of Sand,” but others have pegged it as a sign of the coming apocalypse. Perhaps if it weren’t the very first song on the album people would lighten up a bit, but there you have it.



We also see Dylan return to satiric form in several songs, most notably the romping “TV Talkin’ Song,” which is both hopelessly dated and sweetly naive in this Internet Age. As a satire, the song is clever, though. It’s a narrative about a man holding forth in Hyde Park—ranting about the evils of television. Most of the lyrics are simply a transcript of what he says with the narrator serving as mere reporter. This structure allows Dylan some ironic distance from the message. At the end of the song, a riot breaks out, and Dylan concludes with this amusing irony: “Later on that evening, I watched it on T.V.”



One oddity: This is the rare Dylan album to include the lyrics in the liner notes.



“Under the Red Sky” is a short album, 35 and a half minutes long, but in some ways it is too long. “Handy Dandy” would make a fine finish to the album, but instead we get one more number, the uninspired “The Cat’s in the Well.” Most Dylan albums start and end strong. Under the Red Sky does the opposite, which may be one reason—along with its uncharacteristically slick production and slap-dash performances—the album has never been well received.



But here’s the good news! Today we have a full house on Million $ Bash.



MDB Roundtable Panelists:




Rob “Rockin’ Rob” Reginio teaches modern literature at Alfred University.  He's currently at work on a book about Dylan's album John Wesley Harding.



Nina Goss is Editor of or contributor to the volumes Tearing the World Apart: Bob Dylan and the 21st Century and Dylan at Play. She is a contributor to various anthologies and presented at the first World of Bob Dylan conference (2019), and Dylan and the Beats conference in Tulsa (2022). She teaches at Fordham University.



Court Carney is a professor of history at Stephen F. Austin State University, where he teaches courses on Black history and cultural history. His book Reckoning with the Devil: Nathan Bedford Forrest in Myth and Memory will be out later this year. 



Erin Callahan lives in the Houston, Texas, area where she teaches English at San Jacinto College. She has pres

What Is It about Bob Dylan?







Phil Hale lives in NYC and first saw Dylan live in '81 in London. Since then he has seen Dylan more than 100 times. While having no regrets he's not completely sold on the idea that it's the best use of his time either. That dichotomy has led to some attempts to write about Dylan to make sense of what seems like a grand obsession. Phil lived in Woodstock for a while and likes to think it was a coincidence. As a graduate in philosophy he is at least attuned to the idea that some things can be pursued at length and the answer never found. He's married, and if his wife entered a "eye roll when Dylan is mentioned" competition she would place highly if not outright win it. Despite this he salutes her patience.



This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thedylantantes.substack.com



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We're a proud member of The FM Podcast Network along with PodDylan - Dylan.FM - The Bob Dylan Primer - and more.

A Million $ Bash Roundtable



Twenty-one years ago, the whole wide world was stunned by the release of a new Bob Dylan project unlike any before, a feature-length movie of his own creation aimed at a generalish audience.



Led by a future Nobel Laureate co-crafting the satirical script, populated with a brilliantly star-studded cast, and helmed by a maverick director out to compose what he described as “a great Bob Dylan song” in film, Masked and Anonymous was destined to be a masterpiece. It. Could. Not. Fail.



The film had its origins in an inchoate scheme by Larry Charles, of Seinfeld and later Borat fame, and Bob Dylan to create a network sitcom, a slapstick comedy that reportedly drew from the antics of Jerry Lewis and would star that master of physical comedy Bob Dylan. Instead, with only 20 days of production time, they cranked out a film that drew on Hollywood royalty who worked for scale just to be in the presence of the man himself.



Although I have written positively about the film, I have never been fully comfortable with it. It somehow amounts to less than the sum of its parts. The actors are all game—no one holds back in the least, and some may even go a tad bit overboard: I’m looking at you Giovanni Ribisi. There are many moments of comedy that just don’t come off the way they are supposed to. Perhaps the alternate-universe dystopian setting is too off-putting to frame this blend of sardonic wit, philosophical musings, and dad jokes.



M$B Roundtable Panelists:








Nina Goss is Editor of or contributor to the volumes Tearing the World Apart: Bob Dylan and the 21st Century and Dylan at Play. She is a contributor to various anthologies and presented at the first World of Bob Dylan conference (2019), and Dylan and the Beats conference in Tulsa (2022). She teaches at Fordham University.



Court Carney is a professor of history at Stephen F. Austin State University, where he teaches courses on Black history and cultural history. He is finishing a book manuscript on the public memory of Nathan Bedford Forrest.



Graley Herren is an English professor at Xavier University in Cincinnati, where he regularly teaches a first-year seminar on Bob Dylan. He is author of the book Dreams and Dialogues in Dylan’s Time Out of Mind, and he has a Substack newsletter devoted to Dylan called Shadow Chasing.



Jim Salvucci is the founder and keeper of The Dylantantes.




Let us know what you think!



Thanks for checking out The Dylantantes!



EXTENDED EDITIONS



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FM PODCAST NETWORK 



We're a proud member of The FM Podcast Network along with PodDylan - Dylan.FM - The Bob Dylan Primer - and more.

What Is It about Bob Dylan?







You may know Dan Brown as the author of the bestseller The DaVinci Code, but you’ve got the wrong guy. This Dan Brown was born in Tarrytown N.Y, and after a stint in the United States Air Force he moved to New City, NY, entered into a career in the restaurant industry. For the last  15 years, he has been owner of the Wherehouse Restaurant in Newburgh, NY.



His lifelong  passion for music has resulted in The Wherehouse being a hub for young  local musicians to perform as well as network. The decor is also reflective of the passionate musical journey he has taken. And though he is a fan of many bands and performers, Bob Dylan stands above the crowd not only as a songwriter but most important as a storyteller. On more tidbit: the Wherehouse serves a drink called “Blood on the Tracks,” which features Bob Dylan’s Heaven’s Door whiskey.



Thanks for checking out The Dylantantes!



This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thedylantantes.substack.com



FM PODCAST NETWORK 



We're a proud member of The FM Podcast Network along with PodDylan - Dylan.FM - The Bob Dylan Primer - and more.

A Million $ Bash Roundtable



Bob Dylan’s 15th, 16th, and 17th studio albums, Planet Waves, Blood on the Tracks, and Desire, had been solid successes when he released Street-Legal in 1978. The album was not universally well received by critics although it was a commercial success.



There is an Extended Version of this episode available on FM+. Details below.



The band was mostly drawn from the large ensemble performing during Dylan’s Japanese and Australian tours and notably included a chorus consisting of Dylan’s future wife Carolyn Dennis, veteran singer Jo Ann Harris, and Helena Sprigs, who was all of 17 at the time. He would continue to record and tour with a chorus through much of the eighties. The recording sessions were reportedly sloppy, being held in Dylan’s rehearsal space called Rundown Studios using mobile equipment on a truck. The resulting sonics from the original mix were less than stellar, which may be why the album had a rough reputation. The saxophone bits sound somewhat dated now, but they still work.



M$B Roundtable Panelists:




Rob “Rockin’ Rob” Reginio teaches modern literature at Alfred University.  He's currently at work on a book about Dylan's album John Wesley Harding.



Erin Callahan lives in the Houston, Texas, area where she teaches English at San Jacinto College. She has presented and published on Dylan and is currently co-editing a volume with Court Carney on interpretations of Dylan’s setlists for Routledge.



Graley Herren is an English professor at Xavier University in Cincinnati, where he regularly teaches a first-year seminar on Bob Dylan. He is author of the book Dreams and Dialogues in Dylan’s Time Out of Mind, and he has a Substack newsletter devoted to Dylan called Shadow Chasing.



Jim Salvucci is the founder and keeper of The Dylantantes.




Let us know what you think!



Thanks for checking out The Dylantantes!



EXTENDED EDITIONS



To hear the Extended and Bonus Episodes of our shows:




Subscribe to FM+ : Click the subscribe button in Apple Podcasts or sign up here. (One subscription covers all our network podcasts for one low price ! )



Join FM Premium: Get an FM+ Subscription plus video interviews, blog posts, a weekly bonus email and more.




FM PODCAST NETWORK 



We're a proud member of The FM Podcast Network along with PodDylan - Dylan.FM - The Bob Dylan Primer - and more.