July 2021

Crowdsourcing Transcriptions: “At the Library and in the Field: John and Alan Lomax Papers”

Most Dylan fans (over a certain age at least) are aware of John and Alan Lomax, the American ethnomusicologists best known for their recordings of folk music of the 20th century. Of course, many of the songs collected ended up on recordings that would influence Dylan. The Library of Congress is holding a crowdsourcing event …

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Shadow Kingdom Director – Alma Har’el

Shadow Kingdom was released this week to almost universal approbation. True, the Sony marketing department made a huge gaffe (or perhaps they did it on purpose to boost ticket sales) by advertising the show as an ‘intimate live performance’ when it really wasn’t. In reality, it was a film of Dylan and his “band’ mimicking …

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Johnny Cash – The Life by Robert Hilburn

I just finished a biography of Johnny Cash, written by Robert Hilburn, a long-time music writer with the Los Angeles Times. It’s a page-turner, highly recommended. Not surprisingly, the book has a plethora of Dylan-related material. Background on Cash Cash grew up a very poor country boy from Arkansas. When his family moved to a …

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Bob Dylan: Odds and Ends

“What is this shit?” to quote Greil Marcus. I was excited when I heard about the new video of Dylan material, Odds and Ends. I’m always interested in hearing something new about my favorite artist. Sounded good to me. That doesn’t mean I wasn’t a bit skeptical. The early Bootleg Series releases were phenomenal, full …

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Mole in the Ground

I was listening recently to the traditional song, Mole in the Ground. I always assumed the song was about some poor devil with low self-esteem. Alas, as has been the case many times, I was very wrong. That’s not what the author meant at all. That’s was not it at all.  But I did notice …

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