Is It Rolling, Bob? Talking Dylan26 Dec 2019

Barney Hoskyns

Rock journalist Barney Hoskyns comes on board for a special episode that focuses on The Band, with Dylan as their “weird” sideman. Tears Of Rage is compared to Philip Roth’s novel American Pastoral. Barney suspects it might just be “an anti-hippie song”. His “deeply emotional” attachment to the town of Woodstock is explored in depth: “overwhelmed by the mythology of the place”, he raised his kids there and explored its musical history in his book Small Town Talk (title taken from the song by Bobby Charles).

After writing the acclaimed Band book Across The Great Divide, he reports on the feedback he received from Robbie Robertson: “Oh Barney, Barney, Barney, Barney…” while he praises the remarkable Woodstock-based novella Music From Big Pink by John Niven. He remembers an awful interview with Prince: “he sat like a sadistic cat, waiting to maul me” and connects the Minnesotan “Imp of the Perverse” with Bob. Is Barney ultimately a Dylan man? While admiring the early work, he’s also put off by its “sadism and cruelty”.

“Barney Hoskyns is the finest British rock writer of his generation” - Charlie Gillett.

He graduated from Oxford with a First Class degree in English and began writing about music for Melody Maker and New Musical Express, British Vogue and The Times, The Guardian, The Independent, and The Observer. He has also contributed to Harper's Bazaar, Interview magazine, Spin magazine and Rolling Stone. He was Associate Editor and then U.S. Editor of Mojo. Barney has written over fifteen books: investigating Bowie, Prince, Led Zeppelin and The Doors; plus Say It One Time For The Brokenhearted: Country Soul In The American South, Across The Great Divide: The Band And America and Joni: The Anthology.

Episode playlist on Spotify

Listeners: please subscribe and/or leave a review and a rating.

Twitter @isitrollingpod

Recorded 2nd December 2019

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Det här avsnittet är hämtat från ett öppet RSS-flöde och publiceras inte av Podme. Det kan innehålla reklam.

Avsnitt(80)

Sarah Lee

Guardian/Observer staff photographer Sarah Lee first watched Dont Look Back whilst perched on a crowded bed in a Camden flat with a struggling rock combo called Coldplay. As she’s now a BAFTA photogra...

11 Juni 202353min

Rebecca Slaman

Rebecca Slaman, writer and social media guru, is a fan of Bob Dylan’s “perfect random meme humour.” Twitter? “Girls lust after him! But I’ve seen some pretty egregious stuff. Old people don’t understa...

14 Maj 202350min

Bettye LaVette

In the 61st year of her singing career, five-time Grammy nominee Bettye LaVette warns us that our chat will be “straight, no chaser”. And she lives up to that promise. Bettye describes her surprise ba...

16 Apr 202350min

Simon Munnery

Like his main man Bob Dylan, comedian Simon Munnery knows a few things about heckles: aside from being arrested in Edinburgh for heckling Arthur Smith, he met his future wife when she heckled him in A...

19 Mars 202346min

Helen Barrett

Journalist Helen Barrett was lullabied to sleep as her mother sang Mr. Tambourine Man; she had it played at her mother’s funeral (“the Dylan version, not the Byrds cover”). To top it off, Baby, Stop C...

19 Feb 202353min

Michael Bonner

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...

22 Jan 202344min

Stewart Lee

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...

25 Dec 202258min

Matt Rowland Hill

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...

27 Nov 202251min