Dreamtime - Commentary Inspired By Bob Dylan's Theme Time Radio Hour

The Annotated “Weather” Theme Time Radio Hour - Episode 1

dreamtimepodcast@gmail.com (Fred Bals) — Thu, 13 Dec 2012 06:36:30 PST

Being a Compleat Transcript with Commentary of the premiere episode of Theme Time Radio Hour

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First Broadcast Wednesday, May 3rd, 2006

[Rain and wind sound effects]

“The Lady in Red” (Ellen Barkin): It’s night time in the Big City. Rain is falling. Fog rolls in from the waterfront. A nightshift nurse smokes the last cigarette in her pack.

Ellen Barkin: It’s Theme Time Radio Hour with your host, Bob Dylan.

Bob Dylan: It’s time for Theme Time Radio Hour, dreams, schemes and themes. Today’s show… all about the weather. Curious about what the weather looks like? Just look out your window or take a walk outside.

Bob Dylan: We’re going to start out with the great Muddy Waters, one of the ancients by now whom all moderns prize. One of his early songs on the Chess label, “Blow Wind, Blow,” featuring Jimmy Rogers, Otis Spann, and… Little Walter. From the windy city of Chicago, Muddy Waters, “Blow Wind Blow.” Here’s Muddy.

[Muddy Waters – “Blow Wind Blow”]

Commentary

Although unrelated musically, no one can hear the title of the first song aired on Theme Time without thinking of Dylan’s own Blowin’ in the Wind.

“…one of the ancients by now whom all moderns prize.”

The first shot fired in the great “did Bob Dylan contribute to TTRH scripts?” debate, and a definite point for the “Yes” side.

The line is a paraphrase taken from Alexander Pope’s 1711 poem, “An Essay on Criticism,” an unlikely reference for producer/writer Eddie Gorodetsky to be making in relation to Muddy Waters, no matter how literate the ex-radio jock and comedy writer may be.

The Ancients only, or the Moderns prize:
(Line 394)

There’s much for Bob Dylan to like in “An Essay on Criticism,” including Pope’s argument that all good writing stems from “the imitation of the ancients,” and his contention that bad criticism is much more tiresome to the reader than bad writing.

Dylan may have adapted the “one of the ancients…” line to acknowledge one of the primary tenets of his career: all artists owe a debt to their predecessors, a thread that would run through many Theme Time commentaries.

Although little-remembered in these modern times, “An Essay on Criticism” has made several contributions to the popular lexicon including, “a little learning is a dangerous thing,” and “fools rush in where angels fear to tread.”

Bob Dylan: Muddy Waters, “Blow Wind, Blow.” Chicago’s known as the Windy City, but it’s not the windiest city in the U. S. The windiest city is Dodge City, Kansas. Other windy cities are Amarillo, Texas, and Rochester, Minnesota. All of which beat Chicago. But you can’t beat Muddy Waters singing “Blow Wind, Blow.”

Commentary

“…the windiest city in the U. S.”

Theme Time Radio Hour sources often can be found by entering a few key words into Yahoo or Google and following the results. Dylan’s list of the windiest cities in the U.S. appears to be from a 2005 USATODAY.com article, one of the top links appearing in Google results for the phrase, “windiest city in the U.S.”

“…the windiest U.S. city is Dodge City, Kansas, with an average speed of 13.9 mph. Other windy cities include Amarillo, Texas (13.5 mph) and Rochester, Minn. (13.1 mph.).”

Using the first results they found on the Web was a habit that would occasionally get the Theme Time researchers into hot water with the show’s more discerning listeners. An unhappy fan pointed out midway through Season 1 that many of Bob Dylan’s stories about the music and musicians were reproduced almost verbatim from Wikipedia articles or other easily identifiable sources. Occasionally the information the TTRH team found would also be dead wrong, with the error repeated on-air by Dylan.

[“Weather” jingle]

Bob Dylan: James Houston Davis, better known as Jimmy Davis. Not only a singer and songwriter, but also the governor of Louisiana, wrote this song. He also wrote a bunch of risqué songs. At his 100th birthday party in 19 and 99 he performed four songs. One of them this one.

[Jimmy Davis – “You Are My Sunshine”]

Bob Dylan: “I dreamed I held you in my arms. When I woke I was mistaken. You make me happy when shies are grey.” “You Are My Sunshine,” Jimmy Davis.

Commentary

"James Houston Davis, better known as Jimmy Davis. Not only a singer and songwriter, but also the governor of Louisiana, wrote this song."

It’s curious that neither Bob Dylan nor Eddie Gorodetsky seemed aware that Jimmy Davis didn’t write “You Are My Sunshine,” a fact which is cited in almost every piece written about Davis, with even the notoriously unreliable Wikipedia getting it right. Maybe the story was simply too complicated to tell, as there are multiple histories about the cloudy origins of "You Are My Sunshine."

According to most accounts, Davis and his pedal steel guitarist, Charles Mitchell, purchased the song from a Paul Rice - who may or may not have composed it himself- for $35 in 19 and 39 and put their own names on it, a not uncommon practice of the era. In his later days, Davis provided a semi-acknowledgement of the truth, claiming that he had been misquoted over the years about writing the song and had been referring to his efforts in popularizing it, rather than in claiming authorship.

Jimmie Davis did perform four songs at his 100th birthday party at Baton Rouge in 1999, including the one he didn’t write but was best-associated with, “You Are My Sunshine.” He passed away in his sleep at his home on Sunday, November 5, 2000, at the age of 101,

"He also wrote a bunch of risqué songs."

Davis recorded a number of risqué songs during his early career, including a paean to monkey glands, which I wish TTRH had aired, a popular impotence treatment of the `30s, in his "Organ Grinder Blues."

Gonna get me some monkey glands,
Be like I used to was;
Gonna run these mamas down,
Like a Dominicker rooster does.

Bob Dylan: All right now. Going out West, where I belong. Get away from the gee-rind. “I walk. They talk. They twist, they shimmy. They’re frisky, frisky ‘Frisco girls.” This here song was a hit by The Riveras. The Ramones covered it many years later. Here’s the original, this is “California Sun” done by Joe Jones.

[Joe Jones – “California Sun”]

Bob Dylan: “Having fun in the ol’ California sun.” Joe Jones. Joe was from New Orleans. He had a hit record with “You Talk Too Much.” Unfortunately, he passed away last year.

Commentary

"Unfortunately, he passed away last year."

Joe Jones died on November 27, 2005, confirming that Dylan recorded his commentary sometime between January 2006 and the show’s air date of May 6, 2006.

Bob Dylan: “I Don’t Care If The Sun Don’t Shine.” Dean Martin with Paul Weston and His Dixieland 8. We forget how much Elvis wanted to be Dean. But this is one of the songs that Elvis himself recorded for Sun Records. “I don’t care if the sun don’t shine. We kiss and kiss, and kiss some more. Don’t ask how many times we kiss. There’s no fun with the sun around.” “I Don’t Care If The Sun Don’t Shine.” Dean Martin, Paul Weston and His Dixieland 8.

[Dean Martin with Paul Weston and His Dixieland 8. – “I Don’t Care If The Sun Don’t Shine”]

Commentary

"We forget how much Elvis wanted to be Dean."

Bob Dylan’s off-hand remark that would prompt me to begin Dreamtime, and eventually attempt a book on Theme Time Radio Hour.

The idea that Elvis had ever wanted to be Dino had never occurred to me, but a little research did show that Martin had, in fact, been one of Presley’s favorite singers and role models.

Jerry Hopkins' “Elvis: A Biography,” relates a story told by the office manager of Sam Phillips' Sun Records studio, Marion Keisker, who said that in Elvis’ first audition he relied so heavily on Dean Martin material she felt that he had deliberately decided "...if he was going to sound like anybody, it was going to be Dean Martin."

“I Don’t Care If The Sun Don’t Shine” was originally composed for Disney’s animated film Cinderella, but dropped from the final score.

[The Prisonaires – “Just Walking in the Rain” (excerpt)]

Bob Dylan: The Prisonaires’ lead singer, Johnny Bragg, was sentenced to 99 years for rape when he was just 11 years old. But, you know for a black man in Tennessee in the `40s, rape could have been just looking at the wrong white woman in the wrong way.

Bob Dylan: All right, now get this. The governor of Tennessee heard the Prisonaires sing “Just Walking in the Rain” and arranged for them to record for Samuel Phillips Sun label on June 1st 1953. It hit the airwaves and took off, selling 250,000 copies. Johnny Ray, a very popular singer at the time, covered it for Columbia, selling over two million copies.

Bob Dylan: After the third single, several members of the group were paroled and formed another group called The Sunbeams. In 1955 they changed their names again, to The Marigolds, and recorded a song called “Rolling Stone.” Johnny Bragg, who was out on parole, was sitting in the back seat of a car with a white girl… who was his wife. Which, somehow, violated his parole and he ended up spending the next six years back in the lockup.

Bob Dylan: A sad story. A beautiful song. “Just Walking in the Rain,” The Prisonaires.

[The Prisonaires – “Just Walking in the Rain”]

Commentary

"Johnny Bragg, was sentenced to 99 years for rape when he was just 11 years old."

Dylan misread the script or there was a typo. Bragg was imprisoned at age 17, not at age 11.

"The governor of Tennessee heard the Prisonaires sing “Just Walking in the Rain” and arranged for them to record for Samuel Phillips Sun label on June 1st 1953."

Most histories of The Prisonaires have them discovered by radio producer Joe Calloway, who beat the drum about The Prisonaires to Sam Phillips, and who eventually brought them into the studio on June 1st 1953. After “Just Walking in the Rain” became a hit the band did become favorites of governor Frank G. Clement, and they frequently performed at his mansion.

"Johnny Bragg, who was out on parole, was sitting in the back seat of a car with a white girl… who was his wife. Which, somehow, violated his parole and he ended up spending the next six years back in the lockup."

After his sentence was commuted in 19 and 59 Bragg was in and out of prison on various parole violations, described as both trumped-up and legitimate, depending on the source. Bragg completed his final jail term in 19 and 77, He passed away in 2004.

Dylan missed the opportunity to tell several other stories about Johnny Bragg, including a reported 1961 prison visit from Elvis, who had been captivated by “Just Walking in the Rain.” Another visitor was supposedly Hank Williams Sr. Both stories, as well as the legend that Bragg sold Williams “Your Cheatin’ Heart” for $5, are likely apocryphal but would have been perfect grist for the TTRH story mill.

Time: 17:01

(Storm sound effects)

Bob Dylan: Theme Time Radio Hour. Dreams, schemes, and themes.

Bob Dylan: “After The Clouds Roll Away” by The Consolers, a husband and wife team from Florida. They recorded this song on the Nashboro label. Don’t know what kind of clouds are rolling away, but they’re probably the alto cirrus, or the altostratus, one or the other. The altoculmulus (sic) might be in there too… rolling away.

Commentary

“… but they’re probably the alto cirrus, or the altostratus, one or the other. The altoculmulus might be in there too… rolling away.”

One of the first examples of Dylan’s and Gorodetsky’s fondness for having Dylan recite lists of things, a riff that would be used throughout the series.

Dylan mispronounces “altocumulus,” saying “altoculmulus” instead.

Bob Dylan: “Everything going all right. Before the day is over, clouds cover the sky. Try not to cry. But you know that indeed in each life some rain must fall. Trouble may be waiting ‘long the way.” Here’s The Consolers, “After The Clouds Roll Away.”

[The Consolers – “After The Clouds Roll Away.”]

Bob Dylan: Brother Sullivan Pugh and his wife, Lola. “After The Clouds Roll Away.”

Bob Dylan: Here’s a song by Jimi when he was trying to write a Curtis Mayfield song. Everybody thought that Jimi was a wild man, but this shows his more gentle side. Sometimes the wind whispers “Mary.” Sometimes it cries “Mary.” Here’s Jimi Hendrix, “The Wind Cries Mary.”

[Jimi Hendrix – “The Wind Cries Mary.”]

Bob Dylan: They call the wind Mariah, south of the border. But here it cries, “Mary.”

Commentary

“…when he was trying to write a Curtis Mayfield song.”

As he does throughout the 100 episodes of Theme Time Radio Hour, Dylan studiously avoids making the obvious reference to himself or his own work. He could have as easily said, “…when Jimi was trying to write a Bob Dylan song,” given the Dylanesque turns of phrases Hendrix uses throughout “Mary.”

According to Jimmy Black’s Jimi Hendrix, The Ultimate Experience, the last time Dylan saw Hendrix he remembered, “[Jimi] was slouched down in the back of a limousine. I was riding by on a bicycle. I remember saying something about a song ‘The Wind Cries Mary’…”

The Wikipedia article on the song includes an unsourced quote from Billy Cox, bassist for the Band of Gypsies: "’The Wind Cries Mary' was a riff that was influenced by Curtis Mayfield, who was a big influence for Jimi."

Various other published works also note Hendrix’s admiration for Curtis Mayfield, so Gorodetsky and Dylan may have known the connection without having to consult Wikipedia.

"They call the wind Mariah, south of the border."

“They Call The Wind Mariah” is a song from the musical, “Paint Your Wagon,” and popularized by The Kingston Trio.

[Judy Garland – “Come Rain Or Come Shine” ]

Bob Dylan: Okay, Judy Garland. Just like Prince, she’s from Minnesota. “Come Rain or Come Shine.”

Commentary

"Just like Prince, she’s from Minnesota."

As is, of course, Bob Dylan. The TTRH team apparently had nothing more they wanted to say about Judy Garland, as Dylan would use the exact same line, “…just like Prince, she’s from Minnesota” when introducing Judy’s only other appearance on TTRH, performing “Smile” in the Season 3 “Happiness” episode.

Time: 27:26

Bob Dylan: “I’m gonna love ya like no-body loves ya, come rain or come shine.” Song’s written by Harold Arlen with lyrics by Johnny Mercer. Harold Arlen wrote, “The World On a String” and “That Ol’ Black Magic,” and “One For My Baby, One For the Road.”

Bob Dylan: Johnny Mercer wrote “Accentuate the Positive” and “Stormy Weather,” which we’re gonna hear a little later by The Spaniels. But first, here’s a little more music by Miss Irma Thomas.

Bob Dylan: Irma’s still down there in New Orleans, rebuilding and doing what she’s got to do. Irma’s had a song out called “Ruler of My Heart” that Otis Redding changed into “Pain of My Heart.” And of course The Rolling Stones took Irma’s song, “Time Is On My Side” and had a little hit with that.

Bob Dylan: “Drip drop! It’s raining so hard, raining all night. I guess I’ll have to accept the fact that you’re not here. It’s raining.” Is it raining where you are?

[Irma Thomas – “It’s Raining”]

Commentary

"Irma’s still down there in New Orleans, rebuilding and doing what she’s got to do."

The first reference to the Hurricane Katrina disaster of August 2005 made in this show. Dylan would again refer to Katrina’s impact on New Orleans while introducing Fats Domino’s “Let the Four Winds Blow.”

Bob Dylan: “Many a man curses the rain that falls upon his head and knows not that it brings abundance to drive away the hunger.” Saint Basil, def poet.

Commentary

The first Theme Time Radio Hour “def poet” reading is from Saint Basil, also known as "Basil of Caesarea" and "Basil the Great,” a 4th century theologian.

Eddie Gorodetsky and Bob Dylan planned Dylan’s def poetry readings as one of the staples of TTRH from the show’s very beginning, making it somewhat ironic that this first “def poet” – Saint Basil – is better-known for his moral homilies than for his poetry.

During Season 1 of TTRH, Dylan would eventually read selections or entire poems from over 25 poets ranging from Anon. to William Butler Yeats. Omnivorous reader Dylan may have supplied the Saint Basil quote. It’s also possible that Eddie Gorodetsky found it through a quick Web search for quotations about the weather, as he apparently did with much of the content used in the "Weather" show,

[Sister Rosetta Tharpe – “Didn’t It Rain?” ]

Commentary

A noticeable omission in the "Weather" episode was Dylan providing neither introduction nor closing mention of the song after playing Sister Rosetta Tharpe’s “Didn’t It Rain,” an error he would acknowledge 16 episodes later, on the “Friends & Neighbors” show, when he next played one of the Sister's songs.

While it’s possible that both intro and outro were cut during editing, it’s more likely that the mistake was caused by the sequence not being programmed correctly into the XM computer system. XM’s occasional errors exposing Theme Time’s high-tech seams infuriated the TTRH producers, who spent much of their time trying to maintain the illusion that TTRH was produced as many listeners probably imagined it produced, with Bob Dylan in a studio, spinning platters as he provided a running commentary on the songs. In reality, Dylan's narrative was recorded separately from the other show elements and later mixed in, a common technique in modern radio known as “voice tracking.” When a similar mistake happened in a later show, this time with Dylan's voice introducing one song and another being played, a livid Eddie Gorodetsky called the East Coast at 7 a.m. his time to have the error fixed in later rebroadcasts.

[Sara Silverman promo - “Hi this is Sara Silverman and you’re listening to Theme Time Radio Hour with Bob Dylan!”]

Commentary

An unlikely candidate for Theme Time’s first celebrity guest spot, there’s no evidence that pretty but potty-mouthed comedienne Sarah Silverman knows, or even has met, Bob Dylan. It’s more probable that, as with many of the other celebrity guests who would be featured on TTRH, Silverman did the spot at the invitation of Eddie Gorodetsky, who she does know.

Bob Dylan: Excello Records recorded artist Slim Harpo with his harp in the rack., singing ‘bout a swampy rain. “I know I was wrong. Please come home. “Bout to lose my mind. Don’t let me cry in vain. “

Bob Dylan: Slim wrote a bunch of his songs with his wife, Lovelle. (laughs). Boy, wish I had a wife like that – help me write songs.

[Slim Harpo – “Raining In My Heart”}

Bob Dylan: Slim Harpo, with his harp in the rack. On Theme Time Radio Hour, “Raining In My Heart.”

[audio clip from “Taxi Driver.” “Some day a real rain will come and wash all this scum off the streets.”]

Bob Dylan: Lord Beginner! “Jamaican hurricane, oh what sorrows and pain, Jamaica, because of the hurricane. Hundred-mile-an-hour wind is an awful blow.” Calypso is like a rap, or field hollers. Telling the news to people who got no access to the media. Here’s Lord Beginner, Jamaica Hurricane.

[Lord Beginner – “Jamaica Hurricane”]

Commentary

The first example of TTRH’s ongoing love affair with calypso and reggae, music which would be played regularly throughout the show’s three-year run, especially in the later seasons. Dylan would repeat his analogy of music as a means of distributing news in several other shows.

[WSVA ID jingle]

Time: 40:37

Bob Dylan: Here’s Fats Domino, “Let The Four Winds Blow.” We seem to be playing a lot of records from New Orleans. Well, that only makes sense. New Orleans has been hit pretty hard by the weather. Fats Domino himself was missing for a few days, they finally found him and pulled him up in a boat. Here’s Fats to sing, “I like the way you walk. I like the way you talk. Let the four winds blow.”

[Fats Domino – “Let The Four Winds Blow.”]

Commentary

Domino’s 9th Ward home was flooded to the roof during Hurricane Katrina. Due to the confusion caused by the storm and miscommunications – including someone spray-painting “R.I.P. Fats” on his roof – both family and friends thought the missing Fats was likely dead. He was eventually found and rescued on September 1st 2005, taken to the Superdome and later evacuated to Baton Rouge.

[WARM weather jingle]

Bob Dylan: Here’s The Spaniels, “Stormy Weather.” “Life is bare. Gloom and misery everywhere. The blues walked in and met me. Rockin’ chair would get me.” An awfully happy song for gloom and misery.

[The Spaniels – “Stormy Weather”]

Bob Dylan: The Spaniels, with their lead singer Pookie Hudson, were on that ill-fated tour with Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper, Ritchie Valens, Link Wray, and a bunch of others… which means probably I saw them. Winter Dance Party, February, 1959. The day the music supposedly died.

Commentary

Dylan apparently isn’t a fan of Don McLean’s “American Pie” if the way he spits out, “the day the music supposedly died” is any indicator.

For reasons known only to the prankster, The Spaniels’ Wikipedia entry is regularly vandalized to include the falsehood that the group was part of the 1959 Winter Dance Party tour. It’s likely that the TTRH research team stumbled across the faked “fact” there.

While it’s entirely possible that Bob Dylan was in attendance at the Winter Dance Party show in the Duluth Armory on January 31st 1959, as he’s claimed on several occasions, he didn’t see either The Spaniels or Link Wray during that show. Neither the group nor Wray were part of the `59 tour either before or after Holly’s death. Dylan is careful to note that he “probably” saw the group, possibly ad-libbing off-script while wondering why he didn’t remember seeing them.

Time: 46:45

Bob Dylan: Here’s “Place in the Sun” by Stevie Wonder, only this is the way you might hear it in Italy…. [Speaks Italian gibberish with mentions of prima della and frittatas]: Stevie Wonder, Place in the Sun.”

[Stevie Wonder – “Place in the Sun (“Il Sole E' Di Tutti”)]

Bob Dylan: Stevie Wonder singing, “A Place in the Sun.” Bueno, Stevie, bueno.

Commentary

A nice demonstration of how you can get away with almost anything just as long as you do it with enough brio. Dylan is neither reciting the song’s lyrics in Italian nor making a metropolitan commentary on “A Place in the Sun” but simply mouthing nonsense Italian, mostly the names of different foods.

While still a student at Emerson College in the late `70s, Eddie Gorodetsky was one of the writers and stars of a parody of Italian art films, “Nino, Nino, Nino.” The dialogue in the hour-long movie was conducted entirely in the same pseudo-Italian Dylan uses, including a heavy reliance on the names of Italian foods.

[Wind sound effects]

Bob Dylan: One of those hot, dry Santa Anas that come down through the mountain passes and curl your hair. Oh yeah, make your nerve jump and your skin itch. Always on the edge of hell fire.

Bob Dylan: It’s hard for people who have not lived on the West Coast to realize how radical the Santa Ana figures in the local imagination. West Coast weather is the weather of catastrophe. The Santa Ana winds are like the winds of the Apocalypse.

Commentary

"One of those hot, dry Santa Anas that come down through the mountain passes and curl your hair. Oh yeah, make your nerve jump and your skin itch. Always on the edge of hell fire.

"… It’s hard for people who have not lived on the West Coast to realize how radical the Santa Ana figures in the local imagination. West Coast weather is the weather of catastrophe. The Santa Ana winds are like the winds of the Apocalypse."

Given Bob Dylan’s magpie appropriations from other sources for use in everything from his music to Chronicles, it’s not surprising that he borrowed all his Theme Time commentary on the Santa Ana winds from other writers…. all from quotations found in the Wikipedia entry on the Santa Anas.

Dylan’s first remark is a paraphrase of Raymond Chandler’s famous lines on the infamous winds“…it was one of those hot dry Santa Anas that come down through the mountain passes and curl your hair and make your nerves jump and your skin itch.” His mention of, “…always on the edge of hell fire” is a reworking of a line in Robert Crais’ mystery novel, “Chasing Darkness.” “…a sick desert wind carried the promise of Hell.”

The next set of lines are from Joan Didion’s essay, “Los Angeles Notebook” published in Slouching Toward Bethlehem, the first a near-quote and the latter two lines paraphrased from the same essay, both substituting “West Coast” for “Los Angeles.”

Didion writes, “It is hard for people who have not lived in Los Angeles to realize how radically the Santa Ana figures in the local imagination.…”

“…Los Angeles weather is the weather of catastrophe, of apocalypse….

Bob Dylan: But the summer wind that Frank’s singing about… maybe a little lighter. Come on in, Frank…

[Frank Sinatra – “Summer Wind”]

Bob Dylan: The song was originally a Danish song. Written by the legendary Hans Blotki (sic) [Bradtke] from Denmark. The English lyrics were written by our old friend, Johnny Mercer. And sung beautifully by Mr. Blue Eyes, Frank Sinatra.

Commentary

"Summer Wind" was indeed originally written in Danish. Dylan mangles original lyricist Hans Bradtke's name while claiming (probably with tongue firmly in cheek after his struggles with the name) that he was a famous Dane. Bradtke was actually German.

Bob Dylan: Here are The Staple Singers singing “Uncloudy Day.” “They tell me of an uncloudy day.” Pop Staples with his dreamy underwater sound of the tremolo guitar. Tremolo guitar bar – that’s one of the hardest things to master if you’re a singer – the tremolo bar. It’s hardly ever used, you won’t hear anybody use it, because it’s very hard to control. But when you use it the right way, it can be a very beautiful effect, as we can hear from Pop Staples and The Staple Singers, singing “Uncloudy Day.”

[The Staple Singers – “Uncloudy Day”]

Commentary

"...that’s one of the hardest things to master if you’re a singer – the tremolo bar."

Perhaps another one of those quirky Dylanesque (or Gorodetskyesque) jokes that no one else quite gets. There is no such bar that a singer could master. The tremolo bar, better known as the tremolo arm is "a lever attached to the bridge and/or the tailpiece of an electric guitar or archtop guitar to enable the player to quickly vary the tension and sometimes the length of the strings temporarily, changing the pitch to create a vibrato, portamento or pitch bend effect." (Mr. D. isn't the only one with access to Wikipedia).

Bob Dylan: Welllll, the ol’ clock on the wall says it’s time to go. Until next week, you are all my sunshine. If you think the summer sun is too hot, just remember, at least you don’t have to shovel it. We’ll be here next week, on Theme Time Radio Hour

[The Carter Family – “Keep on the Sunny Side”]

59:52

[“Top Cat (Underscore”)]

“Pierre Mancini”: You’ve been listening to Theme Time Radio Hour, with your host, Bob Dylan. Produced by Eddie Gorodetsky. Associate producer, Sonny Webster. Continuity by “Eeps” Martin. Edited by Damian Rodriguez. Supervising editor, Rob Macomber. The Theme Time research team: Diane Lapson and Bernie Bernstein, with additional research by Lynne Sheridan, Kimberly Williams, and Robert Bower. Production assistance by Jim McBean. Special thanks to Randy Ezratty, Coco Shinomiya, and Samson's Diner. For XM Radio, Lee Abrams. Recorded in Studio B, The Abernathy Building. This has been a Grey Water Park Production in Association with Big Red Tree.

This is your announcer, Pierre Mancini, speaking.

Join us again next week for Theme Time Radio Hour, when the subject is, “Mother.”

Theme Time Radio Hour F.A.Q.

dreamtimepodcast@gmail.com (Fred Bals) — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 05:43:25 PDT

This F.A.Q. covers the common Theme Time Radio Hour questions I've received while writing Dreamtime. Last updated July 2011 to announce the return of TTRH, if only in reruns.

Some of the following information is unverified. When I use qualifiers such as "possibly," "probably" and so on it means I'm making my best guess based on available information. It doesn't necessarily mean I'm right. Feel free to disagree.

Q: Who did the opening "Night in the Big City" introduction?

A: Ellen Barkin. The identity of the narrator was argued among TTRH fans during Season 1 until the Christmas episode was broadcast, when Barkin identified herself.

Except for announcer "Pierre Mancini" and Dylan himself, Barkin was the only continuing voice on TTRH. Barkin introduced every episode in Seasons 1 and 2 except the Season 1 "Halloween" show, which was introduced by comedian Steven Wright.

Barkin's intro was used intermittently during the final season. In some Season 3 shows the intro was dropped altogether. In other episodes, the intro was edited to Barkin's voice simply saying, "This is Theme Time Radio Hour with your host, Bob Dylan." During the final "Goodbye" show of Season 3, which did not use an intro, Barkin was heard midway through the episode announcing to listeners, "This is Ellen Barkin. It's time to go..."

Q: What is the background music played in the credits?

A: "Top Cat (Underscore)," which can be found on the CD compilations, Tunes from the Toons: The Best of Hanna-Barbera and Hanna-Barbera's Pic-a-Nic Basket of Cartoon Classics . Both compilations are currently out-of-print, but can be purchased from third-party sellers on both Amazon and eBay.

The music is an acoustic version of the theme song from the cartoon Top Cat, composed by Hoyt Curtin. The more familiar version of the "Top Cat" theme was played as the last song of Season 3's "Cats" episode.

Q: Where can I find playlists of the music played on TTRH?

A: The Wikipedia article on TTRH , "notdarkyet.org ," or the Theme Time Radio Hour Discussion Forum at Expecting Rain.

Q: Who is announcer "Pierre Mancini?"

A: TTRH producer, Eddie Gorodetsky.

Q: Who is Eddie Gorodetsky?

A: Gorodetsky has had a storied career as disc jockey, writer, comedian, and television writer/producer. In some circles he's probably as well-known as Bob Dylan.

Among music collectors and music historians, Gorodetsky and his collection are legendary. In a 2010 Wall Street Journal interview, Gorodetsky estimated his collection at over 10,000 albums and 140,000 digital files.

For over two decades Gorodetsky distributed annual holiday cassette tapes and later CD compilations of forgotten, arcane and just plain weird Christmas music to friends and acquaintances. Copies of those compilations - which often resemble a TTRH playlist - are exceedingly rare and regularly sell for hundreds of dollars. They can be occasionally found on eBay, especially around the holiday season.

It's likely that their common interest in music is how he and Bob Dylan first met. Gorodetsky, a Rhode Island native and a one-time Boston deejay, is a member of the so-called "Boston Mafia" circle of Dylan friends and acquaintances, which includes Peter Wolf and Peter Guralnick. He may have been introduced to Dylan through one of those people. Gorodetsky is reportedly a close friend of another musician who values his privacy - Tom Waits - probably one of the reasons that Waits made regular "guest appearances" on Theme Time Radio Hour and, with Dinah Washington, became the show's "most-played artist" by the close of Season 3.

One commercial Eddie Gorodetsky Christmas compilation, Christmas Party with Eddie G was released, the only issue from the Strikin' It Rich label, owned by Bob Dylan.

The 1990 compilation, later re-issued in 1996, is in many ways a precursor of what would become the idea for TTRH. The press release announcing the formation of Strikin' It Rich stated that it would be, "releasing rare and interesting rhythm and blues material," presumably much of it originating from Gorodetsky's massive record collection, and probably with the idea that the label's releases would be curated by Gorodetsky and Dylan himself. Strikin' It Rich's goal of "releasing rare and interesting rhythm and blues material," fizzled out after Christmas Party with Eddie G. and would remain nascent for a decade before being revived for the genesis of Theme Time Radio Hour.

Before TTRH, Gorodetsky's connection to Dylan was best-known through the television series, Dharma & Greg, where Gorodetsky was a writer/producer and arranged for a Dylan cameo appearance on the show. Gorodetsky has also appeared in the movie Masked and Anonymous and in the Tweedle Dum & Tweedle Dee music video.

Q: What are Big Red Tree and Grey Water Park Productions?

A: Grey Water Park is Bob Dylan's production company, used to produce and finance various Dylan-related media projects, including TTRH. Big Red Tree is Eddie Gorodetsky's production company, filling a similar role for him as GWPP does for Dylan.

Q: Who are the various people named in the credits?

A: Many of the research/production team named are long-time employees of Bob Dylan, or more accurately, of Grey Water Park Productions. Many of the other people named are - or were - employees of XM Radio.

The "associate producer" of Season 3 was one "Nina Fitzgerald," also credited as "Nina Washington," replacing Season 2's "Ben Rollins," who himself had replaced Season 1's "Sonny Webster." The three pseudonymous associate producers giving a nod to jazz giants was actually just one person who prefers, as the saying goes, to remain anonymous.

Jim McBean, who is credited with "production assistance," was the XM Radio vice president of production and an "audio animator" whose staff developed the TTRH promotional announcements as well as supplying some of the vintage radio airchecks used on the show. You can hear McBean's voice in the promotions as well as the "Sponsored by Cadillac" intro used throughout most of Season 2. McBean left Sirius XM in 2008 and formed "Music Fog," a site covering Americana music, with several other partners.

Randy Ezratty, who was the engineer who recorded Dylan's 1995 MTV "Unplugged" album, reportedly introduced Lee Abrams to Dylan's business people and helped to facilitate the show's production process. Ezratty's mobile recording company - Effanel Music - was purchased by XM Radio in 2006, and Ezratty became an executive at XM. Engineer and editor Rob Macomber, another member of the Effanel team, also joined XM Radio at that time.

Out of all the XM Radio personnel associated with Theme Time Radio Hour, Rob Macomber was the person who worked most closely with the Theme Time team. Among other responsibilities, Macomber was part of the composite "studio engineer, 'Tex' Carbone," together with sound editor, Damian Rodriguez and the anonymous associate producer.

Coco Shinomiya is a respected graphic designer and art director, a two-time Grammy nominee, and incidentally, Eddie Gorodetsky's wife. Shinomiya has worked on many Bob Dylan-related projects, and designed the Theme Time Radio Hour iconic logo.

Lee Abrams was the Chief Creative Officer of XM Radio, and the prime mover in bringing Dylan to satellite radio. He left the company in 2008.

The identity of continuity coordinator, "Eeeps" Martin is unknown, as is the correct spelling of his/her nickname.

Q: Is the Abernathy Building real?

A: The Abernathy Building and surrounding environs (Studio B, Samson's Diner, Elmo's, Carl's Barber Shop) exist only in the theater of the mind.

Q: How did TTRH start? Where is it recorded? How is it produced?

Creation

Then-Chief Creative Officer Lee Abrams wrote that in 2005 he had pitched Dylan's offices on the idea of Dylan doing something for XM Radio. A "Bob Dylan Channel" was discussed, but the idea was discarded. In ongoing talks the concept of a weekly radio show evolved, and a deal was signed in late December 2005. Abrams went on to write that the premiere show was originally scheduled for a February 2006 release. The first press release about the show names March as the start date, but the premiere was eventually pushed out to May to accommodate Dylan's schedule.

Production

The mechanics of TTRH production were a closely-held secret, due to a desire to preserve the Dylan mystique as well as the listener's "willing suspension of disbelief" that TTRH was a vintage radio show, with Your Host Bob Dylan broadcasting live from Studio B of the Abernathy Building.

In reality, Dylan's narrative was recorded separately from the other show elements and later mixed in, a common technique in modern radio called "voice tracking." Dylan used a mobile recording set-up to lay down his narrative tracks while on tour or at other locations. Final editing and production sessions were conducted in New York City and Washington, D.C.

Most non-musical show elements, such as the celebrity segments and the caller side of the staged phone calls were recorded in Los Angeles, home base of Eddie Gorodetsky, or in New York City, home of Dylan's Grey Water Park Productions.

Music for the various episodes were probably supplied by all the members of the TTRH team, most notably by Eddie Gorodetsky. A 2010 Wall Street Journal interview with him noted that "... much of the material for the 100 [TTRH] episodes was culled from Mr. Gorodetsky's own record collection" and it's indicative that during the interview and in the Eddie G's Holiday List sidebar, Gorodetsky names a half-dozen favorites that were aired on various episodes of TTRH.

XM Radio representatives noted in interviews that they received the shows in completed, final format, but occasionally replaced some music tracks with versions from the XM music library either better recorded or better suited for satellite transmission.

Recording vs. Air Dates

One hotly-debated topic among TTRH fans was how far in advance the shows were recorded prior to airing. XM personnel have noted in interviews that most Season 1 shows were usually delivered two weeks or less prior to airing. Other evidence, such as Dylan's remark during the "Number One" episode on Ike Turner's death shortly after that event confirms that some shows were still in production as little as two weeks prior to airing.

In an interview conducted in April 2009, in fact just a week before the broadcast of TTRH's final episode, Bob Dylan stated that he "had stopped doing those shows a while ago." Other evidence also suggests that Dylan's direct involvement with TTRH had ended sometime in 2008.

There is strong circumstantial evidence that Seasons 2 and 3 were originally planned as one Season 2 50-episode block of shows intended to run from 2007 through 2008, similar to Season 1. Likely due to Lee Abrams leaving the company, the then-pending merger of Sirius and XM, and the need for the TTRH contract to be renegotiated, the 50 Season 2 episodes were split into two 25-episode segments. The segments were aired beginning in 2007 and continued through 2008 and into 2009 as Seasons 2 and 3, with a six-month hiatus between the two seasons. While production work continued up to the show's 2009 finale, the recording of Dylan's commentary was likely completed by late 2008.

Dylan's Involvement

Another argument among TTRH fans is how much involvement Dylan actually had with the show past reading his scripted commentary.

The evidence points to producer Eddie Gorodetsky having a strong influence on TTRH content, including scripting most of Dylan's remarks, supplying much of the music from his own record collection, creating the email and phone call segments and booking the "guest appearances" of the various celebrities, musicians, and comedians who appeared on the show. But it's likely that Dylan also interjected his own choices for the music, as well as speaking his own personal thoughts and opinions.

Various interviews over the years and Chronicles: Volume One confirm Dylan's appreciation for the musicians, genres, and music played on TTRH. Derek Barker's The Songs He Didn't Write catalogs over 50 songs played during the various seasons of TTRH that Dylan has also covered in concert and on record.

It's improbable that anyone but Bob Dylan himself would suggest that he perform an a capella rendition of Take Me Out to the Ball Game, or that he play Blowin' in the Wind on a recorder, both of which he did on episodes of TTRH. Anyone who follows Dylan's rare remarks in concert also knows that he has a weakness for corny old jokes, a regular feature of TTRH. His occasional on-air outbursts on subjects ranging from modern medical care, "commercial affiliations," and country music have all sounded deeply heart-felt and personal.

Perhaps the strongest evidence of Dylan's commitment to Theme Time Radio Hour is the fact that he recorded the narrative for 100 episodes of the show from 2006 through 2008 during a period when he was touring, recording, and involved in numerous other projects.

Q: Which artist(s) had the most airplay on TTRH?

A: At the close of Season 3 (April 15, 2009) Tom Waits and Dinah Washington had tied as "most-played," each with 10 appearances on the turntable over the 100 episodes of TTRH.

Q: What are "deaf poets"?

A: Dylan wasn't fixated on poets with hearing problems in the early days of the show, but instead was using the hip-hop slang term "def," as in "great" or "definitive" during his poetry readings.

According to Wikipedia, "def" originated in New York City in the 1980s and was accepted into the Oxford English Dictionary in 1993. Dylan or Gorodetsky may have taken the "def poet" phrase from the HBO series, Def Poetry Jam, which ran from 2002 through 2007.

Dylan's Theme Time Radio Hour poetry readings were featured throughout the show's run, although the segment was reduced in each consecutive season. Likewise, the"def poet" phrase was gradually phased out in favor of Dylan doing variations on the theme, such as referring to Robert Frost as a "frosty poet."

Def Poetry Trivia

The first def poet reading was from Saint Basil (also known as "Basil of Caesarea" and "Basil the Great") and used in the first episode of the series, "Weather," "Many a man curses the rain that falls upon his head, and knows not that it brings abundance to drive away the hunger."

While Dylan calls Saint Basil a "def poet," the theologian is better-recognized for moral homilies such as the above quote than for poetry. Dylan may have supplied Eddie Gorodetsky with the Saint Basil quote. However, it's more likely that, as with much of the information used in the "Weather" show, Gorodetsky found it through a quick Web search.

The last full def poetry reading of the series was Delmore Schwartz's "The Heavy Bear Who Goes With Me" in Season 3's Episode 21 "Sugar & Candy." In keeping with the episode's theme Dylan calls Schwartz a "candy-coated poet" after his reading.

The Flowers episode from Season 1 had the most poetry readings with Dylan quoting four separate poems from authors ranging from Christopher Marlowe to Anon.

William Shakespeare wins hands down as "most quoted" poet on TTRH. "The kid is good," as Bob Dylan says.

Q: What is and where can I find the TTRH poster?

A: Commissioned by producer Eddie Gorodetsky in 2007 from artist/illustrator Jaime Hernandez, each of the poster's scenes illustrate Ellen Barkin's "It's Night/Night Time in the Big City," introductions from Season 1 of TTRH.

The poster was originally available as a free high-resolution download at bobdylan.com from October 2007 through July 2008, but that link was discontinued upon the launch of the redesigned site. Bootleg print versions have occasionally appeared on eBay. An "authorized" low-quality print version of the poster was offered to the first 5,000 people who ordered any one of the three Bootleg Series Volume 8 packages sold through bobdylan.com. A search through Google Images may uncover copies of the original digital file at various sites on the Web.

Q: Was it possible to contact Bob Dylan about TTRH and would you get a response?

A: During the show's original run, XM advertised the email address bobdylan@xmradio.com as the means to contact Dylan and the TTRH team with suggestions and questions. There were some fan reports that their email to that address either went unanswered or generated an auto-reply noting that due to the high volume of mail received, personal responses were impossible.

Email Trivia

Before and during Season 1, XM advertised that "Dylan will read and answer select emails on his show." Most fans assumed that all the listener mail read on the show was was scripted, as several used names of Dylan friends and acquaintances, or were otherwise obviously fake. However, at least one email read on the "Friends and Neighbors" episode came from a real listener, suggesting that there were probably others over the show's 100-episode run.

Q: How can I listen to TTRH?

A: SiriusXM discontinued its rebroadcasts of TTRH episodes in April 2011, ending the show's five-year run. However, continuing the show's aspiration to become the "I Love Lucy" of satellite radio, in late July, 2011, SiriusXM issued a press release announcing the "Bob Dylan's Theme Time Radio Hour" channel, an internet-only channel that will broadcast reruns of TTRH 24/7 on SiriusXM internet channel 801.

SiriusXM also noted the return of rebroadcasts of TTRH in its traditional time slot on satellite radio, on Deep Tracks, channel 27, on Mondays at 8:00 pm; Wednesdays at 11:00 am; Thursdays at 12:00 am and Sundays at 8:00 am (all times Eastern). The return of TTRH on both stations is scheduled for August 15, 2011. To listen requires a subscription to SiriusXM and is only available in North America.

"Dylan Radio," a fan site, (http://www.dylanradio.com ) streams Dylan music and Dylan-related content including Theme Time Radio Hour episodes and the Dreamtime podcast. Check the site for times.

Q: Are there any commercial releases of Theme Time Radio Hour shows?

A: No. To date no complete TTRH show has been offered as a standalone commercial offering. However, there are a dozen compilations featuring music from the show as well as two promotional CDs of complete TTRH shows. For an up-to-date listing, see The Compleat Theme Time Radio Hour Shopping List.

Q: Are there any books about Theme Time Radio Hour?

A: Not yet. The announced "Theme Time Radio Hour Compendium," a tie-in book originally scheduled for October 2008, was never released and appears to have been placed on indefinite hold. The book's original page on Amazon (see link above), has been edited to read "Bob Dylan Untitled Christmas Book." and is no longer cataloged in any form on its publisher's site.

A 2010 article from "Crain's New York Business" noted that a literary agent was reportedly shopping a "proposed series of books" authored by Dylan, including "a collection of riffs from his Theme Time Radio Hour show on Sirius Satellite Radio." That collection may be a version of the Compendium, which was advertised using similar language. However a "source close to Dylan," later told the LA Times in 2011 that no deal for any proposed book projects had been closed.

Q: Can I find Theme Time Radio Hour shows for download on the internet?

A: Various TTRH show archives have appeared (and regularly disappear) on the Web. A little judicious searching through Google or Dylan fan sites should identify what's currently available.

It's unlikely that a complete set of TTRH - 100 shows at the close of Season 3 - will ever be released commercially. The non-commercial efforts to distribute TTRH is likely to be the only complete record that will ever be accessible to researchers, scholars, and fans.

Q: Where can I find additional information on TTRH?

A: Although incomplete, The Annotated Theme Time Radio Hour is an excellent reference site on TTRH. Lee Abrams's original XM Radio blog is still on-line and includes a lengthy three-part post on the background and creation of TTRH. Vanity Fair published an article on TTRH trivia both in a print version and on line in April 2008. It should be noted much of that article's content appears to have been taken from The Annotated Theme Time Radio Hour site without credit.

Although TTRH has ended, any new news about the show will continue to be found at Expecting Rain, the Dreamtime blog, and DylanTweets a news feed on Twitter run by Dreamtime. Bob Dylan's official web site has also carried news about TTRH.

Expecting Rain offers a TTRH forum, which was renamed to "Picasso's Theme Time Radio Hour " in memory of one of the show's most ardent fans. The archives of RightWing Bob and the Theme Time Radio Hour page on MySpace are also of interest.

Q: Will there be a Season 4 of Theme Time Radio Hour?

A: Although there has been no official announcement, Theme Time Radio Hour appears to have ended airing original broadcasts.

In an April 2009 interview with ROLLING STONE magazine, Dylan implied that his contract to do the show was completed and stated that while Sirius XM wanted to renew the program, he wasn't sure he wanted to continue. Sirius XM declined to comment when contacted by ROLLING STONE about Dylan's remark.

***

Dreamtime friend and correspondent Heddy Richter was kind enough to review and edit the TTRH F.A.Q. for spelling, grammar, and consistency. All errors or omissions remain our own.

In Memory of Pierre Ponette ("Picasso From Belgium")

Last updated March 2011

dreamtimepodcast@gmail.com (Fred Bals) — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 08:04:35 PDT

Theme Time Radio Hour with your host, Bob Dylan

View more presentations from Sam Ryan

The Compleat Theme Time Radio Hour Shopping List

dreamtimepodcast@gmail.com (Fred Bals) — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 08:24:20 PST

Current as of January 2011. Originally published as part of our Theme Time Radio Hour "Frequently Asked Questions" document.

Promotional CDs and 45s

Baseball

A CD of the complete Baseball show was released in 2006 as part of a limited in-store promotion for Modern Times. The link above will take you to Amazon where various re-sellers offer the disc for prices ranging from the reasonable to the ridiculous. The disc can also be found on eBay.

If packaging and "original condition" are important to you, you should make sure the packaging is the original cardboard sleeve (with the TTRH logo on the front and playlist on the back) and that the disc itself is not a CD-R copy but the original with silk-screened artwork.

If you liked "Friends and Neighbors" (see below) chances are you'll love "Baseball," which features Your Host Bob Dylan performing Take Me Out to the Ball Game a capella among its other highlights.

Friends & Neighbors

Another CD, featuring the complete "Friends and Neighbors" episode, is part of the "deluxe" Together Through Life package released in April 2009. The CD has everything that makes TTRH special and is the perfect starting point for introducing someone to the show: quirky music, interesting facts and trivia; two emails, wife-swapping and swinging, and Our Host launching into a blistering attack on modern country music. Who could ask for more? As with the "Baseball" disc, the original "Friends and Neighbors" CD is packaged in a cardboard sleeve displaying cover artwork and track listing. The CD also displays silk-screened artwork.

Twas the Night Before Christmas

In November 2009, Sony/Columbia offered a limited-edition 45 rpm vinyl record ("while supplies last") as a bonus to some purchasers of the "Christmas in the Heart" album. The B-side of the 45 is Our Host's reading of "Twas the Night Before Christmas" from the Theme Time Radio Hour Christmas Special. The A-side of the single also has an interesting Theme Time Radio Hour connection, Bob Dylan's cover of Brave Combo's version of "Must Be Santa," a song that was featured on the TTRH Christmas Special. Although no longer commercially available, the 45 is offered through various resellers on Amazon.

***

Promotional Compilations

Radio Bob and Radio Bob Another 17 Brillant Tracks...are two compilations originally included as promotional CDs in editions of Uncut magazine. Featuring music only from various episodes of TTRH, the CDs are probably only of interest to collectors wanting a complete TTRH-related collection. Both compilations can be found on Amazon and eBay.

***

Commercial Compilations

There are currently 11 different commercial CD compilations featuring music only from TTRH.

These compilations do not include Dylan's commentary or other features that made the show unique. The tracks used on the compilations are not necessarily the ones used on the show. If you're interested in the folk, jazz, swing, rockabilly and country music played on TTRH, you might like these sets. If you're looking for TTRH shows, they're not for you.

Chrome Dreams/ISIS Compilations

There are four "unauthorized" (in the sense that they were not produced with the involvement of the TTRH team) sets from the Chrome Dreams/ISIS label:

The Best of Bob Dylan's Theme Time Radio Hour Volume 1 and Volume 2 cover the show's first season. For reasons unknown, the U.S. Amazon store isn't carrying Volume 2, but it can be purchased at Amazon U.K. through the link above. Volume 1 can also be purchased at Amazon U.K.

The Best Of The Second Series compiles music from the show's second season. It can also be purchased at Amazon U.K.

Presumably the last of the Chrome Dreams TTRH issues, Bob Dylan's Theme Time Radio Hour - The Best Of The Third Series has been released in the U.K. and U.S.

All the above compilations are 2-CD sets of 52 tracks each.

Mischief Music "Radio Radio"Compilations

Four other "unauthorized" compilations come from the German Mischief Music label. Radio Radio is a 4-CD box set released in 2008 and covers music from TTRH's first season. A second "Radio, Radio" compilation is also available, Bob Dylan Radio Radio Vol. 2. As with the first, "Vol. 2" is a 4-CD set with 112 tracks. "Vol.2" also focuses entirely on Season 1 of TTRH. A third 4-CD set, Bob Dylan Radio Radio Vol.3 appears to collect music played over Season 2 of TTRH with a total 108 tracks.

A fourth compilation from Mischief Music was released in late 2010 and is available through Amazon U.K., "Radio Radio: Bob Dylan's Theme Time Radio Hour Volume 4." Personally, given that I haven't seen/heard it, I'd approach this one with a caveat audiens 'tude. A Dreamtime correspondent notes that at least one of the tracks was directly recorded from the radio show itself and several of the tunes fade out abruptly. Definitely a gray market entry in the TTRH field.

Ace Records Compilations

The authorized Theme Time Radio Hour with Your Host Bob Dylan set was compiled by Ace Records U.K. under the supervision of TTRH producer Eddie Gorodetsky and Dylan factotum, Jeff Rosen.

In September 2009 Ace released another 2-CD set, Theme Time Radio Hour Season 2. As the title implies, the compilation features music from Season 2 of TTRH.

In November 2010, Ace released the third, and presumably last, of its TTRH compilations, Theme Time Radio Hour Season 3 with your host Bob Dylan. The 2-CD set is available for order through both Amazon U.S. and Amazon U.K.

Of all the commercial compilations, the Ace volumes of Theme Time Radio Hour with Your Host Bob Dylan best reflect the breadth of music played on TTRH. All contain both relatively modern music, such as The White Stripes Seven Nation Army, The Clash's Tommy Gun, and Nirvana's Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge on Seattle, as well as the type of vintage cuts you'll find on the other sets.

The Collected Ace TTRH Compilations and the Infamous Slipcase

Ace announced that it would release a box set collecting all three of its TTRH CD compilations in a packaged slipcase resembling a vintage radio, and for a short time advertised that set on both Amazon and Amazon U.K. for a $79.98 U.S. dollars price.

However, as of this writing (November 2010), both the U.S and U.K Amazon pages have been changed to sell the slipcase only - although both note that it is out-of-stock. Adding to the confusion is the erroneous price listing and description on the Amazon U.S. page, noting a $64.84 discount and that what is being sold is "all three volumes of this acclaimed series based on Bob Dylan's 'Theme Time Radio Hour' radio show from Ace together in this limited edition cardboard box holder" Add it to your shopping cart if you like - I did - but I think it's highly unlikely that either you or I will eventually receive all three editions of the Ace compilations in a cardboard holder for $15.14. But hope springs eternal.

For those wishing to buy the slipcase only, the current best bet seems to be through Ace itself.

Other TTRH-related Compilations

The 2008 Starbucks compilation, Artist's Choice - Bob Dylan: Music That Matters To Him is highly recommended. The CD set reflects Dylan's musical interests, "right now," as he relates in the liner notes, and the music in the compilation could easily have appeared on a TTRH playlist. The CD also has another connection to TTRH. Its liner notes state that it was produced by "Tim Ziegler," the fictitious name used by a caller during one of the Season 2 episodes who complained that Dylan had misidentified a record label.

Christmas Party with Eddie G. is the only commercial release of one of TTRH writer/producer's Eddie Gorodetsky's infamous Christmas compilations. It's more Dr. Demento-oriented than a typical TTRH episode, and as its title implies, Christmas Party with Eddie G. is focused entirely on a holiday theme.

The compilation is notable to those interested in the background and origins of TTRH. The original CD was the only release from Bob Dylan's Strikin' It Rich label, created in October of 19 and 90 with the stated goal of "releasing rare and interesting rhythm and blues material" and an early precursor of what would become the idea for TTRH. Prices for the CD, available through resellers on Amazon, verge on the ridiculous to the reasonable.

Although overpriced, the CD/DVD set, Ricky Jay Plays Poker is also of interest to the TTRH fan. A friend of Bob Dylan and Eddie Gorodetsky (Eddie G. is one of the table members watching Jay demonstrate various card deceptions on the DVD feature), Jay's compilation could easily be a TTRH set with the theme of "Poker." The tracklist includes artists as diverse as Memphis Minnie, Anita O'Day, and Lorne Greene. Recommended for the TTRH completist.

***

There are literally dozens "Roots of Bob Dylan" compilations, including at least one using that title, all collecting music that the curators claim had some influence on Bob Dylan. My personal favorite from a TTRH viewpoint is Songs from the Invisible Republic: The Music That Influenced Bob Dylan.

Invisible Republic is a 2-CD set issued by a Repertoire Records, based out of Hamburg, Germany. The 45 cuts on the set include artists as diverse as Odetta, Slim Harpo, Bing Crosby, and Curtis Mayfield. The common thread tying all together... Bob Dylan.

If you've read the various speculations and commentaries on the musical influences on the songs of "Love and Theft" and Modern Times, here's the means to listen to all their antecedents in one package: Gene Austin's The Lonesome Road; Slim Harpo's Shake Your Hips; Bing Crosby's Where the Blue of the Night (Meets the Gold of the Day) itself the theme song for Crosby's Philco radio show; Billie Holiday's Having Myself a Time; and more, including the hard-to-find Uncle John's Bongos by Johnny & Jack, which inspired probably the most nakedly transparent music appropriation Dylan has made to date: Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum.

While hard-core Dylan fans may find nothing particularly new in Invisible Republic (for example, the roots of Modern Times were thoroughly covered by the excellent Live Roots and Wounded Flowers bootleg of 2006), the chances are that you'll hear at least one surprise.

Of course, that's one of the delights of Theme Time, hearing music you've never heard before, and connecting it to other music. And it's one of the delights of Invisible Republic. If you want to listen to a Theme Time Radio Hour with the theme of "Roots," you couldn't do better for source material than Invisible Republic.

About Dreamtime

dreamtimepodcast@gmail.com (Fred Bals) — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 08:21:32 PDT

Dreamtime is an archive of blog posts and some 60-odd audio podcasts I created as commentary on Bob Dylan's Theme Time Radio Hour, a weekly satellite radio show that originally aired from April 2006 to May 2009 and is still being rebroadcast at the time of this writing.

Herein you'll find such arcana as a Theme Time Radio Hour FAQ, a list of various TTRH CDs and related material, transcripts of a few of the shows and lots of commentary discussing the show's three-year run.

I've moved on to other projects, and don't plan on updating Dreamtime past March 2010 unless there is some significant news about the show in the future. As time passes, you'll probably find broken links, missing videos, and so on. That's life on these here interwebs. I hope you'll still find enough content to have made the visit worth your time. Thanks and enjoy.

Fred Bals

A Wink Or a Nod from an Unexpected Place

dreamtimepodcast@gmail.com (Fred Bals) — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 11:20:06 PDT

A reblast from the past in honor of the Gorgeous One's induction into the 2010 Wrestling Hall of Fame.

Direct link to mp3.

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"... all it takes is a wink or a nod from some unexpected place to vary the tedium of a baffling existence.

That happened to me when Gorgeous George the great wrestler came to my hometown. In the mid-50s, I was performing in the lobby of the National Guard Armory, the Veterans Memorial Building, the site where all the big shows happened - the livestock shows and hockey games, circuses and boxing shows, traveling preacher revivals, country-and-western jamborees.

Once a year or so, Gorgeous George would bring his whole troupe of performers to town: Goliath, The Vampire, The Twister, The Strangler, The Bone Crusher, The Holy Terror, midget wrestlers, a couple of lady wrestlers, and a whole lot more.

I was playing on a makeshift platform in the lobby of the building with the usual wild activity of people milling about, and no one was paying much attention. Suddenly the doors burst open and in came Gorgeous George himself. He roared in like the storm, didn't go through the backstage area, he came right through the lobby of the building and he seemed like forty men. It was Gorgeous George, in all his magnificent glory with all the lightning and vitality you'd expect. He had valets and was surrounded by women carrying roses, wore a majestic fur-lined gold cape and his long blond curls were flowing. He brushed by the makeshift stage and glanced towards the sound of the music. He didn't break stride, but he looked at me, eyes flashing with moonshine. He winked and seemed to mouth the phrase 'You're making it come alive.'"

- Bob Dylan, Chronicles: Volume One

"I am the Greatest Wrestler in the World!"

During the peak of his career, Gorgeous George's fame was comparable to that of Muhammad Ali's - whose public persona had more than a little of Gorgeous George in it. During the early part of his career, when he was still known as Cassius Clay, Ali was promoting his latest fight on a Las Vegas radio show. Also appearing was Gorgeous George, who was talking up his own fight and who worked himself into a frenzy describing the hurt he planned for opponent,

"If this bum beats me, I’ll crawl down Las Vegas Boulevard on my hands and knees. But it won’t happen. I’ll tear his arm off. For I am the greatest wrestler in the world!"

Like the young Dylan, the young Ali was entranced by George's rhetoric, and became even more enthusiastic when he discovered that George regularly sold out wherever he appeared. Taking up George's invitation, Ali went to see his match and, as he later remembered, "I saw 15,000 people coming to see this man get beat, and his talking did it. I said, 'This is a g-o-o-o-d idea!'"

Gorgeous George's influence can also be seen in Little Richard, James Brown, and Liberace, as well as nearly every other sports or entertainment figure - such as Elton John - who ever adopted a flamboyant, outrageous style.

Gorgeous George was born George Wagner in Seward, Nebraska on March 15, 1915. He began his wrestling career during his teens - often competing at local carnivals, where the prize purse averaged 35 cents. By age 17, George was getting bookings through the area's top promoter. At 5'9' and 215 pounds, Wagner was not all that an imposing a figure, but he developed a reputation as a solid wrestler, and by the late `30s he had legitimately captured two regional titles.

He also met his first wife, Betty Hanson, who George subsequently married in an in-ring ceremony. That turned out to be so popular that the couple incorporated the wedding into their tour and would re-enact it in arenas throughout the U.S. Seeing how show biz elements helped draw crowds may have started George thinking about developing a more memorable shtick than simply straight wrestling. At least one report has it that he got the idea for an effeminate, dandy villain wrestler after reading an article about a now-forgotten contemporary who wrestled under the name Lord Patrick Lansdowne, and who would appear at bouts as a British Lord attended by a valet.

The Human Orchid

Also known as "The Human Orchid," George debuted his new persona in 19 and 41 in Eugene, Oregon, and was instantly slapped with the title "Gorgeous George" by a bemused ring announcer. George rapidly became the villain crowds loved to hate. One of the first wrestlers to use the type of flamboyant entrance now common in pro wrestling matches, George would arrive to the strains of Pomp and Circumstance, escorted down a personal red carpet by his ring valet “Jeffries,” who would carry a silver mirror for George to gaze upon as rose petals were strewn at his feet.

These entrances often took longer than the actual bout, as George still had to exchange taunts with the crowd, have Jeffries spray the ring and unwilling opponent with disinfectant which George claimed was "Chanel #10." The show would culminate in George's refusal to let the referee inspect him for foreign objects unless he was also doused by Jeffries while George shrieked in horror, "Keep your filthy hands off me!"

Eventually the match would begin, and George would brazenly ignore the rules while chanting his motto to the audience: "Win if you can, lose if you must, but always cheat!"

It was an outrageous, larger-than-life act, tailor-made for the new medium, television. Gorgeous George would become the biggest drawing card of the wrestling industry, as well as one of its first genuine stars. It's been claimed that Gorgeous George was responsible for selling as many TV sets as Milton Berle, Mr. Television, himself.

By the '50s, Gorgeous George was earning over $100,000 a year, making him that decade's highest paid athlete. His most famous match would take place in 1959 before 14,000 fans and millions of television viewers where he would be defeated by longtime rival "Whipper" Billy Watson and would lose his treasured platinum locks to the Whipper's razor.

Although he would wrestle for three more years, and in fact, knowing a good crowd-pleaser when he saw one, would lose his hair to an opponent's razor twice more in those three years, age and a tough lifestyle eventually caught up with the Gorgeous One. George retired in 1962, bought into a turkey ranch and opened a cocktail lounge in Van Nuys, California, "Gorgeous George's Ringside Restaurant," where he would entertain customers with card tricks. Although filmed before his retirement, you can see a different side of Gorgeous George in this clip from You Asked For It, as he demonstrates some sleight-of-hand for the audience and host Art Baker.

Our Daddy, Gorgeous George

Gorgeous George passed away on December 26, 1963 at age 48. Although he had made millions during his wrestling career and for a time was probably the most recognizable entertainer on the planet, Gorgeous George would die broke. He was buried at Valhalla Memorial Park in North Hollywood, California, the final resting place for several other celebrities including Oliver Hardy; Curly Joe from The Three Stooges; and in a coincidental Dreamtime connection, Cliff ("Ukulele Ike") Edwards, the voice of Jiminy Cricket, who also died penniless.

Gorgeous George's grave can be found in plot 6657, near the northeast side of the fountain. A plaque reads "Love to Our Daddy Gorgeous George."

Audio excerpt from Chronicles: Volume One, read by Sean Penn.

***

You've been listening to the Dreamtime podcast – occasional commentary on Bob Dylan's Theme Time Radio Hour.

Dreamtime is researched and written by Fred Bals and is a Not Associated With production. As the name says, we're not associated with XM Radio, Bob Dylan, or much of anything else.

Some of the music on Dreamtime is provided via the Podsafe Music Network. Check it out at music.podshow.com.

Remember that the Dreamtime team loves to get email. You can write us at dreamtimepodcast@gmail.com

The Dreamtime top cats are Curly Lasagna and Shaggy Bear. Our announcers are the notorious honky-tonkin' sisters, Jailbait and Joyride.

Until next time, dream well.

Visit the Dreamtime Store

Bob Dylan and Earl Scruggs - East Virginia Blues

dreamtimepodcast@gmail.com (Fred Bals) — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 11:29:30 PST

One of the things you learn about Bob Dylan is there's always something more to learn about Bob Dylan. I had never heard of this documentary about Earl Scruggs, variously known as "Earl Scruggs Bluegrass Banjo Legend," "Earl Scruggs: Family and Friends" and "The Bluegrass Legend" among other various titles, and the info about it is slim and as mysterious as the title changes or why Roger McGuinn's last name is spelled as "McGwinn" in the opening credits. The film was shot by documentary filmmaker David Hoffman, probably sometime between 1969 and 1972, and aired on PBS (then known as NET, appropriately enough) in either 1970, 1971 or 1972. You can find various sources claiming all those titles and dates.

How Dylan - or Joan Baez or The Byrds - became involved in the documentary and listed as "Friends" is another mystery, although I suspect Bob Johnston, who was both Dylan's and Scruggs producer at the time, played a role. According to the "Bob Dylan Roots" site:

Basically, Bob Johnston, with his emphasis on the new breed of singer-songwriters (as opposed to the staunch-traditional country and bluegrass songwriters) contributed to the break-up of Flatt & Scruggs. While Earl Scruggs expressed a growing boredom with traditional bluegrass ("I was playing the same thing over and over every night. I just couldn't stand it any longer."), Lester Flatt felt uneasy with Bob Johnston: "He also cuts Bob Dylan and we would record what he would come up with, regardless of whether I liked it or not. I can't sing Bob Dylan stuff, I mean. Columbia has got Bob Dylan, why did they want me?"
- Neil V. Rosenberg, Liner notes for "Flatt & Scruggs", Time-Life Records TLCW-04, 1982

Dylan is playing with Earl Scruggs and Scruggs' sons Gary and Randy, collectively known as "The Earl Scruggs Revue," formed after Scruggs broke up with long-time partner Lester Flatt. The documentary can be found at Amazon at the link below although I suggest you read the reviews before making a purchase decision. The documentary can also be viewed online at Dailymotion.

Only $700 and 47 days to go on the "Night Time in the Big City" book!
.

Mama Said Knock You Out

dreamtimepodcast@gmail.com (Fred Bals) — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 06:44:56 PDT

Two white guys who are not LL Cool J sing "Mamma Said Knock You Out," one of those guys being Bob Dylan and the other being Stephen Merchant, with a special guest appearance by The Cool One himself.

A nice edit job, with Mr. D.'s recitation being taken from Episode #2 of Theme Time Radio Hour, "Mother" first broadcast on May 10, 2006 where he memorably recited a full verse of "Mamma Said Knock You Out."

The Annotated “Days of the Week” Theme Time Radio Hour - Episode 53 (Part 2)

dreamtimepodcast@gmail.com (Fred Bals) — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 10:30:53 PST

Being the 2nd Part of a Compleat Transcript with Commentary on Episode #53 of Theme Time Radio Hour, "Days of the Week" Part 1 can be found here.

Original air date: October 3, 2007

***

In Episode 53 -- "Days of the Week" -- of Theme Time Radio Hour, we'll meet Monday's and Saturday's children, learn that Jack White knows his Sundays, look at the leaders in the TTRH playlist race, hear amazing predictions from the even more Amazing Criswell, listen to a surprise recorder rendition, and receive Our Host's final word on commercial affiliation. I've split the "Days of the Week" transcript into two parts with Part 1 here.

If you like what you read, you can help fund the "Night Time in the Big City" book, chockful of that Dreamtime commentary you've come to know and love.

***

Bob Dylan: Our next performer is truly one of the greats. He signed with Okeh Records in 19 and 25. Between 1925 and 19 and 32, he cut an estimated 130 tracks. He cut blues, guitar duets with Eddie Lang, recorded with Louis Armstrong’s Hot 5 and Duke Ellington. And those aren’t even the records he’s most famous for. In the late `30s and `40s he recorded for the Bluebird label, great blues tracks like, “He’s a Jellyroll Baker.” In 19 and 47 he joined King Records, and that’s where we pick him up today.

[“Tomorrow Night” – Lonnie Johnson]

Bob Dylan: That was Lonnie Johnson and “Tomorrow Night.” Lonnie fell on hard times in the `50s. He was working as a janitor in Philadelphia. Elmer Snowden, the jazz banjo player, discovered him. In an amazing comeback he made some great records for Prestige in the early `60s and toured with the blues revivalists. But he couldn’t catch a break. In 19 and 69 he was struck by a car in Toronto and died a year later from injuries resulting from that accident. The great Lonnie Johnson and “Tomorrow Night” here on Theme Time Radio Hour.

Bob Dylan: Some other people who are able to see tomorrow night are clairvoyants, such as Madame Blavatsky, who founded the Theosophical Society and Edgar Cayce, the spiritual healer. And who could forget the famed TV psychic from the `50s, The Amazing Criswell? He had a great voice, and even better hair. He was in the movie, “Plan 9 from Outer Space” and was a frequent visitor to `50s television. Let’s listen to a few of Criswell’s predictions.

The Amazing Criswell: Ah, greetings my friend. We are all interested in the future for that it is where you and I are going to spend the rest of our lives, whether we want to or not. And remember my friend; these future events will affect you. The future is in your hands. I predict: Full medical attention by vending machine. I predict that in the future it will be highly possible to have an appendix operation, give birth to a child or receive an abortion, have a heart transplant, a hair transplant or even a brain transplant by vending machine. Your own weight will be controlled by vending machine for ten cents worth of radaric rays.

Bob Dylan: Thank you, Criswell.

Commentary

The clip is taken from the 19 and 70 LP “The Amazing Criswell Predicts! Your Incredible Future” first released on the very obscure Horoscope Records, and later bootlegged on CD. You can listen to the full 44-minute recording at WFMU’s “Beware of the Blog,” where, given how liberal your interpretation of his proclamations, Criswell correctly predicts the political rise of conservatism, genital piercing, and the end of the world on August 18, 1999.

Bob Dylan is reportedly a reader and fan of both Edgar Cayce and Madame Blavatsky. He uses the latter’s writings as a source multiple times in Chronicles, according to researcher Scott Warmuth. I suspect that if someone did a close comparison between passages from Cayce and Dylan’s book, the same would hold true for the former. The Amazing Criswell is a dubious addition to the group, but I think the old, outrageous fakir holds a special place in Dylan’s heart, given his liking for performers who make a living from duping their audience, while entertaining at the same time.

Bob Dylan: You know, some weeks we don’t play a single Irish group. And here we are today with our second one. This one isn’t quite as serious as U2, however. As a matter of fact they say they write a lot of songs about chocolate and girls. You Irish aficionados already know I’m talking ‘bout The Undertones. They recorded a song called “Teenage Kicks” that fellow deejay, the late John Peel, thought was one of the greatest things he ever heard. His attention got them a deal with Sire Records and they toured opening for The Clash. They wrote a great song about Wednesday, a day of the week that there aren’t many songs about. Here’s one of the best, “Wednesday Week,” The Undertones.

[“Wednesday Week” — The Undertones]

Bob Dylan: That was The Undertones, with “Wednesday Week,” which is kinda an English-Irish way of saying, “next Wednesday.”

Bob Dylan: Wednesday is considered either the third or fourth day of the week, depending on whether you start your week on Sunday or Monday. When Sunday is the first day of the week, Wednesday ends up being in the middle of the week. That’s why the Finnish call it something I can not pronounce, but is translated as “center of the week.” Here in the U.S., we just call it “hump day.”

Bob Dylan: One famous Wednesday is Ash Wednesday, which is the first day of Lent.

Morticia Addams: My name is Mrs. Addams and I want you to find my little girl, Wednesday.

Sergeant Haley: Look, I’ll find her Tuesday if I can, but don’t give me no deadlines, willya please?

Morticia Addams: Wednesday’s her name!

Sergeant Haley: Oh, and I suppose you’re gonna tell me her middle name is Thursday, huh?

Morticia Addams: “Friday.”

Commentary

The Finnish name for Wednesday that Dylan did not want to take on is, “Keskiviikko,” which is pronounced just as you would guess, but apparently looked a bit too daunting in the script.

“My name is Mrs. Addams…”

To belabor the obvious, which is what Dreamtime is all about, the clip is from the great ABC series of the `60s, “The Addams Family,” and is from the 10th episode of its first season, “Wednesday Leaves Home” from 19 and 64. Lovers of classic `60s `70s and `80s commercials will recognize “Sgt. Haley’s” voice as that of The Maytag Repair Man, Jesse White.

Bob Dylan: Well, we’ve covered Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. I’ll bet you can guess what’s next. That’s right, Thursday, and here’s a song all about that day, by a trio called Morphine.

["Thursday" — Morphine]

Bob Dylan: That was Morphine with “Thusday,” telling ya ‘bout what can happen if you push things too far. Might lose a good thing. Unfortunately, on July 3rd 19 and 99 Mark Sandman had a fatal heart attack and died on-stage while playing in a festival in Rome. Morphine, here on Theme Time Radio Hour.

Bob Dylan: We’re looking at the days one-by-one, but we also want to look at them as simply days. Some days you’re the dog, other days you’re the hydrant. Here’s another Mother Goose rhyme:

[“Solomon a Gundie” (background music) – Eric “Monty” Morris]

Solomon Grundy,
Born on a Monday,
Christened on Tuesday,
Married on Wednesday,
Took ill on Thursday,
Grew worse on Friday,
Died on Saturday,
Buried on Sunday.
This is the end
Of Solomon Grundy

Bob Dylan: The name “Solomon Grundy” was also used as the name of The Man Who Couldn’t Die, who was an arch-enemy of the original Green Lantern.

Commentary

Dylan never refers to the artist or music playing in the background during his recitation of “Solomon Grundy,” which is kind of a pity, as it would have been good for a few minutes of commentary. But we’ll fill in for him.

Eric “Monty” Morris’ `60s ska song, even though using the rhyme as its basis, changes Solomon’s name to “Solomon a Gundie.” Under that name, the rhyme was popular with Jamaican children, and later adapted to music by Morris. He had several hits with ska versions of children rhymes, including “Simple Simon” and “Humpty Dumpty.” “Solomon Gundie” is also a pickled herring paste served on crackers in Jamaica. Interestingly, the same term is used in Nova Scotia for pickled herring with sour cream. Both terms probably were corruptions of the British word salmagundi, used to describea recipe of many different ingredients.

The DC villain Solomon Grundy debuted in “All-American Comics” in October 19 and 44 and was also named after the nursery rhyme. The Undead Cyrus Gold, the original Swamp Thing, arises from the muck and mire of Slaughter Swamp, encounters a hobo camp and when asked his name replies that he has none but helpfully offers that he was “born on a Monday.” This of course incites one of the `bos to recite the nursery rhyme. Hilarity and mayhem ensue.

Bob Dylan: And now, TGIF. Thank Goodness It’s Friday.

[Flintstones theme (excerpt)]

Bob Dylan: If you’re like me, you probably have Friday on your mind. Well, here’s the prefect soundtrack from 19 and 65. The Easybeats, “Friday On My Mind.”

[“Friday On My Mind” — The Easybeats]

Bob Dylan: That was The Easybeats, “Friday On My Mind,” here on Theme Time Radio Hour. That song was written by Harry Vanda and George Young. Well, after The Easybeats broke up, Vanda and Young became fulltime songwriters and producers. They helped put together AC/DC. As a matter of fact, two of George Young’s younger brothers, Angus and Malcom, were in AC/DC. Vanda and Young also had another project called, Flash and the Pan. They had a novelty hit with “Hey, St. Peter” and recorded another song that ended up being a big hit for Grace Jones. It was called “Walking in the Rain,” and it’s a shame that we’ve already done our “Weather” show, or we definitely would have played that one.

Bob Dylan: We got time for an email now before we get to the end of the week. Let’s go to the email basket. This one comes from Jackie Van from Manhattan. Jackie writes, “Bob, I know that Sheryl Crow’s a friend of yours. But what is your take on her using Buddy Holly’s great “Not Fade Away” for a TV hair dye commercial? I felt the most awful, stinging disappointment when I first heard it. I felt betrayed by Crow, as I’m almost sure Buddy would have. He was such a stickler for controlling his own material. I can’t imagine his liking this commercial adaptation.”

Bob Dylan: Well, Jackie, I have to disagree with ya. When’s the last time you heard Buddy Holly on the radio? There aren’t a lot of shows like Theme Time Radio Hour. A lot of people get to hear commercials. And if it makes one person curious about either Buddy or Sheryl, I’m all for it. How many people never heard of Nick Drake ‘til he was in a car commercial? A lot of musicians have always been proud to have commercial affiliation. Sonny Boy Williamson sold flour. I can’t imagine Sonny Boy saying, “My blues is too sacred. I wouldn’t sell flour.” Jimmie Rodgers sold biscuits. Sheryl Crow sells hair dye. More power to her. And Jackie, have you ever seen a Victoria’s Secrets ad? (laughs)

Commentary

One of my favorite commentaries from Theme Time Radio Hour, the “commercial affiliation” email from “Jackie Van” may be real, but given the timing this was more likely a stalking horse set up by Eddie Gorodetsky allowing Dylan to express his opinion on the subject. Crow had done the commercial for Revlon some eight months earlier and, unlike the usual email read on “Theme Time,” this one had no obvious connection with the theme or music.

Three weeks after the air date of “Days of the Week,” Cadillac and XM Radio released a cross-promotional advertising campaign featuring Bob Dylan and Theme Time Radio Hour. Dylan appeared in a television commercial for the 2008 Cadillac Escalade hybrid (a commercial featuring music from an artist named “Smog”) and hosted a TTRH episode dedicated to the theme, "Cadillac.”

Cadillac became the formal sponsor of Theme Time Radio Hour, acknowledged with a brief announcement at the beginning of the show, as well as with a branded badge on the show's web page. Given all this, the subject of musicians and commercial affiliation may have been a hot topic in the offices of Grey Water Park and Big Red Tree during the months of September and October. Dylan’s citation of Sonny Boy Williamson and Jimmie Rodgers sounds as if repeated from an actual conversation. As well as Rodgers and Sonny Boy Williamson II, Dylan could have used Bob Wills and Hank Williams as two other examples from the legion of artists “proud to have commercial affiliation.” However, as far as I know, Bob Dylan is the only musician who has traveled in ladies’ underwear.

Bob Dylan: Well, with Friday comes the weekend. And one of my favorite songs about the weekend is by the Silver Fox, Charlie Rich. He was a little more sophisticated than a lot of rockabilly musicians. As a matter of fact, Sam Phillips rejected his early demos, complaining that they were “too jazzy.” He did use him as a session musician, though, and you can hear him backing up Johnny Cash, Warren Smith, Billy Lee Riley and Ray Smith, Sam saw the light of day though and in 19 and 58 started releasing Charlie’s records on his Phillips International label. He didn’t have a hit though until 19 and 60 with his third single. Ii became a Top 30 hit and I’m going to play it for you right now.

[“Lonely Weekends” — Charlie Rich]

Bob Dylan: That was Charlie Rich, “Lonely Weekends.” There’s lonely weekends and there’s lost weekends. “The Lost Weekend” won the Academy Award in 19 and 45. It was directed by the great Billy Wilder, and it’s one of the first movie scores to use a theremin. It’s the story of an alcoholic, played by Ray Milland, on a weekend bender. Let’s listen to a little bit as Ray begs his favorite bartender for one more drink.

[“The Lost Weekend” (clip)]

Bob Dylan: There’s no feeling like that moment when you’re getting ready for a Saturday night. The world is full of possibilities. And no one has captured that wistful feeling better than Tom Waits did on this song, the title track from his 19 and 76 album, “The Heart of Saturday Night.” Here’s Tom Waits.

[“(Looking For) The Heart Of Saturday Night” — Tom Waits]

Bob Dylan: That was Tom Waits, “(Looking For) The Heart Of Saturday Night.” Some people look for the heart of Saturday night and they never find it and they get lost in the search. When they do, they can fall victim to wasted days and wasted nights. I’m going to let Dough Sahm do a shout-out to the man who wrote it before he sings it.

[“Wasted Days and Wasted Nights” — Doug Sahm]

Bob Dylan: That was Dough Sahm doing the Freddy Fender classic, “Wasted Days and Wasted Nights.” The thing about days is that they keep rolling on. You finish off a Saturday, and there’s another Sunday waiting in line. We started off our show on Sunday, and we’re going to end it there. After all those wasted days and wasted nights you know there’s going to be a Sunday morning coming down. Here’s Kris Kristofferson with one of his greatest songs, “I woke up Sunday morning with no way to hold my head that didn’t hurt. And the beer I had for breakfast wasn’t bad. So I had one more for dessert.”

[“Sunday Morning Comin’ Down” — Kris Kristofferson]

Bob Dylan: That was Kris Kristofferson. He’s a Rhodes Scholar. “Sunday Morning Comin’ Down.” Well, I can see the sun coming up over the horizon, and our day here is done. Night creeps in, throwing shadows across the Abernathy Building. I’m going to leave you with the words of the husband of the woman who wrote, “Frankenstein.” That’s right, it’s Percy Byshhe Shelley. At the end of the day, it’s a good night.

Good Night (Shelly c. 1819-20)

Good-night? ah! no; the hour is ill
Which severs those it should unite;
Let us remain together still,
Then it will be good night.

How can I call the lone night good,
Though thy sweet wishes wing its flight?
Be it not said, thought, understood --
Then it will be -- good night.

To hearts which near each other move
From evening close to morning light,
The night is good; because, my love,
They never say good-night.

Good night everybody, see you next week.

[“Top Cat (Underscore)"]

“Pierre Mancini:” Thanks for listening to Theme Time Radio Hour with your host, Bob Dylan. Produced by Eddie Gorodetsky. Associate producer, Ben Rollins. Continuity by “Eeps” Martin. Edited by Damian Rodriguez. Supervising editor, Rob Macomber. Research team: Diane Lapson and Bernie Bernstein, with additional research by April Hayes, Callie Gladman, Terrence Michaels, Sean Patrick and Lynne Sheridan. Librarian: Robert Bower. Production coordinator; Debbie Sweeney. Production assistance by Jim McBean. Special thanks to Randy Ezratty, Coco Shinomiya, and Samson's Diner. For XM Radio, Lee Abrams. Recorded in Studio B, in the historic Abernathy Building. Studio engineer: “Tex” Carbone. This has been a Grey Water Park Production in Association with Big Red Tree. This has been your announcer, Pierre Mancini, speaking. Join us again next week when our subject is subject is, “California.”

The Annotated “Days of the Week” Theme Time Radio Hour - Episode 53 (Part 1)

dreamtimepodcast@gmail.com (Fred Bals) — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 10:29:38 PST

Being the 1st Part of a Compleat Transcript with Commentary on Episode #53 of Theme Time Radio Hour, "Days of the Week" Part 2 is here.

Original air date: October 3, 2007

***

In Episode 53 -- "Days of the Week" -- of Theme Time Radio Hour, we'll meet Monday's and Saturday's children, learn that Jack White knows his Sundays, look at the leaders in the TTRH playlist race, hear amazing predictions from the even more Amazing Criswell, listen to a surprise recorder rendition, and receive Our Host's final word on commercial affiliation. I've split the "Days of the Week" transcript into two parts with Part 2 here.

If you like what you read, you can help fund the "Night Time in the Big City" book, chockful of that Dreamtime commentary you've come to know and love.

[Background – “What a Difference a Day Makes”]

The Woman in Red: It’s nighttime in the Big City. A storm is coming. A woman wonders. It’s Theme Time Radio Hour with your host, Bob Dylan.

Bob Dylan:

Monday's child is fair of face.
Tuesday's child is full of grace.
Wednesday's child is full of woe.
Thursday's child has far to go.
Friday's child is loving and giving.
Saturday's child works hard for a living,
And the child who is born on the Sabbath Day
Is bonny and blithe and good and gay.

Bob Dylan: That’s “Monday’s Child,” a nursery rhyme from “Mother Goose.” It’s also considered a fortune-telling song. You’re supposed to be able to tell a child’s character or what would happen to them in the future based on the day they were born. We’re going to be learning about every day of the week and hearing songs about Monday through Sunday. We’ll hear about “Blue Mondays,” “Ruby Tuesdays,” all the way through Saturday and Sunday. The first page of the Bible explains how God created the world and rested on the seventh. But even people who don’t follow the Judeo-Christian Bible have a seven-day week, so this week’s show will certainly have a world-wide appeal.

Commentary

According to The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes, “Monday’s Child” was first recorded in A. E. Bray's “Traditions of Devonshire” in 1838 and was collected by James Orchard Halliwell in the mid-nineteenth century.

Robert Allen Zimmerman was born on a Saturday, prophetically making him a child who would “work hard for a living.” Perhaps there’s something to the old rhyme after all.

Bob Dylan: Let’s start out with an old tune linking in all seven days. A song by a man named Sterling Harrison, who never got his due. He used to sing demos for Holland, Dozier and Holland, but never had a hit of his own. Before he died he was singing for dollar tips at a barbecue joint at 82nd and Western. There is great music happening all over the country. Sometimes you gotta seek it out, and if you don’t seek it out, it’s just gonna disappear. Here’s a great guy you never heard of, Sterling Harrison and “Seven Days.”

[“Seven Days” — Sterling Harrison]

Bob Dylan: That was Sterling Harrison and “Seven Days,” a song originally recorded by Little Junior Parker.

Commentary

One of the few instances during TTRH’s run where you can see writer/producer Eddie Gorodetsky working behind the curtain. Sterling Harrison’s last album was South of the Snooty Fox, which includes “Seven Days,” and was co-produced by Gorodetsky and Los Lobos’ Steve Berlin. South of the Snooty Fox was recorded in 2001, but attracted no label interest until finally picked up by HackTone Records, a boutique imprint based in Culver City, Calif. The CD was released on the second-year anniversary of Harrison’s death, August 21, 2007, about two months before the “Days of the Week” episode aired.

Although not intended as an insult, Gorodetsky/Dylan’s implication that Sterling Harrison had been reduced to “…singing for dollar tips at a barbecue joint…” before his death is neither accurate nor fair to Harrison’s memory. Sterling Harrison’s sister contacted me shortly after I did a Dreamtime podcast quoting that line. She angrily pointed out – quite rightly – that while Harrison had been happy to pocket dollar tips during his gigs at M&M Soul Food in L.A. he had also regularly performed to sold-out houses in his home town of Richmond, VA until the end of his life. While Sterling Harrison never got his due from a popular standpoint, in his own circle he was successful, well-respected and loved.

Bob Dylan: Some people start the day of the week off with Monday, but I start it off with Sunday, myself. There’s a lot of songs written about Sunday, and some of them are pretty heavy. For example, this one, “Sunday, Bloody Sunday,”from 1983 by U2. It’s a song about the slaughter of innocent civilians in Ireland. It attempts to compare and contrast the troubles in Northern Ireland with the significance of Easter Sunday. On January 30th 1972, thirty thousand people marched into Derry, in a march organized by the civil rights association. Armored cars appeared from behind barriers. British troops boxed in hundreds of people. All of the soldiers were fully armed with combat rifles. Suddenly, shots rang out. At the end of the day, thirteen people lay dead and seventeen wounded. U2 wrote the following song so those people would never be forgotten. Here’s U2, “Sunday, Bloody Sunday.”

[“Sunday Bloody Sunday” — U2]

Bob Dylan: That was U2, “Sunday, Bloody Sunday.” Let’s take a moment and remember the names of the people who died that day: John Duddy, Paddy Doherty, Bernard McGuigan, “Pi” Gilmour, Kevin McElhinney, Michael McDaid, William Nash, John Young, Michael Kelly, Jim Wray, Gerald Donaghy, Gerald McKinney, William McKinney and John Johnston.

Bob Dylan: Jack White doesn’t find Sunday particularly sad. But he knows when it is a Sunday. I’ll let him explain.

Jack White: Y’know, funny you should ask, Bob, about the days of the week because going out on tour it seems like no matter where I am in the world I always know when it’s Sunday. Y’know, I don’t know what the date is, maybe I don’t even know what month or year it is or what country we’re in, but I know it’s Sunday for some reason. And, uh, I’ve always wondered why that is.

Commentary

The barely articulate Mr. White was on the list of “special guests” noted in the XM Radio press release announcing Season 2 and by early 2008 would air two more commentaries on Theme Time.

There was a period during 2007 when Bob Dylan and Jack White appeared to have pledged to be BFFs, with White participating in Dylan’s still-unreleased Hank Williams Project and joining Dylan at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium for the first ever live performance of “Meet Me in the Morning.” The relationship may have cooled somewhat by 2009, with White pointing out during a lecture at Trinity College that in her own way Britney Spears was more “authentic” than either Tom Waits or Bob Dylan. On the other hand, that’s the sort of off-the-wall opinion that one wouldn’t be surprised to hear expressed by Bob Dylan himself.

Bob Dylan: Let’s cheer things up a little bit. I don’t want the whole show to be tear-stained. Here’s Frankie Lee Sims. You might be wondering why a song called, “Lucy Mae Blues” is being played on our “Days of the Week” show. Well, give a listen.

[“Lucy Mae Blues” — Frankie Lee Sims]

Bob Dylan: That was Frankie Lee Sims, He’s Lightnin’ Hopkins cousin. Born in New Orleans, died in Dallas. And recorded that song, which is kind of a mash-up, between a couple of blues standards. You hear a little bit of “Ain’t No Tellin’” which Mississippi John Hurt made famous and a little taste of, “My Sunday Woman,” or as some people call it, “Every Day in the Week.” I like the version by Sleepy John Estes.

Commentary

Dylan is a longtime fan of Sleepy John Estes, name-checking him in the first stanza of his free-form poem used for the liner notes of 19 and 65’s “Bringing it all Back Home.”

I'm standing there watching the parade/
feeling combination of sleepy john estes.
jayne mansfield. humphry bogart/morti-
mer snerd. murph the surf and so forth/

Bob Dylan: Let’s move on through the week now. We’ve gotten through Sunday. You know what that means.

[Robotic jingle – “Monday”]

Bob Dylan: It’s time for Monday, and if I know my radio show, that sounds like a song cue. Here’s Smiley Lewis and his song, “Blue Monday.” You probably know it better by Fats Domino. But whenever we have the chance to play Smiley, we like to do it.

[Blue Monday – Smiley Lewis]

Bob Dylan: That was Smiley Lewis, who is edging out George Jones as the most-played artist on Theme Time Radio Hour. “Blue Monday.”

Commentary

By the close of Season 3, George Jones had been supplanted as “most-played artist” on TTRH by Tom Waits and Dinah Washington. Both would have a total 10 spins on the turntable by the end of the series. For the completist, Tom Waits is unquestionably the “most-mentioned” TTRH artiste, thanks to his many taped commentaries during Seasons 2 and 3 as well as the airplay he was given by Dylan.

George Jones, who had led the “most-played pack” in both Seasons 1 and 2, would make no appearances at all during Season 3. He still had accumulated enough airplay in the previous two seasons to tie with Elvis Costello for second place, having a total nine songs played on Theme Time.

Smiley Lewis ended up placing in the Top 5, sharing fifth-place honors with June Christy, Bo Diddley, Fats Domino, Doug Sahm & the Sir Douglas Quintet, Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday, JB Lenoir, Little Walter, Los Lobos, Loretta Lynn, Randy Newman, Elvis Presley, and The Stanley Brothers. That list is a pretty accurate representation of the catholic tastes of the three major influences on the TTRH musical playlist: Bob Dylan, Eddie Gorodetsky, and the pseudonymous jazz-loving associate producer who during Season 2 was referring to him/herself as “Ben Rollins.”

Bob Dylan: In the beginning, the days of the week were named after deities who had dominion over that particular day. Some of these are pretty obvious. You know Jupiter, Venus and Saturn. Nowadays, English has retained the original planet names for Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. Saturn, Sun, and Moon. The other four days are the names of Anglo-Saxon or Nordic gods, replacing the Roman gods who gave names to the planets. For example, Wednesday is named after Woden or Odin. Thursday’s named after Thor. And Friday is named after Freya.

Bob Dylan: Personally, I would have named Tuesday after “Ruby.” But The Rolling Stones beat me to it.

[“Ruby Tuesday” – The Rolling Stones]

Bob Dylan: That was “Ruby Tuesday” by The Rolling Stones. One of the prettiest songs they ever recorded and it’s from “Between the Buttons.” You might be interested to know that “Ruby Tuesday” was supposed to only be a B-side. For those of you who don’t know what a B-side is, that was the other side of a 45, that wasn’t a hit. The A-side in this case was supposed to be “Let’s Spend the Night Together.’ But a lot of disc jockeys thought it was too sexual, and so they wouldn’t play it. But they played the flip side, and that’s how “Ruby Tuesday” became such a hit.

Bob Dylan: What I like about that record is Brian Jones playing the recorder. The recorder is a woodwind of the family known as “fipple flutes.” A “fipple” is a wooden plug at the end of a flute. The flute, in its heyday, was associated with birds, shepherds, miraculous events, funerals, marriages, and amorous scenes. I think it’s one of the most beautiful sounds known to man. I brought mine with me today, and if you don’t mind, I’m gonna play a little somethin’ for ya.

[clears throat]

[“Blowin’ in the Wind”(excerpt) – Bob Dylan]

Bob Dylan: How ‘bout that? Anton Chekhov once said, “There isn’t a Monday that would not cede its place to Tuesday.”

Commentary

“How ‘bout that?”

One of those unanticipated, delightful moments on TTRH, equal to his a capella rendition of “Take Me Out to the Ball Game,” is Bob Dylan playing an excerpt of “Blowin’ in the Wind” on a recorder during the “Days of the Week” show. While there were many instances when he would allude to his “other job” during Theme Time’s run, this would be the only time Dylan would play one of his own songs on the show, and play it live to boot.

There are at least two documented instances of Dylan publicly playing the recorder, both during appearances for the West Coast Chabad Lubavitch Telethon in 1989 and 1991.

“There isn’t a Monday…”

A paraphrase of a quote from “Note-Book of Anton Chekhov,” a volume of notes and quotations which Chekhov liked, as well as themes and sketches for works which he intended to write. The editors of the book noted that it was “characteristic of the methods of [Chekhov’s] artistic production.”

“There is no Monday which will not give its place to Tuesday.”

As with many writers Dylan uses a similar mechanism, sometimes referred to as his “box of notes” according to the few first-hand accounts of his writing methods.

Dylan stated in a PLAYBOY interview that Chekhov was his favorite writer and later claimed in Chronicles that he wrote an entire album based on Chekhov short stories, wryly remarking that the critics had called it, “autobiographical.” Dylan is probably stretching the truth when he uses the term, “based.” Given that the line wasn’t deliberately designed to madden obsessive fans, it’s likely that, as is Dylan’s habit, he took several lines and phrases from Chekhov for use in his songs. There’s evidence that the unnamed album he refers to was “Blood on the Tracks,” which contains several phrases and descriptive passages which seem to have originated with Chekhov. (cont. in Part 2.)

The Annotated “Flowers” Theme Time Radio Hour - Episode 11 (Part 2)

dreamtimepodcast@gmail.com (Fred Bals) — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 06:37:19 PST

Being the 2nd Part of a Compleat Transcript with Commentary on Episode #11 of Theme Time Radio Hour, "Flowers"

Original air date: July 12, 2006

***

There's much of note in Episode 11 -- "Flowers" -- of Theme Time Radio Hour, including monster lists, the largest group of def poetry readings in the show's history, quotations from Buddha, Isiah, and H.L. Mencken among others, a mystery laugh, appearances by two Dylan contemporaries from the Greenwich Village scene of the `60s, and some evidence that Our Host was wingin' his commentary as much as reading from a script.

The transcript/commentary length was way past what I think a typical blog reader would tolerate, so I've split the "Flowers" transcript into two parts. Part One can be found here. ~ fhb

***

[Commercial clip – Singers: “You’re so much wiser to buy fertilizer where you get the best in price and quality!” Announcer: “Yes and there is a difference in the price and quality of fertilizer! See us for the best in both! ]

Bob Dylan: Tiny Tim was a character who played around Greenwich Village in the Fifties and Sixties. And a lot of people just think that he was a joke. But I’ll tell ya, no one knew more about old music than Tiny Tim did. He studied it and he lived it. He knew all the songs that only existed as sheet music. When he passed away, we lost a national treasure. Here’s Tiny Tim, and the only song that made it to the top of the charts and kept him in the public eye. Here’s “Tip-Toe Through the Tulips” on Theme Time Radio Hour.

[Tiny Tim – “Tip-Toe Through the Tulips”]

Bob Dylan: That was “Tip-Toe Through the Tulips” by Tiny Tim, a song that sold over 200,000 copies. In 19 and 68 when Tiny Tim got married on the Johnny Carson Show it was one of the biggest events in television history. And deservedly so. His daughter from that marriage was named “Tulip.”

Commentary

Dylan’s admiration for Tiny Tim is obvious in this segment, and the Bob Dylan/Tiny Tim connection has a long, rich history, which Dylan alludes to as he introduces "Tip-Toe through the Tulips." In Chronicles, Volume I, Dylan writes about their first meeting,

"One of the guys who played in the afternoons was the falsetto-speaking Tiny Tim. He played ukulele and sang like a girl -- old standard songs from the '20s…"

Tiny Tim was born Herbert Buckingham Khaury, on April 12, probably in 1932, although in various interviews he gave his birth year as anytime between 1922 and 1932. His first performances -- under the name Larry Love -- took place in 1954, where he won several amateur contests. His professional career began in 1963 or '64 at a lesbian cabaret in Greenwich Village called the Page 3. In a short time, Tiny Tim was well-known in the Greenwich Village music scene, although more as a novelty act than for his deep knowledge of American music.

In Chronicles, Dylan goes on to tell about sharing lunch with Tim, "The best part of working with [Fred Neil] was strictly gastronomical -- all the French fries and hamburgers I could eat. At some point during the day, Tiny Tim and I would go in the kitchen and hang around. Norbert the cook would usually have a greasy burger waiting. Either that, or he'd let us empty a can of pork and beans or spaghetti into a frying pan."

In 1967, Dylan and Tiny Tim would meet again, when Tim recorded several songs with The Band for Peter Yarrow’s deservedly seldom-seen rockumentary, "You Are What You Eat." The Band/Tiny Tim collaboration included “Memphis, Tennessee,” the Sonny and Cher classic, “I Got You Babe,” and the Al Jolson standard, “Sonny Boy.”

According to Tim, Dylan renewed their friendship after hearing he was recording with The Band, and invited him to his Woodstock home. Greeting Tim at midnight Dylan’s first words were, "Tiny, I never saw a Toronto Maple Leaf hockey game."

In the course of conversation, Tim serenaded Dylan with Rudy Vallee’s "Maine Stein Song" and "My Time is Your Time" and played Dylan's own "Like A Rolling Stone" - comparing Dylan's popularity to Valle's. According to Tiny Tim, "After he [heard] the comparison to [Rudy] Vallee and what he meant to me Dylan said, 'Look, do you want a banana before you go to bed?' I said, 'No, I have my own fruit with me.'"

Before retiring for the night, Tim sang an Irving Kaufman song from 19 and 23 called "What's Today Got To Do With Tomorrow (When Tomorrow's So Far Away)", and Dylan in turn played "Cool Water” for him. Dylan also offered Tim a minor part in "Eat the Document," for which Tim was paid $22.00.

Tim's performance in “You Are What You Eat” led to his first TV appearance on the popular “Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In,” where he was an instant sensation, although perhaps not in the way he wanted. But that was hard to tell. Tiny Tim seemed to exist in his own space; oblivious to snickers, laughter, and ridicule. In any case, he became a hot TV property, appearing on “Laugh-In” several more times, as well as on The Ed Sullivan Show, The Jackie Gleason Show, and, of course The Tonight Show.

In 1969 [not 1968, as Dylan mistakenly says] in front of an estimated 40 million viewers, he would marry Victoria May Budinger, better known as "Miss Vicki," on The Tonight Show. The couple had a daughter, Tulip, as Dylan also mentions on Theme Time, but lived apart, and divorced after eight years of marriage. Tulip is alive and well and living in Pennsylvania with her family.

Although the public's taste for Tim's inherent weirdness faded away by the mid-70s, he never stopped performing wherever and whenever he could, reportedly even joining a circus for a few months in the 1980s. In September of 1996, Tiny Tim suffered a heart attack while performing at the Ukulele Hall of Fame in Duxbury, Massachusetts. Upon his release from the hospital, Tim resumed his concert schedule, but, on November 30 1996, suffered another heart attack in Minneapolis while performing his signature song. He died an hour later. His remains are in the mausoleum of Lakewood Cemetery in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

A true eccentric who happened to be in the right place at the right time to become a media star, and a lover of the American songbook who dedicated his life to bringing back old, obscure songs, Tiny Tim never let his personal oddities or public reaction interfere with his main mission… singing the songs he loved.

Bob Dylan: “Beauty itself is a faded flower.” Another flower that faded was “The Wildwood Flower.” We’re going to hear “The Wildwood Flower” by the most influential group in country music history, The Carter Family. They switched the emphasis from hillbilly instrumentals to vocals. Alvin P. Carter, his wife Sara, and his sister-in-law, Mabel, sang pure, simple harmony. A.P. collected hundreds of British-Appalachian folk songs and recorded them, enhancing the pure beauty of these “facts-of-life” tunes. Here’s one of the best, still fresh as a daisy, “Wildwood Flower.”

[The Carter Family – “Wildwood Flower”]

Commentary

“Beauty itself is a faded flower.”

Dylan is paraphrasing Isaiah 28:4, again probably from memory…

“And the glorious beauty, which is on the head of the fat valley, shall be a fading flower, and as the hasty fruit before the summer; which when he that looketh upon it seeth, while it is yet in his hand he eateth it up.”

“…the most influential group in country music history.”

Dylan’s commentary on The Carter Family is taken almost verbatim from the first paragraph of their entry in the “allmusic” web site.

Bob Dylan: That was The Carter Family with “Wildwood Flower.” This song was originally a written song from 1860, called “I’ll Twine ‘Mid the Ringlets.” These songs were passed around from person to person over a long period. By the time the tune got to The Carter Family many people claimed to have written it. And like a game of “Telephone,” some of the words stopped making sense altogether. “I will twine and will mingle my weepin’ black hair/ With the roses so red and the lilies so fair/The myrtle so green of an emerald hue/ The pale emanita and violets of blue.” These lyrics are difficult to interpret. There’s no flower named “emanita.” Some hear it as “the pale and the leader.” Somehow, amidst the confusion, the song still makes sense.

Commentary

Most of Dylan’s information appears taken from the Wikipedia page on “Wildwood Flower.” It’s interesting that he specifically cites the “pale and leader” variant of the line, as that was the way the line was sung by Joan Baez on her debut album of 19 and 60. While Dylan was certainly already familiar with the song before meeting Baez, one can imagine the two singing the song together and using that line.

Bob Dylan: I got another song that A.P. Carter composed or found. Another song about roses. This one is called “When the Roses Bloom Again.” It’s by a young singer from Nashville, Tennessee named Laura Cantrell. British disc jockey John Peel called her album, “Not the Tremblin’ Kind, “…my favorite record from the last 10 years… and possibly my life.” “When the Roses Bloom Again,” Laura Cantrell.

[Laura Cantrell – “When the Roses Bloom Again”]

Bob Dylan: “Taking time to stop and smell the roses.” Laura Cantrell, “When the Roses Bloom Again.” Laura became a mother this year, giving birth to young Isabella May. Congratulations, Laura.

Commentary

Cantrell’s daughter was born in May 2006, indicating that Dylan recorded his narrative sometime between that month and the show’s air date of July 12, 2006. See the entry on “The Sharpest Thorn," which narrows the timeline even further.

Bob Dylan: I was golfing with Ricky Jay, the magician, and he told me something interesting…

Photo: Ricky Jay. Credit: Jesse Dylan

Ricky Jay: Many stage acts made use of flowers, but more interesting than that was a very early Dutch woman – off the top of my head I can’t remember whether she was 17th century or 6th century – named Eva Vlieghan who was supposed to have lived entirely off the scent of flowers. Ate nor drank food or water but lived entirely off the scent of flowers. It was presented as a religious oddity rather than someone you actually paid to see perform. But I think she did… ah, she rather enjoyed if people left donations.

Commentary

“I was golfing with Ricky Jay…”

There have been various reports in recent years that Dylan is an ardent golfer, including speculation that he bought his Scottish mansion because it was right next door to Abernethy (not “Abernathy”) GC, a nine-hole course built in 1893. Both Dylan had Eddie Gorodetsky are friends of Ricky Jay, and Jay’s appearance on TTRH could have been at the invitation of either. The mind boggles at the thought of being on the links and confronted with a threesome composed of Messrs. Dylan, Gorodetsky and Jay, with perhaps the foursome being rounded out by Penn Jillette.

“Eva Vlieghan…”

In the year 1594, at age 19, Eva Vliegen began to eat less and less. Contemporary reports have it that beginning in 1597 she took no nourishment whatsoever. It was said that she lived from the fragrance of flowers, with Eva herself claiming that she was being fed by a honey-sweet substance supplied by Heaven. Her town council attested in writing that their examination of Vliegen proved she was not a fraud.

In early 1614, Vliegen abruptly declared an angel had appeared to her to announce that God was going to punish humankind with “widespread death,” and from that moment forward refused to utter another word, a silence she successfully maintained until her reported death later that year. Reports become confused at this point, with Vliegen apparently somehow discovered alive and well some fourteen years later living in a house with an ample supply of food and drink. She was reportedly arrested and disappeared into the mists of legend.

For centuries a wax figure of Vliegen, nicknamed in Dutch legend “Bessie Meurs,” was exhibited in an Amsterdam garden maze. A mechanism enabled the waxwork to wipe the crumbs from its mouth with its arm, to the accompaniment of a rhyme:

This old crone is Bessie Meurs, most faithless of females
She shakes her head, ay, swears an oath, while spouting her tall tales:
For two and thirty years, she says, she’s eaten not a crust,
She tells a string of barefaced lies, her words you cannot trust.

Eva Vliegen, a woman of obvious attraction to modern mountebanks Ricky Jay and Bob Dylan.

[Geraint Watkins – “Only a Rose” (background)]

Bob Dylan: Well there’s no shortage of rose songs, and here’s one I first heard through the grape vine. It’s from a young Welshman named Geraint Watkins. He played piano and accordion with Dave Edmunds and Shakin’ Stevens. But more recently he’s been in Nick Lowe’s band and has recorded and toured with Van Morrison. Here’s a beautiful song that he wrote, “Only a Rose.” Geraint Watkins.

[Geraint Watkins – “Only a Rose”]

Bob Dylan: Geraint Watkins, “Only a Rose.” And remember, a rose by any other name would still smell as sweet.

Bob Dylan: Gonzalo Perez from Austin Texas sent us an email. He asks, “Can I plant pansies in the fall?” Well, Gonzalo, traditionally pansies were the first spring annual I set out each year. I eagerly await their appearance at my local garden center. No matter how much I picked and deadheaded, by June they were leggy and limp from the heat and I pulled them to make room for something else. But now, late summer varieties are available. They may go dormant in cold winters, but they revive in the spring. Happy planting from Theme Time Radio Hour.

Bob Dylan: I wasn’t gonna play any more rose songs, but how could I not play this one? It went to Number 3 in 19 and 67 and it’s called “I Threw Away the Rose.” We’ve talked a lot about Merle, so I’m just going to play the record.

[Merle Haggard – “I Threw Away the Rose”]

Bob Dylan: That was Merle Haggard, “I Threw Away the Rose,” with his story of unrequited love. This is Theme Time Radio Hour, and we’re discussing flowers. Buddha said, “If we could see the miracle of a single flower clearly, our whole life would change.” Georgia O’Keefe, who knew a little bit about flowers, said that when you take a flower in your hand and really look at it, it’s your world for a moment. On the other hand, according to Mencken, a cynic is a man who when he smells flowers looks around for a coffin. Mencken was definitely not someone who ever let the green grass fool him.

[Wilson Pickett – “Don’t Let the Green Grass Fool You” (background)]

Bob Dylan: Another person like that is one of the roughest and sweatiest soul singers of the Sixties. Wilson Pickett, “Don’t Let the Green Grass Fool You.”

[Wilson Pickett – “Don’t Let the Green Grass Fool You”]

Bob Dylan: That was Wilson Pickett, “Don’t Let the Green Grass Fool You,” the centerpiece of the 19 and 70 album, “Wilson Pickett in Philadelphia.” He got a bunch of hits on Atlantic Records, but after the hits began drying up he gave a pair of young producers, Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff, a chance to update his sound.

Bob Dylan: We’re just about outta time here and I gotta get home and water my azaleas. But we got time for one song first. Roses are the most popular flower to give, so let’s hear one more song about `em. Why not make it Allen Toussaint? Allen just did a new album with Elvis Costello, and they wrote a bunch of new songs together. Here’s one of `em, called “The Sharpest Thorn.” “Hot as a pistol, keen as a blade. The sharpest thorn, upon parade.” Elvis Costello, Allen Toussaint.

[Elvis Costello, Allen Toussaint – “The Sharpest Thorn”]

Commentary

“Allen just did a new album with Elvis Costello…”

“The Sharpest Thorn” was a track on the Costello/Toussaint collaborative album, “The River in Reverse,” released June 6, 2006, further narrowing down the window when Dylan recorded his narrative to roughly sometime between early June and early July 2006.

Bob Dylan: That was Allen Toussaint and Elvis Costello, “The Sharpest Thorn” from the album, The River in Reverse,” on Theme Time Radio Hour.

Bob Dylan: Well it’s been an hour, so I gotta make like a tree, and leave. But don’t worry, I’ll be back next week with more dreams, themes, and schemes on Theme Time Radio Hour, your perennial favorite.

[“Top Cat (Underscore)"]

“Pierre Mancini:” You’ve been listening to Theme Time Radio Hour with your host, Bob Dylan. Produced by Eddie Gorodetsky. Associate producer, Sonny Webster. Continuity by “Eeps” Martin. Edited by Damian Rodriguez. Supervising editor, Rob Macomber. The Theme Time research team: Diane Lapson and Bernie Bernstein, with additional research by Lynne Sheridan, Kimberly Williams, and Robert Bower. Production assistance by Jim McBean. Special thanks to Randy Ezratty, Debbie Sweeney, Coco Shinomiya, and Samson's Diner. For XM Radio, Lee Abrams. Recorded in Studio B, The Abernathy Building. This has been a Grey Water Park Production in Association with Big Red Tree. This has been your announcer, Pierre Mancini, speaking. Join us again next week for Theme Time Radio Hour when the subject is..."

The Annotated “Flowers” Theme Time Radio Hour - Episode 11 (Part 1)

dreamtimepodcast@gmail.com (Fred Bals) — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 06:42:03 PST

Being the 1st Part of a Compleat Transcript with Commentary on Episode #11 of Theme Time Radio Hour, "Flowers"

Original air date: July 12, 2006

***

There's much of note in Episode 11 -- "Flowers" -- of Theme Time Radio Hour, including monster lists, the largest group of def poetry readings in the show's history, quotations from Buddha, Isiah, and H.L. Mencken among others, a mystery laugh, appearances by two Dylan contemporaries from the Greenwich Village scene of the `60s, and some evidence that Our Host was wingin' his commentary as much as reading from a script.

The transcript/commentary length was way past what I think a typical blog reader would tolerate, so I've split the "Flowers" transcript into two parts, Part Two can be found here. ~fhb

The Woman in Red: It’s nighttime in the Big City. Outside the dogs are barking. A woman walks barefoot, her high heels in her handbag. It’s Theme Time Radio Hour with your Host, Bob Dylan.

Bob Dylan: It’s time for Theme Time Radio Hour, and tonight we’re going to be talking about the most beautiful things on Earth – the fine-smelling, colorful, bee-tempting world of flowers: the Bougainvillea, the Passion Flower, the Butterfly Clerodendrum, the Angel’s Trumpets, the Firecracker plant.

Bob Dylan: We’re gonna be talking about rosa rugosa, the Angel Face, All that Jazz, Double Delight, the Gemini, and the Julia Child. We’re going to be talking about the Knockout Shrub, the New Dawn, the Mister Lincoln. And that’s only the roses! We’re also gonna hit on the Silver King, the German Statice, the Globe Thistle, and the Joe Pye Weed. The Violet, the Daisy. The lovely Chrysthanthemum. The Yarrow and the Tansy. We’ll be hittin’ on the Bachelor’s Button, the Coxcomb and the Lion’s Ear, the Love in the Mist and the Victoria’s Sorghum… I just made that one up. (laughs)”

[background laughter]

Bob Dylan: We’re gonna be talkin’ about… flowers. On Theme Time Radio Hour.

Commentary

“We’re gonna be talkin’ about… flowers.”

Richard F. Thomas notes in his 2007 essay, “The Streets of Rome: the Classical Dylan,” that “… Dylan’s surreal humor, consisting of absurdist juxtaposition, has become a trademark feature of his Theme Time Radio Hour... The [Flowers] list is arranged to form a poem, almost a talking blues of flower names.”

Thomas also points out that Gemini is Dylan’s birth sign. Whether that was in his mind or not, the Gemini hybrid tea rose that Dylan names is a favorite of rose exhibitors.

Other plants probably not familiar to the casual listener include the Silver King, commonly known as white sage, the German Statice, favored in dried floral designs, the Globe Thistle, a perennial that produces metallic-blue blossoms with perfectly round flower heads, and the wonderfully named “Joe Pye/Pie Weed” which takes its name from a legendary Indian healer who used the plant to cure typhus fever in colonial America.

Yarrow and Tansy are two inhabitants of old-fashioned herb gardens, the names probably more familiar to Shakespearean scholars than today’s gardeners. The crushed leaves of Yarrow are an astringent, still used by herbalists to help heal cuts. Legend has it that the Achilles used it for healing his soldiers after battle. It is also said to reduce inflammation, increase perspiration and relieve indigestion.

“…and the Victoria’s Sorghum… I just made that one up (laughs)”.

Dylan obviously enjoyed having an audience with him when taping his Theme Time narrative: the sounds of laughter, off-stage voices, even a kitten meowing can be heard during several shows.

The identity of the person heard laughing in the background during some TTRH segments, including this one, is unknown. Candidates include Eddie Gorodetsky, who was reportedly with Dylan during the taping of many of the early shows, and Damian Rodriguez, a San Antonio-based musician and sound engineer who has quietly worked in the background on several major Bob Dylan projects, including Theme Time Radio Hour. Together with XM Radio engineer Rob Macomber and associate producer, “Sonny Webster,” Rodriguez was the third member of the composite who would later be credited as “Studio Engineer, Tex Carbone.”

Bob Dylan: Thomas Beecher said, “Flowers are the sweetest things God ever made and forgot to put a soul into.” Anything that beautiful is going to inspire a lot of songs, and the next hour is gonna be chock-full of `em. We’re going to start things off with a Morning Glory of a song by the King of Western Swing… the man who pretty much invented it, Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys doing his theme song, “The New San Antonio Rose.” A bridal potpourri.

Commentary

“Thomas Beecher said…”

Most authorities cite Thomas Beecher’s sibling, the more famous Henry Ward Beecher, as the originator. Both Beechers were the brothers of the even more famous Harriet Beecher Stowe.

It’s interesting that Dylan mistakes Thomas for Henry, as even a casual web search on the quote brings up Henry Ward Beecher’s name. It’s likely that Dylan already knew the quote, was familiar with both Henry Ward and Thomas Beecher, and inadvertently used the wrong brother’s name on Theme Time when reciting the “Flowers are the sweetest things…” line from memory.

Thomas Beecher was a study in contradictions who would appeal to Gemini Bob Dylan. He was far more politically and socially conservative than his siblings. He opposed both abolition and the woman's rights movement, yet participated in the Underground Railroad and joined the Union army. While strongly against women’s emancipation, he publicly acknowledged his wife's role in running his parish, and accepted a woman as his own minister after he retired.

[Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys - “The New San Antonio Rose”]

Bob Dylan: Bob Wills and “The New San Antonio Rose.” It was called “The New San Antonio Rose” because he recorded a fiddle instrumental called “San Antonio Rose” eight years earlier.

Bob Dylan: Perhaps the most famous rose garden is the one in the West Wing area of the White House. It was established in 19 and 13 by Ellen Deweese [sic, actually “Loise”] Wilson, wife of Woodrow “Woody” Wilson.

Bob Dylan: Let’s move out of the Rose Garden for a second and move over to the boxwood border of the grass and go grazing with the Friends of Distinction. This song was written by South African trumpet player Hugh Masekela, but it became a big hit when it was recorded by The Friends of Distinction. “Grazin’ in the Grass.” “I can dig it, you can dig it.” We can all dig it. Let’s dig it together, shall we?

[The Friends of Distinction – “Grazin’ in the Grass”]

Bob Dylan: That was The Friends of Distinction, “Grazin’ in the Grass.” Speaking of grass, George Jones once had to drive down a freeway on his riding lawn mower. His wife, Tammy Wynette, was sick of his constant drinking. She emptied the house of liquor; she took away his car keys, and made him a virtual prisoner in an attempt to wean him off the booze. One afternoon, alone in the house, George wanted drink. The house was quite a distance from Nashville, too far to walk. So George hopped on the only vehicle he still had the keys to. You could see George heading down the side of the highway, going towards the liquor store on his riding lawnmower. Here’s George Jones with “A Good Year for the Roses.”

[George Jones -- “A Good Year for the Roses.”]

Commentary

The “riding lawn mower” is the stuff of George Jones legend, told not only by Jones in his autobiography, “I Lived to Tell It All,” but also by Tammy Wynette in her autobiography, “Stand By Your Man.” Jones also parodied the incident in his “Honky Tonk Song.”

I saw those blue lights flashin'
Over my left shoulder
He walked right up and said,
"Get off that riding mower."
I said, "Sir, let me explain
Before you put me in the tank.
She took my keys away
And now she won't drive me to drink."

Whether George Jones ever rode a mower to the liquor store – or did so more than once, as Jones also tells the story about his first wife, Shirley Conley, rather than Tammy – it’s too good a story not to tell, whether true or not. “When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.”

Bob Dylan: “I can hardly bear the sight of lipstick on the cigarette’s there in the ashtray.” “A Good Year for the Roses,” George Jones.

Bob Dylan: Robert Frost had something to say about roses in his poem called, “A Rose is a Rose.” It goes like this:

A rose is a rose
And was always a rose
But the theory now goes
That the apple’s a rose
And the pear is and so is
The plum, I suppose.

The dear only knows
What will next prove a rose
You, of course, are a rose
But were always a rose ~ Robert Frost, frosty poet.

Bob Dylan: ‘Course, Gertrude Stein took it one step further, with her immortal poem, “A rose is a rose is a rose.” And of course there is, “Roses are red, violets are blue. Some poems rhyme. This one doesn’t.”

Bob Dylan: Paul Clayton also has a song about roses. Paul has a lot of songs. He traveled all around the country collecting `em. During the Fifties, he made a collecting tour with Liam Clancy and together they found a whole bunch of blues, ballads and gospel music. I don’t know if this one was among `em, but it sure is a great song. All about young Bonaparte. Concerning the bonny bunch of roses. Paul Clayton.

Commentary

“Paul has a lot of songs.”

Indeed, Paul did have a lot of songs. Clayton and Dylan were contemporaries in the Greenwich Village music scene during the early Sixties. Dylan’s “Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright” was based on a song Clayton had copyrighted, “Who’s Gonna Buy Your Ribbons When I’m Gone?” While from all reports, Clayton was flattered by Dylan’s appropriation, their respective publishers engaged in a legal battle over who was entitled to the royalties for Dylan’s version. A court eventually ruled that Clayton’s version was based on an even older song, “Who’s Gonna Buy Your Chickens When I’m Gone?” in the public domain.

“During the Fifties, he made a collecting tour with Liam Clancy and together they found a whole bunch of blues, ballads and gospel music. I don’t know if this one was among `em, but it sure is a great song.”

“Bonny Bunch of Roses” was collected by Clayton on that trip in the summer of 1956 and released on his 1957 album, "American Broadside Ballads in Popular Tradition."

[Paul Clayton – “The Bonny Bunch of Roses”]

Bob Dylan: That was Paul Clayton and “Bonny Bunch of Roses” on Theme Time Radio Hour.

Bob Dylan: Roses have been named after a lot of famous people. There’s the Cinderella Rose, the Cary Grant Rose. The General MacArthur Rose. Roses have been named after Judy Garland, Lady Diana, Snow White, Sir Lancelot, and Chevy Chase. However, the Himalayan Blue Poppy has nobody named after it.

Commentary

“Roses have been named after a lot of famous people.”

The Chevy Chase rose was named after the Maryland community and not the comedian. While the Blue Poppy doesn’t have anyone named after it, and even isn’t a rose by any other name, it is associated with the Tibetan Buddhist goddess known as Green Tara, the Buddha of enlightened activity. Perhaps that was what earned the flower a TTRH shout-out, a poppy among a half-dozen roses.

Bob Dylan: Christopher Marlowe wrote in “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love”:

Come live with me and be my love
And we will all the pleasures prove
That valleys groves, hills and fields
Woods or steepy mountain yields

And we will sit upon the rocks
Seeing the Shepherds feed their flocks
By shallow rivers to whose falls
Melodious birds sing madrigals

And I will make thee beds of roses
And a thousand fragrant posies
A cap of flowers and a kirtle
Embroider’d all with leaves of myrtle

That’s how Christopher Marlowe said it. Kim Shattuck and her band, The Muffs have another way of putting it.

Commentary

“That’s how Christopher Marlowe said it.”

Dylan appears to be reciting the first three stanzas of “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love” from memory. His version of the first stanza varies noticeably from the “official” version:

COME live with me and be my Love,
And we will all the pleasures prove
That hills and valleys, dale and field,
And all the craggy mountains yield.

[The Muffs — “Laying on a Bed of Roses”]

Bob Dylan: That was the Muffs, raisin’ Cain and laying on a bed of roses on Theme Time Radio Hour where we’re talking about flowers. Maybe a little too much about roses. They’re not the only flowers, and we know that. There’s all sorts of flowers, and they’re all beautiful. As a matter of fact, here are some official state flowers:

Bob Dylan: For our friends in Alabama, you got the Camilla. In Alaska, we have the Forget-Me-Not. In Arkansas, it’s the Apple Blossom. California it’s the California Poppy. In Delaware, it’s the Peach Blossom. For our friends in Georgia, it’s the Cherokee Rose. In Minnesota, it’s the Pink-and-White Lady Slipper. Mississippi has the Magnolia. In Nebraska, it’s the Goldenrod. New Mexico of course has the Yucca Flower. In New Hampshire it’s the Purple Lilac and in Tennessee it’s the Iris. “Aloha!” to our friends in Hawaii where the official flower is…. the Pua aloalo. And of course in Wyoming, it’s the Indian Paintbrush.

[Commercial clip: “Surround your home with natural beauty. Add charm to your private world. Landscape for personalized luxury.”]

Bob Dylan: If I was born with the name, Lucius Venable Millinder, I would be happy with that. But he changed it to “Lucky” and fronted one of the swinginest bands that ever played. If nothing else, he was the man who introduced singer and guitarist Sister Rosetta Tharpe to the American audience. But he made plenty of records on his own, and none of them swung better than this tribute to the fruit-bearing vine of the grape. Which only makes sense, ‘cause Lucky Millinder retired from music and spent his later years as a liquor salesman. Here’s Lucky Millinder, and his “Grape Vine.’ I wondered if he used this as his theme song?

[Lucky Millinder & His Orchestra – “The Grape Vine”]

Bob Dylan: Oooo, I’m starting to see pink elephants on that one. “Milk and honey are mighty fine, but I like the juice from the good grape vine.” Lucky Millinder, “The Grape Vine.”

[Duke Ellington & His Orchestra – “Tulip or Turnip?” (background)]

Bob Dylan: Here’s a song about some choices. “Tulip or turnip? Rosebud or rhubarb? Filet or plain beef stew?” This one’s by Duke Ellington and His Orchestra.

[Duke Ellington & His Orchestra – “Tulip or Turnip?”]

Bob Dylan: That was Duke Ellington and His Orchestra, featuring the great Ray Nance as vocalist. Ray was also a great trumpet player and one of the most famous jazz violinists.

Bob Dylan: The tulip was introduced to Europe in the middle of the 16th century, and soon became very popular in the Netherlands. It rapidly became a coveted luxury item and status symbol. A single bulb could cost as much as a thousand Dutch florins. By 1635, they were worth a hundred times as much. A sale of 40 bulbs was made for 100,000 florins. Just to give you an idea of how much that was a ton of butter only cost a hundred florins. And eight fat swine 240 florins. In February of 1637, tulip traders could no longer get these inflated prices. They began to sell and the bubble burst. It was worse than Black Friday, the stock market crash of 19 and 29. To this day economists use the phrase, “tulip mania” to refer to any large economic bubble. They might have been better off with turnips.

Commentary

Our Host’s information about “tulip mania,” including the line about “eight fat swine” is taken almost verbatim from its Wikipedia article.

[End Part 1 transcript. Part 2 to come]

Requiem for a Top Cat - Arnold Stang 1918-2009

dreamtimepodcast@gmail.com (Fred Bals) — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 05:59:20 PST

via The New York Times: "Arnold Stang, a character actor whose bespectacled, owlish face and nasal urban twang gave him a singular and recognizable persona, whether on radio or television, in the movies or in advertisements, or even in cartoons, died on Sunday in Newton, Mass. He was 91 and lived in Needham, Mass."

Which means he was living about 45 miles from me. I wish I had known that. I would have tried to have visited, and perhaps even interview, Mr. Stang if I knew he was that close. Missed opportunity.

Among his other accomplishments, Arnold Stang was the voice of Top Cat, whose best friends got to call him T.C. "providing it was with dignity," as the theme song goes. And that's the Theme Time Radio Hour connection, if you're wondering.

If you're around my age, you knew Stang from a variety of appearances, as the classic 96 lb. weakling on television shows and commercials and even paired with Arnold Schwarzenegger in the latter's first movie, "Hercules in New York." You may also know Stang from his great comedic turn in It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. According to Mark Evanier, "...Arnold was one of the few participants in that film to suffer an injury. At the hotel where the cast was staying, he slipped by the swimming pool and broke his wrist. The cast is well-concealed during the famous scene where he, Marvin Kaplan and Jonathan Winters destroy a gas station."

He will be missed. Image above courtesy of Dreamtime pal "astang55," aka Carol, whose screen name always makes me smile. The original was a gif animation, which got lost in translation. Carol also passes on this wonderful Arnold Stang Flicker set, a very nice memorial to his memory.

Dreamtime's 2nd 3rd Annual Halloween Encore Special

dreamtimepodcast@gmail.com (Fred Bals) — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 07:37:06 PDT

As we've said before, what's good enough for Mr. D. and Eddie G. is good enough for Dreamtime too, and so it's time again for our traditional rebroadcast of one of our favorite shows. First released in October, 2007, Episode 44 - The 2nd 3rd Annual Dreamtime Halloween Show.

Direct link to mp3.

Subscribe to the Dreamtime podcast

Listen now with the Dreamtime Player

Welcome to your other home for Halloween schemes, ghostly themes, and Kandy-Korn dreams. It's Dreamtime's 2nd 3rd Annual Halloween Show, the one time of the year where we get to let down our hair and pretend to be our favorite monster, superhero, actor, or deejay...

... and we all know who that would be, don't we?

Playing in the background, Haunted House, from Leon Redbone's first album. A dead man's party is where we're headed to first on tonight's musical Halloween tour. Here's Oingo Boingo with Dead Man's Party. See you on the other side, and make sure to leave your body at the door.

[Dead Man's Party - Oingo Boingo]

Oingo Boingo was founded in 1972 as the Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo, later changing their name to Oingo Boingo, and then to Boingo. If the band had stayed together they might have shortened it down even further to just Boing, but they broke up in 19 and 95.

The original Oingo Boingo appeared on Chuck Barris' The Gong Show in 19 and 76, getting a score of 24 points out of a possible 30 with an act that featured both a rocket ship and a dragon, and winning them $500 to boot. You can see that appearance on YouTube. Go check it out. As Chuck Barris says, "[They're] an act who may first shock you, but once you get to know them, they'll boggle your mind."

We all know Lord Invader from TTRH. Well, there was another calypso lord - Lord Intruder - who wrote a song called Jumbie Jamberee back in 19 and 53. "Jumbies" were spirits in the song who danced "back to back, belly to belly" in a Trinidad graveyard. Intruder published Jumbie Jamberee, but it would take some other groups to make the song popular in the United States. And they changed "jumbies" to "zombies" and the graveyard location to New York along the way. The Kingston Trio had a big hit with Zombie Jamboree in the mid-'50s, and Harry Belafonte liked the song so much he recorded it three times during the `60s and `70s. One of those versions is what we're going to listen to right now: Harry Belafonte and Zombie Jamboree.

[Zombie Jamboree - Harry Belafonte]

Did you hear that line about Bridget Bardot? Back in the '60s she probably been voted as the girl you'd most want to dance belly-to-belly with. At least, I would have voted for her.

You're listening to the Dreamtime podcast - where every show we do is an encore for somebody somewhere.

If you're a regular Dreamtime listener you already know our love of all things witchy, and what better time to do some more witch songs than our Halloween Special?

Kip Tyler and the Flips recorded She's My Witch way back in November of 19 and 58. Although you don't hear much about Kip these days, he and the Flips were a major California rockabilly force and the pride of the legendary El Monte Legion Stadium rock shows back in the `50s. Kip never made it to the big time, but members of The Flips would later work with Gene Vincent, Duane Eddy, and the Beach Boys. Spooky, sexy, and pure rockabilly: Kip Tyler and the Flips with She's My Witch.

[She's My Witch - Kip Tyler & The Flips]

Louis Armstrong had his first big movie break with this Johnny Burke tune from 19 and 36 we're going to play next. Satchmo originally recorded it with the Jimmy Dorsey Orchestra, and he and the song were featured in a spooky nightclub scene complete with dancing skeleton in the Bing Crosby musical comedy, Pennies from Heaven.

[The Skeleton in the Closet - Louis Armstrong]

We get all sorts of email in at Dreamtime, and I gotta tell you, I've fallen way behind in answering them. But, when you think that the Dreamtime team is just me, two cats and a couple of honky-tonkin' good-time gals, I'm lucky to get anything done. Anyway, here's an old email from last Halloween that I'm just getting around to answering. It's from a Peggy B. of New Harbor, Maine:

Dear Dreamtime: Love the show, although Jailbait and Joyride Jones aren't on enough. They should do their own show! But that's not why I'm writing. I was watching The Simpsons' Halloween Special and Bart Simpson said that Casper was the ghost of Richie Rich! I never thought of it before, but they do look a lot alike. Any truth to the story?

Thanks for writing, Peggy, but I think you need to get out more if you're starting to believe what a cartoon says.

No, there's no truth to the urban legend that the Friendly Ghost, Casper, is really the spirit of Richie Rich, even though it is a bit suspicious that you never see the two together. However, there's always been a question about whether Casper ever died or not, and whether he's a real ghost. Casper started his career in the early 1940s as the ghost of a little boy, but by the 1960s he had ghost parents, who apparently had ghost sex, and Casper was the result. But by 1995 and the Casper movie he was the spirit of a dead person again.

A very confusing situation, and we haven't even gotten into the question about how The Ghostly Trio became his uncles.

The Dreamtime podcast - answering all your ghostly trivia questions whether you asked them or not.

Two more witchy songs are coming on the turntable. You heard this first one last Halloween on Theme Time, with Screamin' Jay Hawkins doing the honors. Jay first cut the song back in 19 and 49, and it was the first single he ever released under the name Screamin' Jay. Nina Simone would cover it about 20 years later, in 19 and 65, and use it for the title of her autobiography: You already know what song I'm talking about, so let's get going.

[I Put a Spell on You - Nina Simone]

Nothing more needs to be said about our next artist or the song except this: here's Ol' Blue Eyes with the classic, Witchcraft.

[Witchcraft - Frank Sinatra]

[Trivia: Halloween around the World]

[Poetry reading: Halloween (excerpt) - Robert Burns, spooky poet]

We were just talking about that fender-bender of a poet, Edgar Allan Poe. Bob Dylan read his Annabel Lee on the Women's Names show back in Season One. So I don't need to, which you're probably all relieved to hear.

Poe wrote Annabel Lee in 18 and 49, and was his last complete poem before his death that same year. A lot of good artists have put Annabel Lee to music over the years, including this pretty version by Joan Baez, who included the song on her 1967 album Joan.

[Annabel Lee - Joan Baez]

Joan Baez and Annabel Lee on the Dreamtime podcast Halloween Special.

You might be familiar with Gene Simmons' - the other Gene Simmons, not the guy from Kiss - version of Haunted House from 19 and 64. We're not going to play that one, but the original from Johnny Fuller, which has a faster beat and a more interesting sound, I think. Listen to that wild guitar plucking to understand what I mean.

Johnny Fuller began recording in 1954, and probably is best remembered for his single All Night Long. That one and Haunted House landed him a spot on one of the `50s package shows, where he toured with Paul Anka and Frankie Avalon. Here's the first of the two 45s he'd cut for the Speciality label: Johnny Fuller and Haunted House.

[Haunted House - Johnny Fuller]

Bruce Springsteen covered that song too, during The River tour on a Halloween show. Bruce was carried onstage in a coffin.

By 19 and 62 Johnny had more or less retired from the music business, although he'd release one more album in 19 and 74. He worked as a garage mechanic until his death in 1985. I think he might have worked on my car once.

You're listening to the Dreamtime podcast, where we've commandeered Studio B of the Abernathy Building for Halloween night.

One of the hardest things about putting together tonight's Halloween theme show was finding a good country song about Halloween. You want songs about drinking, car wrecks, and fooling around, they're easy to find. But goblins, spooks, and monsters, no. I was thinking about using Porter Wagoner's Cold Hard Facts of Life, but I want to do a Murder show later this season, and that song's too much a natural for that one. (Porter Wagoner passed away during the production of this episode: He'll be sorely missed. - fhb)

I finally settled on Eddie Noack's Dolores. You remember Eddie, we featured Eddie's Psycho back in Dreamtime 28. You can go read more about him there, but right now we're going to play his Dolores.

[Dolores - Eddie Noack]

The 100-proof Texas honky-tonk, Eddie Noack, who would drink himself to death by age 47.

Dreamtime has a lot of listeners and readers from Great Britain, and we wanted to thank you with what I think is the oldest song on tonight's playlist, recorded on October 30, 1931 by Ray Noble and the New Mayfair Orchestra. I don't have a lot more information on this one... maybe one of my listeners from Merry Olde England can help me out. A trip through yet another haunted house on tonight's Dreamtime Halloween tour, here's the New Mayfair Orchestra and The Haunted House.

[The Haunted House - The New Mayfair Orchestra]

Dreamtime has a long history with this next artist. I'm part of the crowd noise on the album Where's the Money recorded live at the Troubadour back in 19 and 71, when Your Host was all of 19 years of age. And in about a year I'd find myself at the Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco watching Symphony Sid Page and Papa John Creach do a burn-the-house-down duet on this song. I Scare Myself is about... it's about.... Well, it's about five minutes long.

[I Scare Myself - Dan Hicks and his Hot Licks]

Dylan told us to "go Google" Kay Starr after he played her Wheel of Fortune on the Luck episode, and Dreamtime has another Kay Starr cut for you, appropriate, as they say, to the season.

Bing Crosby originally recorded The Headless Horseman in 19 and 49 for Disney's The Adventures of Ichabod & Mr. Toad. Kay covered the song a few months after the movie. She's backed here by the Billy Butterfield Quintet and - I kid you not - The Three Beaus and a Peep. Kay Starr and The Headless Horseman.

[The Headless Horseman - Kay Starr]

Kay Starr with a pretty spooky thing. And that sounds like a cue for our last song. We couldn't let Rocktober pass without at least one Classic Rock song, and here's a good one, the Classics IV with their first national hit. From 19 and 67 on the Imperial Records label, the original (non-instrumental) Spooky.

[Spooky - Classics IV]

I hear the banging on Studio B's door, so I think it's time to get out of here before they start using the fire axes. Tex, thanks for letting me sit in The Man's Seat for this Halloween. Hope I filled his shoes in my own small way and if there's anyone from Cadillac out there - the address is dreamtimepodcast@gmail.com . I'm always available to fill in.

[Close]

Tonight's Playlist

1. Haunted Mansion - (Disney)
2. Intro (Bed Music) Haunted House - Leon Redbone
3. Dead Man's Party - Oingo Boingo
4. Zombie Jamboree - Harry Belafonte
5. She's My Witch - Kip Tyler & the Flips
6. Skeleton in the Closet - Louis Armstrong
7. I Put a Spell on You - Nina Simone
8. Witchcraft - Frank Sinatra
9. Annabel Lee - Joan Baez
10. Haunted House - Gene Simmons
11. Dolores - Eddie Noack
12. The Haunted House - New Mayfair Dance Orchestra
13. I Scare Myself - Dan Hicks and His Hot Licks
14. Headless Horseman - Kay Starr
15. Spooky - Classics IV

Many of the songs for tonight's show were inspired by Mark Harvey's article for the on-line Halloween Magazine.

***

You've been listening to the Dreamtime podcast – occasional commentary on Bob Dylan's Theme Time Radio Hour. Dreamtime is researched and written by Fred Bals and is a Not Associated With production. As the name says, we're not associated with XM Radio, Bob Dylan, or much of anything else.

Some of the music on Dreamtime is provided via the Podsafe Music Network. Check it out at music.podshow.com.

Remember that the Dreamtime team loves to get email. You can write us at dreamtimepodcast@gmail.com

The Dreamtime top cats are Curly Lasagna and Shaggy Bear. Our announcers are the notorious honky-tonkin' sisters, Jailbait and Joyride.

Until next time, dream well.

Visit the Dreamtime Store

"One of the Ancients" - The Muddy Waters and Alexander Pope Connection

dreamtimepodcast@gmail.com (Fred Bals) — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 06:23:04 PDT

Although unrelated musically, no one can hear the title of the first song aired on Theme Time, Muddy Waters "Blow Wind Blow" without thinking of Dylan’s own "Blowin’ in the Wind." Before playing the song, Dylan makes a cryptic remark about Waters calling him, "one of the ancients by now, whom all moderns prize."

I’ve had days while writing “Dreams, Schemes, and Themes” where I become convinced that Bob Dylan had nothing at all to do with Theme Time past lending his name to it, even to the point where I would get so bull-goose crazy that I would start wondering whether the TTRH team had hired an impressionist to mimic Dylan’s voice on the air, ala Rich Little doing Stacy Keach’s “Mike Hammer” voiceovers while the actor was in jail.

Why not? Who could guess the difference? I mean, how many people actually know Bob Dylan’s speaking voice well enough to tell? Maybe the entire scheme had been put together as a carny act by Dylan, Eddie Gorodetsky, Penn Jillette and Ricky Jay just to see once and for all how much they could get away with. Maybe it was a bet. “Hey we’ll have Bob do a radio show and Bob won’t even be there.”

Maybe that’s why Dylan’s peeps had been so damned adamant about not giving me any info or access to any of the TTRH crew. IT WAS ALL A HOAX! A SCANDLE! QUEL DOMMAGE! Yes! I would uncover the whole damn pitiful scheme and win a Pulitzer, or at least get into the Daily News. I’d find the voice impressionist, probably living in a flophouse on a Skid Row somewhere by now, money from Theme Time gone, hands trembling, in need of a quick fix, eager to tell me the true story for a couple of bucks.

Then I’d come back to reality.

Dylan's "one of the ancients" line is the first salvo fired in the great “did Bob Dylan contribute anything to TTRH?” debate, and a definite point for the “Yes” side. The line is a paraphrase taken from Alexander Pope’s 1711 poem, “An Essay on Criticism,” an unlikely reference for Theme Time producer/writer Eddie Gorodetsky to be making in relation to Muddy Waters, no matter how literate the ex-radio jock and comedy writer may be. On the other hand, if we had the opportunity to browse a certain deejay's bookshelf, I suspect we'd find "An Essay on Criticism" sharing space with Sax Rohmer's "The Hand of Fu-Manchu," and Joan Didion's "Slouching Towards Bethlehem."

The Ancients only, or the Moderns prize:
Alexander Pope, “An Essay on Criticism" (Line 394)

Although little-remembered in these modern times, “An Essay on Criticism” has made several contributions to the popular lexicon including, “a little learning is a dangerous thing,” and “fools rush in where angels fear to tread” both dictums worth remembering as I continue on with my book.

The Theme Time Radio Hour team seem to have a certain nostalgic fondness for "Blow Wind Blow," perhaps because it was the song that launched a 100 Theme Times. I received an email from one of the show's many associate producers after I posted a video of Waters performing the song, who thanked me but noted that the TTRH team favored another version; a November 28, 19 and 70 performance at/on The Beat-Club music show broadcast from Bremen, Germany. It's posted above. Enjoy one of the ancients, who all moderns prize.

100 Theme Time Radio Hour Polaroids

dreamtimepodcast@gmail.com (Fred Bals) — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 05:30:39 PDT

I think even the most diehard, hopeful fan would admit that Theme Time Radio Hour is over. Sirius XM shows no sign of ending the re-runs, although I suspect one Wednesday we'll tune in and the show will have been replaced with "The Wit & Wisdom of Tom Waits" or something. But over or not, there are still many things to document about TTRH, and we expect to be around for a while longer.

One of the things that has always delighted us about Theme Time was how it inspired so many people in so many ways. Over the past three years, we've heard more than a half-dozen hommages to the show, using anything from reggae to Canadian artists to movies to Bob Dylan's own work as source material. Many were as good as any episode of TTRH. We've seen the show, its artists, the music - even jokes and recipes - all artfully documented. And several fans have created "cover art" for the episodes, including my favorites from a fan who calls himself simply "Man-on-the-Street."

MotS has updated and uploaded all 100 of his TTRH "Polaroids" on Flickr. Whether you use them as CD cover art or not, you'll want to take a look at the collection if you're a TTRH fan. Many of the 100 covers are very funny visual puns, worthy of the show itself. If the TTRH team wander across the 100 Theme Time Radio Hour Polaroids at some time, I think they'll be pleased with what they inspired.

"[He] hates for you to tell him how much he meant to you all your life, through your young years -- he doesn't want to hear that. What he wants to do is tell you the good things about you, so that you can do your own work; he doesn't want you to be involved with him, he would rather inspire you to do your own work..." ~ Patti Smith on Bob Dylan

Betties & Ditty-Bops: Deconstructing Christmas in the Heart's Credits

dreamtimepodcast@gmail.com (Fred Bals) — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 11:30:56 PST

I have the admittedly weird tic of reading credits and acknowledgments from beginning to end, word-for-word, partly because I dated a lady in the movie biz who got me into the habit of watching a film's end credits as the rest of the audience filed out. "I like to see which of my friends is working," she told me as gaffers, sound synchers and "best boys'" names scrolled down. So be it movie, book, or music, it's always interesting to me to to see the credits of the team that put a project together. Here's some background on the "Christmas in the Heart" credits.

Front Cover

Designer Coco Shinomiya found the CD's Victorian sleigh cover illustration - which many people feel has a distinctly Russian bent to its look - at visuallanguage.com, one of the 150 images on a CD titled "Victorian Scrapbook Treasures II."

As all true Theme Time Radio Hour fans should know, Shinomiya is a graphic designer and art director and two-time Grammy nominee. Look at the credits of any Bob Dylan project of recent years and it's likely that Shinomiya had a hand in its design, including creating the Theme Time Radio Hour iconic logo.

Inside Photo

At the beginning of this article, a detail from Leonard Freed's inside photo for "Christmas in the Heart," a 2000 image taken in Rome of Italian street musicians breaking from their Santa rounds.

Born in Brooklyn in 19 and 29, Leonard Freed began his career in photography while in the Netherlands in 1953. He moved to Amsterdam in 1958 and photographed the Jewish community there, pursuing the theme in numerous books and films. His book on Jews in Germany was published in 1961, and "Made in Germany," about post-war Germany, appeared in 1965.

Working as a freelance photographer, Freed photographed blacks in America, the Yom Kippur War in 1973, and a series documenting the New York City police department from 1972 through 1979. He passed away in 2006.

Back Cover Illustration

The back cover illustration of the Three Kings following that Star of Wonder was created by the delightfully named Edwin Fotheringham, a name which sounds as if it could easily belong to "Christmas in the Heart's sleigh driver. Fotheringham was educated at the University of Washington School of Art in Seattle, where he lives today with his family.

According to his on-line bio, "...Fotheringham made a career change from fine artist/stockboy to illustrator in 1992...Having certain band members as housemates afforded Mr. Fotheringham the opportunity to illustrate their CD covers..."

Among his other credits, Fotheringham has illustrated album covers for the band, Mudhoney, and provided illustrations for Neiman Marcus, The New Yorker and Ladies' Home Journal. He's also illustrated two children's books, "What To Do About Alice?" and "Mermaid Queen." "Mr. Fotherigham," as he appears to like to refer to himself, has a great web site, well worth the visit.

Mixed Voice Singers

If anything gives "Christmas in the Heart" that late `50s/early `60s vintage feel it's the "mixed voice" chorus which sounds as if teleported directly from a Ray Conniff Christmas Special. Two members of that chorus - Amanda Barrett and Abby DeWald - are better known as The Ditty Bops, an L.A.-based duo with five albums to their credit.

Six of The Ditty Bop's songs have aired on the TV show "Grey's Anatomy," with their song "There's a Girl" appearing on the series soundtrack. The duo has also made appearances on Garrison Keillor's Prairie Home Companion.

The "Notorious" Bettie Page

The once and forever "Queen of the Pin-Ups," Bettie Page lived as complicated a life and career as Bob Dylan. Somewhat like Bob Dylan, Page's public image evolved into a series of archetypes - Jungle Queen, Girl Next Door, Good Girl Gone Bad - during the `50s. She faded away into obscurity and then saw her legend revived once again in the 1980s.

In 1950, during a walk along the Coney Island shore, a 26-year-old Bettie Page met Jerry Tibbs, a police officer with an interest in photography, and a member of what was euphemistically termed an "outdoor camera club." While there were numerous legitimate camera clubs of amateur photographers operating in the `40s and `50s, Tibbs belonged to one of the quasi-legal groups whose main purpose was to photograph young ladies in various states of déshabille... only for "art use" of course.

Within a few months, Page was posing for various men's magazines of the era, with titles such as Wink, Eyeful, Titter, and Tab. In 1955, Bettie won the title "Miss Pinup Girl of the World" and in January 1955, hit the big time as centerfold in Playboy in a photo session that would inspire the Olivia illustration used for "Christmas in the Heart."

Page's life was plagued by exploitation - even of the relatively mild pin-up and stag film "girlie" industry variety - bad marriages, and in her later life, clinical depression. By 1959, she had ended her pin-up career and had refocused her life on Christianity. In the early 1980s, comic book artist Dave Stevens based his hero's love interest on Bettie Page in the ground-breaking series "The Rocketeer." The popularity of the comic, along with a fanzine titled "The Betty Pages," which included photos from the camera club days, sparked renewed interest in Page's life and career. Dave Stevens would eventually become a close friend of Page, remarking in one interview that he could never have imagined that he would be cashing Page's social security checks and picking up groceries for her when he created "Betty Page" in "The Rocketeer."

Bettie Page passed away on December 6, 2008, leaving behind many fond memories for the boys and men who grew up with the images of "That Girl Next Door."

Out of curiosity, I ran "Bettie Page" and "Bob Dylan" together in a Google search, discovering that they had been separated from each other by a mere five degrees of dating, according to one web site. Probably more fantasy than fact, since Bettie Page's "date" with Sammy Davis Jr. apparently consisted of a shared taxi ride, but there's something attractive about the idea.

The "Tarantula" Photo Session

dreamtimepodcast@gmail.com (Fred Bals) — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 11:32:24 PST

A thread over at the Expecting Rain forums had me searching out the history of the photo to the left, one of a series taken in March 1965 by Daniel Kramer at a cabin located on Albert Grossman's Bearsville estate. Bob Dylan is in the foreground with Sara Lowndes - soon to be Sara Dylan - standing in the doorway.

This is one in a group of five or six shots taken by Kramer and intended (as Kramer relates in his 1967 book of photos, Bob Dylan) for the cover of Tarantula. Kramer and Dylan intentionally tried to replicate the look-and-feel of Kramer's iconic cover for Bringing It All Back Home, a little too successfully, as the photos were ultimately rejected as being too similar.

As with the Bringing It All Back Home photo, Dylan is surrounded by a variety of weird ephemera, and as with the better-known photo, there's a tendency to read more into their significance than they probably deserve. Both Kramer and Sally Grossman have said in various interviews that most of the props used in the Bringing It All Back Home shoot happened to be at hand and Kramer used because he thought they fit. The same can probably be said of the props for the unused "Tarantula" photos.

I've only be able to identify a few of the props. From the bottom center and moving clockwise:

Playing Cards: Ace of Spades, Facedown card, Queen of Spades, Jack of Spades, Joker

Woman's Day Book of American Needlework by Rose Wilder Lane (1963)

Unidentified box. The word "Religious" can be read at the upper right corner.

Cardboard cut-out of Beagle.

Unidentified magazine.

Paper with Handwritten ALWAYS!!! A faint sketch of a face can be seen below the words.

Unidentified photo.

Unidentified record cover. Label is Verve.

Unidentified record cover (not seen in all photos in the series): "The (unreadable) Jug Band"

Needlepoint reading "Be True To Me. Let Me Be True to Myself."

Dylan is holding a copy of The Bhavans Journal in his right hand, probably belonging to Sara, a magazine focused on Indian culture, life, and literature, established in 1954 and still being published. His cloth "sailor's cap" is in his left hand.

The full series of photos can be found at Dylanstubs.

From The Hank Williams Project: Lucinda Williams - I'm Happy I Found You

dreamtimepodcast@gmail.com (Fred Bals) — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 11:31:27 PST

Sometimes you write an article so you can write the article. I was hoping that if I tossed some bread out on the water it might get returned threefold, and lo and behold, Dreamtime correspondent "Joe," wrote to tell us,

"...I was in Minnesota Friday (September 18, 2009) for Lucinda's show and her on-stage wedding. Before the ceremony she sang her Hank Williams collaboration..."

With a little luck and judicious searching, I found this well-shot video of Lucinda Williams performing for the first time live her song from The Hank Williams Project, "I'm Happy I Found You." Her introduction to "I'm Happy I Found You" begins at 4:52 seconds into the clip.

"...this was written by Hank and me. The reason I say that, it's interesting, because some lyrics were found of Hank Williams without the music. So I was asked to choose a song and write the music... for an album that Bob Dylan was putting together... it's still not out yet, I don't what's going on with it...but anyway... it's a very unusual set of lyrics for Hank. The other, special reason I'm doing a Hank Williams song is because Hank Williams was married on stage. And I figured... if it's good enough for Hank, it's good enough for us. This is called, 'I'm Happy I Found You'."

After the song Williams married her manager and sweetie, Tom Overby, in an on-stage ceremony, borrowing the idea from Hank Williams' wedding to Billie Jean Jones Eshlimar on October 19, 1952. Williams actually had married Eshlimar a day earlier in a private ceremony, but staged two public ceremonies on the 19th at the New Orleans Civic Auditorium where 14,000 seats were sold for each ceremony. Apropos for Williams' complicated life, a judge ruled after his death that none of the weddings were legal due to Billie Jean’s divorce not being finalized until eleven days after she had married Williams. A quarter of a century after the marriage, a federal court finally ruled it valid.

"I'm Happy I Found You." is another pretty piece, equal to Norah Jones "How Many Times Have You Broken My Heart?" and as Lucinda says, has an unusual sentiment for a Hank Williams song. Here's hoping we get to hear the remainder of the songs from The Hank Williams Project before the end of 2009. If any of our readers have any news to add, let us know at dreamtimepodcast@gmail.com.

Howard Stern on 'The Family Hour', With His Usual Sense of Class

dreamtimepodcast@gmail.com (Fred Bals) — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 07:19:40 PDT

Howard Stern: ...bringing up Dylan. So Gary's driving in his car the other night aaaah, listening to Sirius XM. And y'know, it's really kinda funny, 'cause when Sirius and XM were two separate companies, I used to be somewhat envious of the fact that XM had Bob Dylan doing a show. Like I had only heard about it. I never actually heard the show. But I was envious saying, 'Wow, it's really cool that they had Bob Dylan.' They probably had to pay him some decent money to get him to do it, because he's such a recluse. That's a cool move, being such a recluse than when you do anything it's a big deal. So I said, 'Wow, if there's any programming I'm envious of on XM it's because they've got the Bob Dylan... it's like called 'The Family Hour,' and he would spin records and he would talk about his life.

But I never actually heard the show. And Gary called me over vacation and he goes, 'Did you ever actually hear the Bob Dylan show?' And I go, 'Uh, no. Is it awesome?' And he goes, 'I don't know a fuckin' thing he said.'

It's a cool thing to say you have Bob Dylan, but if you actually listen to the show, he's unintelli-- it's like his music, when he performs [does stock bad Dylan imitation] - he sounds like a rabbi or something. When he's talking, I defy you to figure out what he's talking about. And the music he plays is kinda out there. It's nothing, y'know it's nothing you'd really want to hear...

It's been a depressing week for Theme Time Radio Hour news - the anniversary passing of when we could look forward to the start of a new season; the unofficial cancellation - apparently - of the TTRH Compendium book. I debated with myself on whether to bother to post the clip above, nine minutes of Howard Stern and crew insulting Bob Dylan and Theme Time Radio Hour. But Self pointed out that Dreamtime's mission statement is to be the premiere source of TTRH news and commentary on the Web, good or bad.

So here it is. I should point out that some of the audio and accompanying visuals could be considered NSFW, so be forewarned. As I said, the clip is nine minutes plus, with Stern playing what sounds like deliberately distorted clips from TTRH to bolster his "unintelligble" argument.. I say "deliberately distorted" since I have better-quality copies of the show, so you would think someone with the resources of Howard Stern could find them too. I'm not sure when this clip originally aired. It was posted on YouTube about a month ago.

Stern goes on to make predictable fun of the various Dylan commentaries and ends on the usual Howard Sternesque whiny note, reading glowing excerpts about Theme Time from an old Washington Post article while complaining about how his show is treated by the Post.

I wonder why.

Theme Time Radio Hour Compendium, ah, Update?

dreamtimepodcast@gmail.com (Fred Bals) — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 11:02:13 PDT

The little book that wasn't there, the Theme Time Radio Hour Compendium, recently had a title change on its Amazon page to: "Bob Dylan Untitled Christmas Book" (Hardcover). The book, which has been listed on Amazon since 2008, also had a publication date change, now advanced to November 1, 2011.

You'll note if you go to the Amazon page that it still uses the TTRH Compendium cover mock-up, pictured to your left.

If I had to hazard a guess, I'd guess that this is simply a placeholder by Amazon for a book that may or may not get published and probably won't have anything to do with TTRH if/when it does get published. It's worth noting that the book, under any title, no longer appears in the Simon & Schuster catalog.

I know something of the background of the planned Compendium, as I was in discussions at one point with the TTRH team to do some work on the project. But eventually they decided they couldn't do the book they wanted to do within the delivery time that Simon and Schuster wanted, which was for a Christmas `08 release.

That begs the question of why the book wasn't moved to the Christmas `09 season, and for that question I don't have an answer. Timing may have had something to do with it. My impression was that Dylan's camp already had its attention turned towards other projects by late 2008 and from their perspective TTRH was a closed book (no pun intended).

I also don't know what the planned content for the Compendium was - I'm not sure the book even got to the planning stage. But at its advertised 176 pages I suspect it would have been a piece of mostly visual ephemera similar to the Bob Dylan Scrapbook, probably a good Christmas present for the Dylan fan or TTRH listener in your family. "The Bob Dylan Scrapbook" sold a very respectable 125,000+ copies in 2005 according to Publishers Weekly, and perhaps the Compendium would have done as well. In any case, an opportunity missed for them - and for me - but maybe it will turn out to have been a Good Thing for me and my book in progress.

There was also some talk in the TTRH camp in late 2008/early 2009 about a series of "Theme" books, too, tying into and extending the TTRH franchise after the show's radio run. Again, I don't know whether that idea has been back-burnered or abandoned, probably the latter would be my guess. But it's possible that the "untitled Christmas Book" might be the first of those theme books. It's just as possible that, still under contract to deliver a book, Dylan's people said, "Yep, yep. We'll have that book for you Real Soon Now - sometime between now and when the contract expires in 2011."

This Week in Theme Time Radio Hour History

dreamtimepodcast@gmail.com (Fred Bals) — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 13:57:04 PDT

A sad milestone this week. Two years ago, on Wednesday, September 19, 2007, Season 2 of Theme Time Radio Hour began with the "Hello" show. As well as airing some notable shows, "Classic Rock," "Lock & Key," and "California" among them, Season 2 would hold several surprises for listeners:

While never completely phased out, email readings would gradually lose ground to a new segment - listener phone calls to Studio B.

TTRH finally aired the series' long-promised "Classic Rock" episode, with music featuring rocks of the mineral sort.

The first TTRH rerun aired on October 31st 2007, a repeat of Season 1's "Halloween" show.

TTRH would do a second "Countdown" show with all-new material, the series first theme to cross two seasons.

Season 2 would end without explanation with the "Cold" show on April 2, 2008 after only 25 episodes being aired, in contrast to Season 1's 50 shows.

I get email on a regular basis asking if I have any information - positive or negative - about a Season 4 of TTRH. Season 3 of TTRH began on Wednesday October 3, 2008 with almost no fanfare...only mentioned in a press release from Sony and in some media articles a week or so earlier. Given that Dylan's Christmas album, Christmas in the Heart, is scheduled for release on October 13, there's a very slim possibility that October 14 would be the logical start date of a Season 4. But, there's currently no evidence of that likelihood and, in truth, more evidence against the possibility. Mr. D. made it clear in his May 2009 Rolling Stone interview that his work on TTRH was over, although he did offer up the slight hope that he "didn't know" whether he would continue, and that Sirius XM seemed eager for more episodes. While Sirius XM continues to mention Dylan and TTRH in its publicity materials, it has yet to make an official announcement on the show's future. At present, the show has become the I Love Lucy of radio rebroadcasts, as one commenter pithily put it.

All good things come to an end, and my opinion is that the series has ended. But we have those 100 shows, and our memories. During an interview with one of the members of the TTRH team, I asked if there had been any resentment on their side about the show being copied and distributed over the internet within days - sometimes within hours - of being broadcast on XM.

"We were much more concerned about a show getting bootlegged before it 'officially' aired on the radio," he answered. "And we devoted most of our energies to making sure that didn't happen, rather than trying to stop what we knew we couldn't stop. Actually, we thought it was kind of cool that all the shows ended up on the web. It means Theme Time Radio Hour will live forever."

Swingin' the Alphabet: The Three Stooges

dreamtimepodcast@gmail.com (Fred Bals) — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 13:36:47 PDT

"And no, I didn't wanna to play it, but I get requests for 'Swinging the Alphabet,' every show. Must be a lot of Larry, Moe, and Cheese fans out there." ~ Eddie Gorodetsky, Saturday Night Hi-Fi Party, 1978

Cheesy, yes, but catchy, too. If you're one of the multitude who grew up watching the terrible trio on TV, "Swinging the Alphabet" is likely to be one of your clearest memories from a Three Stooges short. The novelty number was sung by the boys in their 19 and 38 film, Violent is the Word for Curly, a parody of the title of a popular film from a few years earlier, Valiant is the Word for Carrie. The version that Eddie G. played on his WERS radio show was probably taken from a 19 and 59 LP on the Coral label, "The Nonsense Songbook," where it was retitled as "The Alphabet Song."

Although everyone from director Charley Chase to one or all of the Three Stooges was credited with composing "Swinging the Alphabet," it was actually adapted from a song written some 60-odd years earlier by one Septimus Winner under the title, "The Spelling Bee," a discovery not made until 2005 by film historian and Stooges buff, Richard Finegan.

Now let me see what you can do,
And spell for me, Bicki-bi-bo-bu.

CHORUS 1: B, A, Ba, B, E, Be,
B, I, Bicki-bi, B, O, Bo,
Bicki-bi-bo, B, U, Bu,
Bicki-bi-bo-bu. ~ "THE SPELLING BEE" (1875) Humorous Song and Chorus.

Interestingly Winner, a popular 19th century songwriter, also composed "Listen to the Mockingbird," which was used as the theme music for the early Three Stooges shorts, until eventually replaced by "Three Blind Mice." According to Finegan's article, director Charley Chase's maid was fond of singing "The Spelling Bee"'s chorus to his children, and he brought the tune into the studio for the Stooges when they needed a melody to break up the action in Violent is the Word for Curly.

Theme Time Radio Hour Season 2: New Compilation from Ace Records. U.K.

dreamtimepodcast@gmail.com (Fred Bals) — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 05:04:44 PDT

The good people over at Ace Records U.K. were kind enough to send Dreamtime an early review copy of their second compilation of Theme Time Radio Hour music, "Theme Time Radio Hour Season 2," available today (September 7, 2009) in the U.K. and tomorrow (September 8, 2009) in the U.S. at better retail outlets everywhere. You can pick it up in the United Kingdom by following the Ace Records link above. Get it in the Amazon U.S. store through the image or title links above.

As its title implies, the new 2-CD set includes 50 cherries plucked from the 375 tracks played over Season 2 - opening with The Sherman Williams (not Sherwin Williams Our Host would remind us) Orchestra's "Hello," and closing with Rilo Kiley's "With Arms Outstretched."

Sandwiched between is music spanning eight decades, from The Georgia Crackers 1927 "Diamond Joe," to Jolie Holland's "Goodbye California," released in 2004. Jump, jive jazz. Nouveau wave and novelty. Captain Beefheart and Desmond Dekker. Parties, Pretty Girls, and Cadillacs. The Cold Hard Facts of Life, Gloomy Sundays and a Young Man's Blues. The package inludes a "fully illustrated 40-page book packed full of rare photographs and memorabilia including detailed notes on each track..." according to the Ace publicity blurb. That material wasn't ready when they sent me the review CDs, so I can't comment on it.

Unless you happen to be TTRH producer, Eddie Gorodetsky, who had a hand in putting this compilation together, or a very dedicated listener to the series, the chances are you'll hear several songs you've never heard before that will amuse and delight you.

However, there's an inherent flaw with Ace's TTRH: Season 2, as there is with the half-dozen other collections of music inspired by the radio show, and we might as well get that issue of the way now. TTRH: Season 2 is not TTRH: The Show. It does not include any of Bob Dylan's commentary on the songs, nor any of the other features that made Theme Time Radio Hour so memorable. No def poetry, no bad jokes. No jingles, no airchecks, no phone calls. No Ellen Barkin. No Top Cat behind the ending credits. Just the music, folks. I emphasize this because you wouldn't believe the bitter email I get from people who feel that they're being rooked out of their hard-earned shekels every time a new TTRH music compilation is released, no matter how much a label like Ace emphasizes that they're only offering the music.

Given that, do I still recommend TTRH: Season 2? Yes, with the qualification that you understand you're not getting the show itself. But as with the first Ace compilation covering Season 1, listening to TTRH: Season 2 is like listening to a mixtape put together by a very musically-knowledgable pal, maybe a sneak peek into Eddie Gorodetsky's fabled music collection, maybe a chance to hear some of the music on Bob Dylan's lost iPod, as a fortunate few were rumored to have done way back in 2005.

Being the compleat collector that I am, I have every TTRH music compilation in existence, as well as a bunch of other weird ephemera associated with the show, including a half-eaten burrito stolen off of Tex Carbone's sound board. Of the half-dozen compilations, Ace's "Theme Time Radio Hour Season 2," and its Season 1 predecessor are easily the best collections of TTRH music currently available. That's not only because both have the imprimatur of the Theme Time team, but also because Ace went to the trouble of including contemporary music still under copyright, as well the older, royalty-free pieces used in the various other collections. Unlike other compilations of the show's music, with TTRH: Season 2 you get a taste of the full breadth and depth of the music played on Theme Time Radio Hour. At Dreamtime we say, "accept no substitutes."

And Even More "Richards"

dreamtimepodcast@gmail.com (Fred Bals) — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 07:22:26 PDT

You never know what's going to inspire reader reaction, but yesterday's post on "Open the Door, Richard" generated a ton of email. The Dreamtime transcriptions are apparently popular, as several correspondents asked for a transcription of what Mr, D. had specifically said about the song, Dusty Fletcher, and Jack McVea. So here we go, with appropriate accompaniment...

Our Host: "This is Theme Time Radio Hour and we're talking about Locks and Keys. One guy who talked a lot about `em was a comedian named Dusty Fletcher. He played in vaudeville and traveled the chitlin' circuit. He had a live routine that became one of the most famous records of the `40s. He'd walk out on-stage with a ladder, lean against the curtain, and call up to his friend Richard. He had locked himself out of the house, and he needed Richard to come down and open the door. Richard wasn't much help as he was probably intoxicated. It's actually much more interesting when you hear Dusty Fletcher tell it. Let's listen to a little bit of Dusty."

("Open the Door Richard" - Part 1 Dusty Fletcher [excerpt], January 1947)

Our Host: "Dusty's record reached #2 in the R&B charts, but another performer named Jack McVea recorded a more rhythmic version, and it made the song a national phenomena. By 1947, there were at least 22 versions of it. Louis Jordan did it. Dick Haymes, The Pied Pipers. There was a group called The Yokels that sang it in Yiddish. Bob Hope and Fred Allen would just mention Richard and the studio audience would crack up. Everybody was quoting the song like they quote [? ] today. Here's Jack McVea, with 'Open the Door, Richard.'"

("Open the Door, Richard" Jack McVea & His All Stars January 1947)

Our Host: "And listen to this..."

("Open the Door" Clive and Naomi 1965 [excerpt])

Our Host: "Not only were there country, polka, pop, and Yiddish versions, almost 20 years later it was inspiring ska musicians. Listen to a tiny bit of this, by Clive and Naomi....

Our Host: "'Open the Door' by Clive and Naomi. You see, that song can be done any kinda way. 'Bout time for it to come back again. Maybe I'll even do it...".

("Open the Door, Homer" Bob Dylan and the Band 1967 [unreleased out-take])

And Some Notes

Even after repeated listening, I still can't make out what word Mr D. says in the line, "Everybody was quoting the song like they quote [ ? ] today," It sounds like "Bo-ad" or maybe "Bo-at." Maybe someone with a better ear can decipher it.

I received several emails on the controversy over who "wrote" "Open the Door, Richard," with one correspondent - who prefers to remain anonymous - feeling I had given Dusty Fletcher short shrift. Anon. noted, "Fletcher was actually filmed performing 'Open the Door Richard' two years earlier [than McVea's recording] in 19 and 45, so he has to be considered the undisputed 'Richard' champ."

Well, no. As I replied to anon., the film is of Fletcher's comedy routine, not of him performing the song. You can see the 1945 short "Open the Door Richard" at the internet archive, if you're interested. The "Richard" routine starts about three minutes into the 9 minute film. Was McVea's song based on Fletcher's routine? No dispute there. Did McVea create a separate, musical work? I say yes.

A few people questioned which came first, McVea's or Fletcher's recording of "Richard." It sounded to me that Our Host implied that Fletcher's recording was first, although his remarks can be taken either way. In any case, both recordings were released in January 1947. Labels tended to move fast when there was a hit - and money - in the air. This Time magazine article, which also appears to be one the sources for Mr. D.'s commentary, notes that eighteen cover versions of the song were either in print or in the chute within a month after the original's release. Interestingly, the reporter writes that John Mason was "hastily cut in for half the profits," after his lawyers contacted McVea, but makes no mention of Fletcher or his "Richard."

According to various sources, McVea's "Richard" was recorded in either September or October 1946, although not released until January 1947. All the evidence points to Fletcher going into the studio and recording his cover literally days after after McVea's release. The label of Fletcher's National single notes him as the "originator" of "Richard," evidence that there was another "Richard" already out there. And, of course, the melody is obviously from McVea's "Richard."

And finally, the appropriately named "Richard" wrote in with this nugget. "The identity of the mysterious "Don Howell" [who shared co-writing credits with Fletcher for the music after the lawsuit dust settled] was none other than Decca owner, Dave Kapp. Current releases of 'Richard' credit Kapp. I guess Jack McVea was right that he was screwed out of his just due."

Thanks to all for writing in.