Michael Gray

Out now: the summer 2025 edition, including a short new piece of mine linking early C19 poetry, Thomas Hardy, Rabbit Brown and Bob: thedylanreview.org

YouTube video by BearWalken Maurice Williams & the Zodiacs - Stay

The wonderful Maurice Williams died 1 year ago today. Here is his inspired hit single 'Stay' and its fine and very earworm-inducing b-side, 'Do You Believe?':
www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1Z_...
and
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECH1...

Strongly disagree. The unamended line is clearly addressing the real.

"IS BOB DYLAN NOW HISTORY?"
The one talk I'm giving later this year (embedded with audio & footage) is at a great small venue outside Dublin in late September. Tickets are on sale now:
tseac.ticketsolve.com/ticketbooth/...

White hat AND center stage

Our splendid dog Iris, this afternoon:

Great review of a fantastic new bio!

And finally this:

And then it adds this:

It's referring there to the multi-thousand word critique of the "Rough & Rowdy Ways" album published in my book OUTTAKES ON BOB DYLAN, which this year came out in paperback and looks like this:

Maybe that Meta AI isn't so bad after all:

Complete Unseen: New Doc on History of Newport Folk Festival Announced ‘Newport & the Great Folk Dream’ filmmakers tell Rolling Stone about their doc on Newport Folk Festival and its connection to 'A Complete Unknown.’

www.rollingstone.com/music/music-...

I once stepped into a lift [elevator] at the Royal Festival Hall and found Nina Simone was in there with two minders. "Throw this man out!" she told them, but luckily the door had shut and the lift was already on its way.

But there's an actual photograph of Bob and Charles together, which has been retrospectively tagged "the artist formerly known as Prince" since he became king.

Sorry, no. Fragments only, mostly between friends who were also at York back then. I did try to interview him for the student mag once. We were standing at the foot of this large staircase and he was looking very frail. He turned me down politely and escaped by leaping up the stairs 2 at a time.

YouTube video by CR's Video Vaults Danny Boy - Sinéad O'Connor, 1993

This is pretty good (despite the windbaggery of the intro by Gay Byrne): www.youtube.com/watch?v=PweU...

Thank you so much for this: a great compliment and gracefully expressed:

Well done - you have found one of the very worst records ever made.

Agreed. She's good on that. But of course there was no such thing as a music video at the time, and so this truly iconic [over-used word] sequence is a very separate creation.

I managed 3:55 and she'd already been SO longwinded I've had to stop. I don't know how you have 26 minutes to spend listening to this, but I don't.

"None of them along the line know what any of it is worth..."

Hopelessly poor recording of a performance in front of an indifferent, disrespectful crowd - which is a pity, because the vocal performance has some beautiful touches:

Dive bar shaped like a house called PARIS NITE CLUB.

Honestly, they nailed the vibe.

Jolly enough. Not the Tuesday Weld I'd hoped for.

Do not listen to it anyway. Kenny Lynch was inexplicably a favourite of BBC Light Entertainment execs, consorted with London gangsters and made terrible records like this. 'Orrible.

Thank you. It seems bizarre, especially given that the system does cover foot faults, which would suggest it needs to be on all the time.

Is this true? Where is this info please?

It isn't really a skit he wrote. It's a re-enactment of an old Jimmie Rodgers sequence.

Help us have a great weekend! We are struggling for funds at the moment, every purchase helps! (UK only, sadly.) #BookSky

#BobDylanOnThisDay
youtu.be/JXa1-o1muZs?...
Changing Of The Guards
Live debut
Paris
05 07 1978