VARIOUS ARTISTS – THEME TIME RADIO HOUR WITH YOUR HOST BOB DYLAN

What do that the Stanley Brothers and the White Stripes have in common? How about Jack Teagarden’s Chicagoans and The Clash? For almost two years now Bob Dylan has presented an old style syndicated radio show. One where the announcer – in this case Bob – not only knows the time and station he is on, but the artists, song titles and musical background behind them. Bob Dylan’s Theme Time Radio Hour has hosted tracks spanning from spanning Diamond Joe by The Georgia Crackers recorded in 1927 to Jolie Holland’s Goodbye California recorded in 2004, all held together, linked musically or otherwise by a man who is not only one of the greatest songwriters, but an avid listener as well as player. While we don’t hear Bob on this collection in voice, we hear him in spirit as he celebrates all that is predominantly America – from Wanda Jackson’s Let’s Have A Party to Captain Beefheart via Edith Piaf, Lucinda Williams, James Brown, the Dirtbombs, Loretta Lynn,  Swamp Dogg, Sun Ra, Desmond Dekker and so many more. The songs speak for themselves; classics new,old, lost and fondly remembered. But what hangs them together with even greater significance is the sense of joy and invention and re-invention that has been the hall-mark of Dylan’s recording career – and of popular music – something oft forgotten ’til we are well reminded here. Essential.