Let me name some of the people I would love to hear hosting and curating a radio show. Sex Pistols singer John Lydonformer Clash frontman Joe Strummer, and former Woody Guthrie impersonator Bob Dylan.
Luckily for me, this isn’t just fantasy baseball. These tastemakers have hosted programs showcasing their favorite artists at various times and with varying levels of commitment. In Dylan’s case, the commitment was considerable. his program, Theme time radio hourwas broadcast once a week on satellite radio for almost three years, from 2006 to 2009.
Each episode centered around a general theme, hence the title, but the choices were all over the place and more or less what you’d expect from Dylan. An eclectic collection of folk, blues, gospel, soul, country, modern pop, and more. A mix of rock’n’roll, old-school radio jingles, novelties, promotions, and the host’s quirky commentary and quirky humor. It was recorded while Dylan was on tour and compiled along with fake “listener calls” and emails. Theme time radio hour Dylan said his purpose was to “broaden the musical tastes” of his listeners. That was the case even in its most traditional episodes, the Christmas and New Year’s holiday specials, or “Christmas extravaganzas,” as Dylan calls them.
In the 2006 Christmas broadcast above, Dylan joins everyone from Bob Seger to the Staples Singers to the “uncrowned king of soca” Lord Nelson and Mabel Mafya, who plays “the South African ragtime-like Malabi style.” It bounced back to . A variety of artists, both well-known and lesser-known, play Christmas music, and when combined with Dylan’s caustic interjections, it’s a delightfully strange musical experience. But when it comes time to make his own contribution, he opts for the obvious, reciting Clement Clarke Moore’s “It Was the Night Before Christmas.” You might not have thought much of it the first time you heard it, much less the millionth time. But in Dylan’s reading, the stockings sound like they’re hung up with care in a dark, smoky beatnik coffeehouse, and the finger-snapping of a jazz-poetry bop plays as a harpsichord plays “Oh Tannenbaum” in the background. Sugar plums dance to the rhythm.
This is, in other words, a very cool rendition of a very banal sentence. Throughout this special, Dylan displays a true talent for coaxing new sounds and angles out of old, boring holiday clichés. His extensive knowledge of holiday songs may put him in the ranks of John Waters and the many other “men who love Christmas music” featured in the documentary. Jingle Bell Rocks! I don’t know if he’s a collector or just an avid listener, but by the time he finished listening to his 2006 album, Theme time radio hour Our Christmas special thoroughly expands your appreciation for the holiday genre.
Note: An earlier version of this post appeared on our site in 2014.
Related content:
Bob Dylan’s Thanksgiving Radio Show: A Playlist of 18 Delicious Songs
Top 10 New Year’s Resolutions Read by Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan reads TS Eliot’s great modernist poem ‘The Waste Land’
josh jones I’m a writer and musician based in Durham, North Carolina. please follow him @jdmagness
