We kiss and kiss, and kiss some more

TRACKLIST (thanks to "My Echo, My Shadow, and Me")

Theme Time Radio Hour Show # 101 February 11, 2015 – "Kiss“

Intro by Ellen Barkin [music: Prelude To A Kiss – Ben Webster (excerpt)]
A Little Love, A Little Kiss – Eddie Lang (excerpt)
Clip from the film Casablanca (1942)
It's In His Kiss (The Shoop Shoop Song) – Betty Everett (1964)
Smooching – Mark Knopfler (excerpt)
Always Late With Your Kisses – Lefty Frizzell (1951)
I Will Survive – The Texas Gypsies (excerpt)
Sombra Que Besa – Trío Matamoros y Los Guaracheros De Oriente (excerpt)
Passionate Kisses – Lucinda Williams (1988)
Billy Boy Arnold - Kissing at Midnight (1957)*
Kissing Is A Crime – The Original Carter Family (excerpt)
Kiss – Prince (1986)
 Kiss Make Up (commercial featuring Rockin' In the U.S.A.)
Kissin In The Dark – Memphis Minnie (1953)
Sealed With A Kiss – Artist Unknown (excerpt)
Clip from the film Naked Kiss (1964)
April Kisses – Eddie Lang (excerpt)
Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye – Danny White (1962)
Pucker Paint – Huelyn Duvall (1960)
 Lipstick Sunset – John Hiatt (excerpt)
Lipstick On Your Collar – Connie Francis (1959)
 ('Til) I Kissed You – The Everly Brothers (1959)
Lou Rossinhol – Geoffrey Mitchell Choir & Martin Best (excerpt)
Pepe Le Pew clip from Looney Tunes
Besame Mucho – Pérez Prado (excerpt)
Let's Kiss And Make Up – The Falcons (1963)
 Smooch – Miles Davis (excerpt)
Baby Let Me Kiss You One More Time – Roy Head & The Traits (1958)
Clip from the film Junior Prom (1946) The Kiss – Nicholas Hooper (excerpt)
Last Kiss – J. Frank Wilson & The Cavaliers (1964)
Kissing A Wolf – Johnny Klimek & Reinhold Heil (excerpt)
A Kiss To Build A Dream On – Louis Armstrong (1951)
Bob Dylan reads To A Kiss by Robert Burns [music: Romance de los Pinos – Andrés Segovia (excerpt)]
Kiss Urass Goodbye – Redd Foxx (excerpt)
credits [music: Top Cat Underscore - Hoyt Curtin]

* Missing from Soundcloud recording

"Kiss" - 101st Theme Time Episode Airing Tomorrow?

It's been awhile, hasn't it?

A post in the Expecting Rain forums brought the unexpected news that German radio station RadioEins has announced that they will exclusively broadcast an "unknown" episode of Theme Time Radio Hour this week titled, "Kiss."

The episode is scheduled for this Wednesday, 2/11/15, at 2100 (9:00 PM) CET / 3 PM ET.  According to promotional material issued by RadioEins, the special is running as part of its "Friendly Takeover" series where musicians host and play their favorite music.

Theme Time Radio Hour's 100th episode, "Goodbye," concluded the original series six years ago, on Wednesday, April 15, 2009. The heretofore unknown "Kiss" episode is noted by RadioEins as "never broadcasted," indicating that the show is likely to be an unaired episode from the original TTRH series rather than Dylan returning to the airwaves.

Stay tuned for more news!

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

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

***

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.”

The Compleat Theme Time Radio Hour Shopping List

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

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

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

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.

This Week in Theme Time Radio Hour History

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."

"We Sampled His Ass" - No Sleep Till Brooklyn - The Beastie Boys

"When Mike D., MCA, and Ad-Rock produced Cooky Puss*, a song about their favorite Carvel ice cream cake in 19 and 83, everyone thought The Beastie Boys were just a flash in the pan.

["Hello, I'm Cookie Puss..."]

But New Yorkers are much tougher than that, and they made it through all sorts of changes in music. Here's one of their early ones, from 19 and 86 - a shout-out to one of the five boroughs, No Sleep Till Brooklyn, The Beastie Boys." ~ Bob Dylan, Theme Time Radio Hour, "New York"

***
From "Boys will be boys: Beastie Boys Talk Hot Sauce Committee Pt. 1" interview on Drowned in Sound.


DiS: Nas and Santigold appear on [Hot Sauce Committee Pt. 1] but there’s no sign of, as previously claimed, Bob Dylan. Was that, in best Beastie Boys tradition, a cheeky fib?

Ad-Rock: Bob Dylan is guesting on ...Pt 2. He talks about us. More of a spoken word thing...

MCA: We sampled his ass.

Mike D: He has a radio show on satellite and he was speaking about Beastie Boys...

Ad-Rock: He played one of our songs and was talking about us; he’s a big fan.

Mike D: So we collaborated with that.

DiS: Is he one of your big musical heroes?

Mike D: Oh, first off, he’s one of the first b-boys, if not the first. What more to say?

Ad-Rock: Billy Joel is the fifth b-boy. That’s just a side note. Bob Dylan is one of the greatest songwriters of all time.

Mike D: When you think ‘songwriter’ you think him, Gordon Lightfoot; there’s not many others.

Ad-Rock: Carl Carlton. Carl Douglas. There’s a lot of Carls.

***

The guitar riffs and solo of No Sleep Till Brooklyn, which really should be No Sleep 'Til Brooklyn, sez the didactic Fred, are played by Slayer guitarist Kerry King, who was brought in by by Rick Rubin, writer and co-producer of the Beasties' 19 and 86 debut album, License to Ill. The song's name is a joking take on on Motörhead's No Sleep 'til Hammersmith..

"We just got signed to Def Jam, and we were in the same studio, and Rick Rubin was working with both of us. And he just came down and said, "Hey, what do you think about doing the lead down the hallway?" That was about all there was to it. It took five minutes. It might have taken two takes, because it wasn't supposed to be anything intricate. They were spoofing metal, so to speak, on "No Sleep Till Brooklyn," so I just went in and did something, out of tune in parts, and [with] feedback - was just one of those totally spur-of-the-moment things, I didn't think about it at all." - Kerry King, excerpted from The Skills to Pay the Bills by Alan Light, 2005

Hot Sauce Committee Pt. 1 is slated for a September release. It remains to be seen whether Mr. D.'s sampled ass will actually appear on Pt. 2.

* I wouldn't be a good New Englander without giving a nod to Cookie Puss of Carvel ice cream fame, who Our Host gives a brief mention in his commentary on The Beastie Boys. CP is pictured to your left.

Source: BeastieMania

More Bits and Pieces: The Hank Snow Transcript & the TTRH Archives

A couple of more random notes, too ephemeral for a full blog post. Lot #234, the "Bobby Zimmerman" transcript of Hank Snow's "Little Buddy" that we blogged about last month goes on the auction block today at Christie's with some other Dylan material, including a 1958 Hibbing High School yearbook with a "Bob Zimmerman" inscription, a couple of Broadsides with Dylan's autograph, and a concert handbill for the Bob Dylan & Joan Baez 1965 US Tour with art by Eric Von Schmidt, which you'll be familiar with if you have a copy of David Hajdu's Positively 4th Street.

That handbill is estimated at only $1,000-1,500, a bargain in my mind, but what do I know? Conversely, I thought the $10-15,000 estimate for the "Little Buddy" manuscript was grossly over-priced even when Christie's was claiming it as a Bob Dylan early original. I'd rather look at a piece of art than words on a page if I were collecting something. But again, what do I know?

It'll be interesting to see what the "Little Buddy" transcript will sell for. It'd be nice if an anonymous buyer from Minnesota, New York City, or Malibu picked it up for the full auction value for the benefit of Herzl Camp in Wisconsin, and then pack it away with whatever other mementos he might have from the early days.

UPDATE:  The "Little Buddy" transcript auctioned off for $12,500, including buyer's premium, a nice contribution to the rehabbing of cabins at Herzl Camp.

***

Dreamtime internet pal, Patrick Crosley, better-known to the hoi polloi as "Croz" has transmorgified his namesake site once again, taking the primary content offering "Recordings of Indeterminate Origin" off-line except to members-only access, while leaving the main site up, now labeled the Theme Time Radio Hour Archive. And that's what it is, the complete recordings of Seasons 1, 2, and 3 in zip archived mp3 format. If you're interested in finding a particular show or shows - and about a 1/3 of the people who come to Dreamtime through a search engine are looking for TTRH downloads - Croz.fm will probably satisfy your desire.

Regular readers know I'm a little leery, and more than a little inconsistent, about the whole "illegal downloads" thing. If there were an "official" alternative to getting permanent copies of TTRH shows, I'd point you there. But there isn't. I know Croz, as I know many of the people who were involved in distributing TTRH over the internet, and I know he's a generous, good-hearted soul whose dedication to offering access to TTRH to the widest possible audience was often much more trouble for him than it was worth. And he still did it. As I noted in my TTRH FAQ, sites like Croz's may be the only complete record that will ever be easily accessible to researchers, scholars, and fans, especially with TTRH in its re-run twilight.

Do both yourself and Croz a favor, and read his introduction before doing any downloads, okay? I've talked before about the Tragedy of the Commons, and it would be a tragedy if greedy people drove Croz's server hamsters into overload.

Odds & Ends

A couple of bits and pieces, nothing substantial enough by itself to mandate its own post.

You'll find the "Dreamtime Podcast Episode Guide" and the "Expecting Rain Theme Time Forum" links over in the right-hand column and in the FAQ broken for the moment and possibly for the next several weeks.  The Expecting Rain administrators abruptly shut down all the forums yesterday for "maintenance."

Reading between the lines, it's obvious that some of the ER forums are suffering from that disease that all online forums seem to eventually succumb to.  Human self-interest always seems to triumph, even when you know you're destroying something.

It's unfortunate, we hope the ER admins. can work something out, and we wish Karl Erik the best.  Expecting Rain is probably one of the best examples of why labors of love are so much better than labors for money.  But this incident is also a good reminder about why you shouldn't put your trust in on-line reference sources, which have a tendency to disappear without warning.  Over the past three years, I've lost valuable TTRH facts and trivia that were posted by various people at the "White Man Stew" forums (the first, and for a time, the best, on-line forum about the show) and Expecting Rain.  At times when I'm doing research I think, "I should download and archive this."  And, of course, I never do.

***

On a happier note, Sirius XM has released its long-promised application for the iPhone/iTouch, and if you're a user of either you can download it now, for free, at the iTunes Store.  If you're an internet subscriber, either standalone or as an add-on to your Sirius XM radio subscription, the app gives you access to what the press release claims are 120 channels on your iPhone.

Ironically, the press release trumpets, "SIRIUS and XM subscribers can also listen to 100% commercial-free music featuring exclusive shows from SIRIUS XM's satellite radio service such as Bob Dylan's Theme Time Radio Hour" as well as shows including Tom Petty's Buried Treasure, Bruce Springsteen's E Street Radio, The Grateful Dead Channel, Eminem's Shade 45, Jimmy Buffett's Radio Margaritaville, "Little Steven" Van Zandt's Underground Garage and Outlaw Country channels, B.B. King's Bluesville, Willie Nelson's Willie's Place, Elvis Radio, Siriusly Sinatra, and Metropolitan Opera Radio.

I haven't tried the application yet, but comments on its page at the iTunes Store indicates most people are satisfied with it, the major complaint being that the odious Howard Stern, as well as MLB, NFL, and NASCAR programming are all unavailable, probably because of licensing issues.

Ironic, as I said, as the application probably would have opened up a whole new audience for Theme Time Radio Hour, which was, at its peak, the top music show at XM Radio according to my sources.  But I guess the re-runs still will attract new listeners, probably many of whom won't even realize they are listening to repeats.  The shows are in many ways timeless, designed, as one of the people I interviewed for my book said, "to live forever."

In Samson's Diner

As I've said before, one of the fun things about working on my book about Theme Time Radio Hour, Night Time in the Big City, is learning about the counterparts of the Abernathy Building, Studio B, Carl's Barber Shop, Elmo's, and more.

Are any of those places real?  Tell me what "real" means, and I might have an answer for you.

I like the pictures in my mind's eye of the Abernathy and Studio B more than the reality, to tell you the truth, although it's still pretty cool to see one of the stages where the Theme Time show was produced. But the real-world doppelgänger of Samson's - pictured to your left - is everything it should be, I think.  Imagination can't improve upon it.

It's rumored that the crew of Theme Time Radio Hour could often be found at the counter after a long shift in Studio B.  Tex Carbone was said to especially favor the burritos.

And no, I'm not going to tell you where it was... yet.  That's called a teaser.

On another note, posting here at Dreamtime is going to get sporadic during the summer, as we finish up the book. I love blogging, but items I'd normally post here are ending up there, as they should.  We're not going totally away, and will continue to post as circumstances and desire allow.  Stick with us.  We'll make the wait worthwhile.

~ Fred, Jailbait, and the Top Cats

For the New Theme Time Radio Hour Listener

As a fan of Theme Time Radio Hour, I sometimes forget that not everyone is familiar with the show. Many Bob Dylan fans have never heard an episode of TTRH, even if they know of it. With the success of Together Through Life (Now #1 with a bullet on both the U.S. and U.K. charts. Go, Mr. D!), Dreamtime is getting on the average of a half-dozen emails a day from people who picked up the deluxe package, heard the "Friends and Neighbors" show and now want more TTRH .

So here's the scoop, amended from our Theme Time Radio Hour "Frequently Asked Questions" document which you should check out if you have other questions about the show.

Theme Time Radio Hour Promotional CDs

A CD of the complete Baseball show was released in 2006 as part of an in-store promotion for Modern Times. The link above will take you to Amazon where various re-sellers offer the disc for prices currently ranging from the reasonable to the ridiculous. The disc can also be found on eBay, but note the following caveat for either Amazon or eBay: if packaging and "original condition" are important to you, you should make sure the disc is not a CD-R copy and is in its original cardboard sleeve (with the TTRH logo on the front and playlist on the back) before purchasing. If you liked "Friends and Neighbors" chances are you'll love "Baseball," which features among other things Your Host Bob Dylan performing Take Me Out to the Ball Game a capella.

Another promotional CD, featuring the "Friends and Neighbors" episode, is part of the "deluxe" Together Through Life package released in April 2009. I noted in another post that "Friends and Neighbors" wouldn't have been my first choice for a TTRH commercial release but after listening to the show again, I've decided I was wrong. The show has everything that makes TTRH special; 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?

Theme Time Radio Hour Music Compilations

As of May 2009 there were five different commercial CD compilations featuring music only from TTRH. Note that these compilations do not include Dylan's commentary or other features that made the show unique, and that 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.

There are three "unauthorized" (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 which cover the show's first season and The Best Of The Second Series which compiles music from the show's second season. All three compilations are 2-CD sets. Note that all three links will take you to the Amazon U.K. store, which is where I recommend you purchase the sets. Dreamtime has received emails complaining that the buyer was sent Alan Freed's A Stompin' Good Time instead of the Chrome Dream TTRH compilations when purchasing through the U.S. store.

Radio Radio , a 4-CD box set released in 2008 from Mischief Music - again "unauthorized" - also covers music from TTRH's first season.

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 Gordodetsky and Dylan business manager, Jeff Rosen. Of the five compilations, Theme Time Radio Hour with Your Host Bob Dylan probably best reflects the breadth of music played on TTRH as it contains both relatively modern music, such as The White Stripes Seven Nation Army and The Clash's Tommy Gun, as well as the type of vintage cuts you'll find on the other sets.

While not marketed as TTRH material, the 2008 Starbucks compilation, Artist's Choice - Bob Dylan: Music That Matters To Him is also 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 name used by a fictitious caller during one of the Season 2 episodes who complained that Dylan had misidentified a record label. As with the "Baseball" show, if "original condition" is important to you, you'll want to ensure that you're getting the original disc including its original packaging before purchasing.

Non-commercial

Yes, they're out there. No, I'm not going to tell you how to find them.