Re: Dylan's Father's Day Radio Show


really real wrote:
Dylan's Father's Day Radio Show starts off with a very cool jazz piece,
The Horace Silver Quintet's "Song for My Father," though it seems
Dylan's real reason for playing it is to show us how Steely Dan's "Rikki
Don't Lose That Number" stole some music from it. It's hard to tell how
Dylan feels about this love and theft, but I've heard other jazz fans
tell me how much they dislike Steely Dan.

For the first song with lyrics, Dylan chooses Daddy and Home, an obscure
song by Jimmy Rodgers, whom Dylan calls the father of country music.
It's a great place to start, because Jimmy Rodgers is as good as music
ever gets, and his tribute album was produced by Dylan a few years ago.

Dylan then makes a crack about stay-at-home dads and plays Shep & the
Limelites' "Daddy's Home," an obvious choice for the mandatory doowop
number for the show, though Dylan adds some knowledgeable trivia about
Shep and his earlier band and songs.


The one song that had to be on the show is The Everly Brothers' "That
Silver Haired Daddy Of Mine," originally done by Gene Autry, but
unbeatable in this version from the Everly's amazing 2nd album, Songs
Our Daddy Taught Us. Dylan explains how the Everly Brother's father, Ike
Everly, was a famous radio musician, but Dylan doesn't make it clear
what a dramatic step it was for these rock 'n' rollers to make a
country-roots album a decade before Sweetheart of the Rodeo and
Nashville Skyline. I've heard Sylvia Tyson (of Ian & Sylvia) go on and
on about what an influence this album was for her.)

Next is Bobby Blue Bland's "Dust Got Into Daddy's Eyes." It's a great
song by a great singer, and it inspires Dylan to do a bizarre rap about
how amazing, astonishing, astounding, extravagant,stupendous, monstrous
but believable it was that the song was number 23 on the r&b charts.
These adjectives actually seem inspired by the lyrics of Dylan's next
choice, "Daddy" by Julie London, written by Bobby Troupe of Route 66
fame and also used in Tex Avery cartoons.

You can hear the pride in Dylan's voice when he introduces John Hiatt's
"Your Dad Did," as he introduces the song by saying this one is about
keeping it hid, like your dad did. We all know that the definitive "keep
it all hid" phrase in popular music came from Dylan himself.

Next comes Charlie Sheen talking about being a school kid with a famous
dad, Martin Sheen, whom Dylan calls "an atomic molecule of an actor."
Martin Sheen's voice is then heard in a scary movie father role.

For the next song, Dylan chooses "My Daddy" by The Sons of the Pioneers
which I wish was on my 2cd Essential Sons of the Pioneers but isn't. But
as good as the song is, it's very weird to then hear Dylan call Bob
Nolan, the group's singer-songwriter, "a mystical songwriter, perhaps
the very best." Dylan describes Bob Nolan's songs as being "extremely
malleable and ductile" and then says, " No songwriter living or dead can
compare. Okay, Bob Nolan may have written "Tumbling Tumbleweed" and
"Cool Water," but who is Bob Dylan fooling when he talks about mystical
or greatest living songwriters?


After the nice soul ditty, The Winston's "Color Him Father," we get a
wonderful country blues masterpiece, Leroy Carr & Scrapper Blackwell's
"Papa's on the Housetop." I think Leroy and Scrapper Blackwell's cds
must be the hardest of any major blues artists' to find. I keep
searching and all I see are used cds selling for $60 on Amazon.

Next is the western swing song, "Mama Loves Papa " by Jack Rhodes & His
Lone Star Buddies. Dylan does a very weird rap before this son. He
describes when the singer hits the couch to dream about the women, his
brain's "massive interconnected nerve cells' interior part of the
central nervous system." Much more interesting is how Jack's stepbrother
was Leon Payne who wrote Lost Highway and Rolling Stone.

This is a good lead in for The Temptation's "Papa Was A Rolling Stone"
which sounds very good after the older songs. I'm personally saving this
song for my Rolling Stone compilation, but Dylan can't do that theme, so
I can understand him using it here. Seeing as Dylan has written one of
the great father songs, Father of Night, which he can't play, I can see
why Dylan is sneaking personal references into this show. Dylan calls
"Papa Was A Rolling Stone" a "jumbo jet of a song."

Lowell Folsom's bluesy "Father Time" is next, but before Dylan plays the
The Swan Silvertones' "Father Alone," Dylan goes on a preacher rant that
starts of fine, saying that "divine love and compassion is often
expressed by the relationship of parent and child." But Dylan then says
how Jewish and Christian scriptures call god our "heavenly father" and
in some types of Buddhism, the Buddha is called "father of the world"
and similar statements are found in the Vedas and Confusion classics.
Dylan says that whoever your father is, the Swan Silvertones are singing
a song about the big father. I would hope that someone as progressive as
Bob Dylan would point out that none of these religions talk about the
big mother, because these religions are all patriarchal. I don't suppose
Dylan gave female gods equal time on his Mother's theme show.

Next up is a real treat, Elvis' Costello's father's song, "Patsy's Girl"
by Ross McManus. I knew that Elvis's father was a musician but I had no
idea he'd written and performed a ska song. It's quite good.

In a hilarious non-sequitur , Dylan reads an email from Johnny Depp
asking who is the father of modern communism. This allows Dylan to talk
about Karl Marx and his children.

For the last song, Dylan chooses Hank William's "My Son Calls Another
Man Daddy" which Dylan calls the "Battle of the Bulge of all songs."
Dylan talks about the pain that Hank Williams live in, and it's clear
how much respect Dylan has for Hank.

Great songs, great patter. These radio shows just seem to get better and
better. But listen to the list of researchers who are working on this
show, just in case anyone was wondering where Dylan was getting all his
information for the shows.



Another key line from the show: "Back in the days when gold records
meant something..."

Hitchiked with Elvis Costello back in '78 in Amherst, Massachusetts
after a performance to an all night restaurant named James P. McManus
and Sons. Said Elvis, "That's me daddy's name!"

He said at the time his goal was to make his money, retire in 5 years
and open up a granola shop in Amsterdam. I was a journalist at the time
and I guess this was his idea of a "Dylanesque put-on."

.

Relevant Pages

  • Dylans Fathers Day Radio Show
    ... Dylan's Father's Day Radio Show starts off with a very cool jazz piece, The Horace Silver Quintet's "Song for My Father," though it seems Dylan's real reason for playing it is to show us how Steely Dan's "Rikki Don't Lose That Number" stole some music from it. ... For the first song with lyrics, Dylan chooses Daddy and Home, an obscure song by Jimmy Rodgers, whom Dylan calls the father of country music. ...
    (rec.music.dylan)
  • Re: Dylans Fathers Day Radio Show
    ... The Horace Silver Quintet's "Song for My Father," though it seems ... For the first song with lyrics, Dylan chooses Daddy and Home, an obscure ... whom Dylan calls the father of country music. ...
    (rec.music.dylan)
  • Re: Dylans Fathers Day Radio Show
    ... The Horace Silver Quintet's "Song for My Father," though it seems ... For the first song with lyrics, Dylan chooses Daddy and Home, an obscure ... whom Dylan calls the father of country music. ...
    (rec.music.dylan)
  • Re: Dylans Fathers Day Radio Show
    ... The Horace Silver Quintet's "Song for My Father," though it seems ... For the first song with lyrics, Dylan chooses Daddy and Home, an obscure ... whom Dylan calls the father of country music. ...
    (rec.music.dylan)
  • Re: Dylans Fathers Day Radio Show
    ... The Horace Silver Quintet's "Song for My Father," though it seems ... For the first song with lyrics, Dylan chooses Daddy and Home, an obscure ... whom Dylan calls the father of country music. ...
    (rec.music.dylan)