Expecting Rain

It's an off-podcast week at Dreamtime, although we're hard at work on Episode 45 on the possible roots of Theme Time, which I think will prove an interesting theory to many readers/listeners.

But this week we realized that we only have 47 days left to shop till we drop for Christmas, and that got the Dreamtime team to speculating what would be the ultimate gift for the rabid TTRH listener.

So, from a build-it-yourself retro radio iPod case to a hybrid Cadillac Escalade, Dreamtime proudly presents a Theme Time Christmas for your enjoyment and elucidation. If you have that perfect gift for a TTRH listener, drop on by and leave a comment.

All things have a past, a history. All trees have roots. All rivers have a source.

There is nothing new under the sun.

Sixty-six years before the first episode of Theme Time Radio Hour, when radio was just radio and the word satellite was only used by astronomers, there was another series that was organized around themes. A fifteen minute radio program that aired three days a week - Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays - at 10:30 p.m., and ran from September 1940 through January 1941. The show, titled Back Where I Come From, was written by Alan Lomax, directed by Nicholas Ray, who would later go on to direct Rebel Without a Cause, and featured Woody Guthrie.

Episode 45 - Back Where I Come From: The Roots of Theme Time Radio Hour

In which Dreamtime explores the connections between Jayne Mansfield, the Beatles, and Jimi Hendrix, with side trips to Las Vegas and Gilligan's Isle. Plus, Jayne gives a def poetry reading of Robert Herrick's Upon Julia's Nipples!

All this and more in Episode 46 of the Dreamtime podcast - The Girl Can't Help it.

Freddie B tries his hand at emulating Eddie G. with a Xmas playlist that includes Bessie Smith, Bob Atcher and the Dinning Sisters, TTRH favorites Gladys "Fatso" Bentley and Louis Prima, Kansas City Kitty, Patti Smith, Brent Dowe, Dale Watson, and Eddie Cantor.

Plus, the Rev. J.M. Gates provides a thundering Christmas sermon that will have all you sinners quaking in your cowboy boots.

A Christmas gift from Dreamtime to you. Enjoy, and a Merry Xmas!

Dreamtime takes a look at the rumored Bob Dylan project on Hank Williams, plus the story of the lost Williams songbook; Bob Dylan via Sean Penn talks about how he missed the opportunity to get Woody Guthrie's unpublished songs; and excerpts from Hank's 19 and 49 Health and Happiness radio show.

Episode 48 - That Fateful Day: The Lost Songs of Hank Williams

The Girl with the Baby-Doll Voice and the Last Cat Standing. With "Figure 8" and "I'm Just a Bill" from Schoolhouse Rock! and Jack closes us out with the theme song from The Sandpiper.

Plus a call from Jailbait's father!

All this and more on Episode 49 of the Dreamtime podcast - Blossom and Jack

What do the Zodiacs, the Womenfolk, Duane Eddy, Hayley Mills, and Elvis all have in common?

You'll need to listen to the 50th episode of Dreamtime to find out.

Plus, Dreamtime pulls a Tim Ziegler and challenges the crack Theme Time Radio Hour research staff.

Dreamtime Episode 50 - Short-Shorts

Dreamtime acquires a sponsor, the Top Cats get cured and we play Hank Penny, Leroy "Happy Fats" LeBlanc, Slim Willet and the Brushcutters, and The Treniers.

Episode 51 of the Dreamtime podcast - Hadacol (That's All)

Dreamtime takes on the daunting task of cataloging Our Host's poetry readings from Season 1 of TTRH.

I had originally decided to do a Dylanesque potpourri of Season 1 poetry readings when I came down with the flu last week, and since I wasn't up to heavy mental - or vocal - lifting, figured it would be an easy thing to do. I soon found that going through 52-odd hours of TTRH episodes, some segmented, some not, some with easily found readings, some not, was a more daunting task than I had planned, and took much longer than I had wanted.

But I did my best, and here we have some 30+ - not 20+ as I say in the podcast - minutes of selected Theme Time Radio Hour poetry readings from Your Host, Bob Dylan, stretching from Weather to Spring Cleaning.

Episode 52 - Poetry Readings with Your Host, Bob Dylan

We've got lots to talk about on today's show, including the end of Theme Time Radio Hour Season 2, when we can expect Season 3 to start, what Dreamtime will be up to during the Theme Time hiatus, and hey, bar the door, Katie! We're also going to tell you about the first Dreamtime Constant Listener contest, where one lucky listener - that might be you - will win a copy of Sid Griffin's book, Million Dollar Bash, as well as some assorted Dreamtime bling!

All that and more onEpisode 53 of the Dreamtime podcast. And because we wouldn't be Dreamtime without some Theme Time-inspired music, we're also taking a stroll today through the sadly neglected world of yodels and yodeling, including Alpine yodels, blue yodels, Hawaiian yodels, blackface yodels, country-western yodels, and Drake's Creme-Filled Chocolate Cake Yodels

On Spade Cooley, born Donnell Clyde Cooley, movie and television star, King of the Western Swing, and the only convicted murderer to have his own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Episode 54 - "Murder!" he says: The Spade Cooley Story

... Bist du Schön

Dreamtime broad (or narrow) (or pod) casts its 55th show and starts into its 3rd year with this episode, which explores how the song that made The Andrews Sisters stars was brought about by a reverse act of Love and Theft.

As well as Maxene, LaVerne and Patti, we play the Nazi propaganda band from the TTRH More Birds show, Charlie and His Orchestra, who use the tune to warn of the Red Menace; and TTRH/Dreamtime favorite, Slim Gaillard, who with his partner Slam, put an appetizing take on the song. Plus, Yiddish Swing!

Episode 55 - By Me, You're Beautiful: The Story of Bei Mir Bist du Schön

It's Summertime, the living is easy, and our July Twenty-Ought-Eight show is all about solar rays and happiness, direct from the sun and fun capital of the world, Merrimack, NH.

Featuring Eric Burdon and the Animals from the Summer of Love, Mickey & Sylvia, (with a sidelong look at Dave "Baby" Cortez and The Rocky Fellers), Bob Denver (in-between gigs as Maynard G. Krebs and Gilligan), thoughts on the Man Who Walked on Water, our favorite Disney girl, Annette and her seldom-seen belly-button, a visit to the racetrack, and winding up with a hip-hop version of Cruel Summer. Plus Dreamtime favorite Summer movies, and a few jingles thrown into the mix.

Episode 56 - Ho Daddy! The Summer Surf and Turf special

The Miami Beach audience is the greatest in the woild - Jackie Gleason

A different sort of Dreamtime this time around. I recently had the opportunity to interview one of my favorite vocalists and interpreter of Bob Dylan songs, Maria Muldaur, and our Episode 57 focuses on Maria's latest release, Yes, We Can! which showcases the work of a variety of songwriters, including Marvin Gaye, Allen Toussaint, Earl King, Garth Brooks, and Bob Dylan himself.

Episode 57 - Yes We Can! An Interview with Maria Muldaur

Dreamtime is winding up its Summer semi-hiatus with the expected return of TTRH in September (I'm betting on a September 3rd announcement), and another show is already in the works.

It's a mega-Dreamtime with 52 minutes of music and commentary on the one American legend that's still alive and well in 2000 and 8, his story still told in bars and barracks, pool-halls and whore-houses. His song sung every day by both white boys and black.

Jody. Even if you don't know who he is, you know he's trouble.

Episode 58 - Jody's Got Your Girl and Gone

Your Host and Jailbat Jones answer questions you didn't even know you had about TTRH in

Episode 59 - The Theme Time Radio Hour Audio F.A.Q.

plus some surprises in this 38-minute show.

Dreamtime is back after a long hiatus at the prodding of several fans who wanted to know exactly why Jerry Lee Lewis was channeling Willy the Shake on the Blood and War episodes.

Here's the story of Catch my Soul, with side excursions featuring Sonny and Cher, and The Thing With Two Heads.

Episode 60 - Catch My Soul: The Jerry Lee Lewis and Shakespeare Connection

Missed us? We missed you.

For our first show for 2009 - and in awhile - the NSFW Big Rock Candy Mountain.

Episode 61 - Oh, That Big Rock Candy Mountain

This was a great show, Fred! I remember tap-dancing to the cleaned-up version of BRCM when I was a very little girl. My husband remembers the version Bob played from his Depression-era childhood. The original version, whoever wrote it, was unknown to either of us!

Thanks, Marie! It was a fun one to do, too, And thanks to Adam Dean for prompting me to do a full article on it.

We're slow at Dreamtime, but by God, we're steady, and with the "Pause" button pressed on Theme Time Radio Hour we may equal their 100 episodes by 2012. Here's the next in the series...

http://www.dreamtimepodcast.com/2009/08 ... -with.html

If you’re a fan of Theme Time Radio Hour, sooner or later you’ll ask the question...

"How much involvement did Bob Dylan actually have with the show?"

The answer is, "Probably not as much as the Sirius XM publicity machine would like you to think that he did..."

But the amazing thing about Theme Time Radio Hour is not that Bob Dylan did it, but that it got done at all.

And without Eddie Gorodetsky, it wouldn’t have gotten done.

Good show, Fred, but I'm not convinced that Bob didn't have a lot to do with it. For a man who don't look back, the 100 episodes were full of songs and singers from Dylan's past: Muddy and Woody, of course, the alpha and omega, but also a substantial sampling Greenwich Village/Boston area folkies: Paul Clayton, the Clancy Brothers, Dave Van Ronk, Tiny Tim, Phil Ochs, Leadbelly, Eric Van Schmidt, Ramblin' Jack Elliott, and even Joan Baez. Then there are the many plays of his friends and contemporaries: Tom Waits, The Beatles and The Stones, Van Morrison, Neil Young, Doug Sahm. Then there is the huge contingent of country singers, jazz singers, the sub-theme of Jamaican music, the regrettable (at least to me) affection for gospel music. As you yourself have noted there is a strong correlation between songs Dylan has covered over the course of his career and songs played on Theme Time.

Then I'll have to try harder, ASM

Seriously, my case is still an argument in process, kinda an early wind-up for that section of the book, and I'm still working it out. I haven't fully convinced myself to tell the truth. And part of the hassle is that I'm trying my damnedest not to denigrate Mr. D., or the work he and the nearly 20 other people - although a few were operating under more than one name - put into Theme Time.

There's Bob Dylan, artist, father, private man, all those things and then there's BOB DYLAN (cue echo and thunder) the entity. The BOB DYLAN entity is the one who licenses his name to Cadillac and Victoria Secret's and what-all. That entity supervises and produces and finances things like "No Direction Home," and "I'm Not There," and even "Christmas Party with Eddie G." and brings relatively unknown bands like The Wiyos on The Bob Dylan Show tour. That BOB DYLAN is as much about the brand and the franchise as it is about the man. And that BOB DYLAN is comprised of many people, all working, obviously, with the authorization and in the interests of the man.

And that BOB DYLAN was, I think, the Bob Dylan of TTRH. Did Mr. D. have input and even final approval over the playlists? Probably yes. It probably explains - as incredible as it sounds - why the TTRH team was putting the last-minute touches on many of the shows literally the weekend before they aired. Did he add some of his own thoughts and opinions? I think so too. But I also know that two people that Dylan trusts completely were the prime movers behind the show. And I think he left a lot of the decisions, including creative decisions, to them.

An argument still in the making, as I said. I appreciate your input as always, not least because it's helping me get my thoughts straight on the subject.

That's the one I call BOB DYLAN, INC.
We are probably not as far apart on this as you may think. I do think Rosen took care of the business arrangements and Eddie G. was responsible for preliminary playlists, scripts and final production. But, I would guess Dylan got both proposed playlists and radio scripts which he amended as the mood struck--I recently reread an interview with Richard Marquand, writer/director of "Hearts on Fire", where he said the script was "rewritten so that he [Bob] could speak it"--so I'm not surprised to hear about last minute changes. Sometimes he sounded a little bored, so I imagine the song or theme or something didn't grab him. I don't disagree, necessarily, but I think the playlists reflected the same generous spirit that was all over Chronicles and that spirit is Bob's. (Maybe I'm a romantic?)

As you've been researching this for a couple of years now, and I'm just breezing off the cuff here, forgive me if I've been presumptuous.

Oh, never worry about that. As I said, having someone with an informed opinion willing to debate/discuss with me is helpful in my getting my thoughts in order. And, as you said, we're really not that far apart in our opinions.

About all my research has done for me is shown me that almost everything I thought I knew about TTRH was wrong. I was certain that all the emails were fake, until, of course, I discovered that Guy Hornsby was a real person.

While Jeff Rosen was certainly handling the business side of TTRH with XM, there was one other person on the creative side besides Eddie G., and I think you can occasionally see his tastes reflected in the playlists. I know he's a big Muddy Waters fan. Actually that's not being fair, and a way too narrow narrow interpertation of "creative." Outside of Eddie, there were two other people on Dylan's team who were doing the creative production, and one person on the XM Radio side. One of the great things I discovered was that TTRH was essentially produced by just four people, and that the free-floating "Studio B" could be anything from a formal recording studio to a home basement.