Bob Dylan
What a remarkably bad electric guitar player Bob Dylan is
Finally, a taste of the authentic Bob Dylan live experience. On the two previous occasions that I’ve seen Dylan, in…
I agree with pop’s war on iPhones – but King Canute might want a word
Before each show on the recent The The tour – reviewed in these pages last week – the pre-recorded voice…
Why Joni Mitchell sounded different from the start
Polio in childhood weakened her left hand, leaving her to devise alternative tuning, surprising phrasing and ‘chords of inquiry’ that hang like question marks in the air
At last, a private education that wasn’t unmitigated misery
Robyn Hitchcock describes how his musical tastes were formed listening, aged 14, to Dylan, the Beatles, Pink Floyd and Jimi Hendrix on the school gramophone at Winchester
On the road with Danny Lyon
The celebrated photojournalist describes his peripatetic youth recording revolution in Haiti, hunger and homelessness in Mexico and the civil rights movement in the US
Religion provides the rhythm
From the Gospel journeys of Aretha Franklin to the late-life monasticism of Leonard Cohen, the great musical artists of the 20th century were often quasi-religious figures
Tenderness and menace: Bob Dylan, at the London Palladium, reviewed
Bob Dylan has always toyed with audiences. He plays what he wants, how he wants, letting his mood dictate tempo…
What do Beethoven, D.H. Lawrence and George Best have in common?
This is not a book about tennis. Roger Federer appears early on, trailed by the obligatory question ‘When will he…
How I fell in love with the blues
I was never into the blues that much. I listened to a bit of Roy Buchanan and Rory Gallagher but…
Old rockers with a Peter Pan syndrome
What do the following individuals have in common: a political activist from Suffolk; a chartered psychologist from Oxfordshire, who enjoys…
‘I came, I saw, I scribbled’: Shane MacGowan on Bob Dylan, angels and his lifelong love of art
Graeme Thomson talks to former Pogues frontman Shane MacGowan about his first art folio
Lumpily scripted and poorly plotted: Cry Macho reviewed
Clint Eastwood is 91; Cry Macho may well be his last film. Or maybe not. He has, after all, been…
‘There were no rules then’: Dana Gillespie’s 1960s childhood
Although I can understand why Dana Gillespie might choose to call her memoir after her most famous album, for the…
Contains the loveliest new song I've heard in decades: Bob Dylan's new album reviewed
Grade: A ‘Rough’ in terms of the mostly spoken vocals, but only ‘rowdy’ if you’re approaching your 80th birthday, which…
I was born to be on this Bob Dylan podcast, says Geoff Dyer
Podcasts will soon be like porn. Every interest, desire or idle flicker of curiosity will have been anticipated and catered…
‘Bob Dylan? He’s like Confucius’: Cerys Matthews interviewed
‘Baby, It’s Cold Outside’ was a Christmas classic for more than half a century until people suddenly began to worry…
Kanye wipes the floor with David Letterman
My plan to cut the BBC out of my life entirely is working well. Apart from the occasional forgivable lapse…
St Vincent’s Massediction is my album of year (in that I don’t actually hate it yet)
This has not been an appalling year for pop music — it was better than 1984, for example, and 1961.…
David Litvinoff: queeny aesthete or street-hustling procurer?
Even David Litvinoff’s surname was a concoction. It was really Levy. Wanting something ‘more romantic’, he appropriated that of his…
Frank Sinatra never went away — but did he ever grow up?
‘He never went away. All those other things that we thought were here to stay, they did go away. But…
Never again, I told myself last time Bob Dylan was in town
We were like four hapless contestants on University Challenge. None of us knew the answer. But just like they do…
The times really were a-changin’ — when Dylan electrified his fans
Five songs, only three of which were amplified. Thirty-five minutes, including interruptions. That’s how long Bob Dylan played for at…
Copyright: the great rock’n’roll swindle
For a music fan, the quiz question, ‘Who wrote “This Land is Your Land”?’ might seem laughably easy. Yet if…
Justin Cartwright on redheads, anti-Semitism and the betrayal of Christ
Peter Stanford is a writer on religious and ethical matters. He was for four years editor of the Catholic Herald.…
