Talking Dylan and Blonde On Blonde

12/04/18 • 59 min

Bob Dylan's transition from solo folk troubadour to electric roots rocker was as important a precursor to the idea of Americana music as any other. And that transition reached its apex with the 1966 masterpiece Blonde On Blonde. We devote this whole episode to the album. My featured guest is longtime Nashville music journalist Daryl Sanders who's just published That Thin Wild Mercury Sound, the first book to carefully track how and why Dylan came to Music City to work with young and creative session musicians such as Charlie McCoy, Wayne Moss, Mac Gayden and Kenneth Buttrey. The companion interview features songwriter Robyn Hitchcock who talks about how Blonde on Blonde changed his life and gave him a lifetime's benchmark of artistry.

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Kathy Mattea

Episode 74: Kathy Mattea's new album Pretty Bird is her first release in six years. In the time between, she’s struggled through some problems with her voice and in so doing reached outside of her musical comfort zones. After a couple of albums dedicated to exploring her Appalachian heritage, this one’s more eclectic. She calls it a journey back to singing for the sheer joy of it. Mattea has always been a gifted interpreter from her younger days as a Music Row demo singer through her years as CMA Female Vocalist of the Year in 1989 and 90. Here she sings "Ode To Billie Joe," Bobbie Gentry’s mesmerizing hit from 1967, and an old traditional Irish ballad and Mary Gauthier’s new gospel Americana anthem "Mercy Now." But the title track, which closes the album, declares her continued allegiance to the old music of West Virginia. It’s by Hazel Dickens, herself a WV Music Hall of Famer and one of the most influential and powerful women to ever work in folk and bluegrass music. She’s a hero to Mattea and many others for her undiluted mountain sound and her down to earth feminism. Later in the show we’re going to hear the late great Hazel Dickens on tape from a biographical interview.

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The Gibson Brothers and Ruby Boots

This week, an evenly split hour with very different artists who have a lot to say about change and growth. The Gibson Brothers took their experience from two decades in bluegrass and poured it into a radically different project written and produced with Dan Auerbach. Ruby Boots has been "shedding her skin" regularly through a life on at least three continents. She's now a mainstay in the East Nashville scene and her 'Don't Talk About It' is a masterful album.