This article is more than 18 years old
This article is more than 18 years old
XM's new star presenter plays an eclectic mix of tracks from his collection
Early morning, somehow, does not seem to be Bob Dylan's natural time of day. Nevertheless, the legendary singer-songwriter made his debut as a radio DJ yesterday at 10am on America's east coast, which is 7am on the west coast - although anyone expecting a peppy, caffeinated rundown of the day's news, perhaps with some traffic updates, would have been disappointed.
There was lots of weather, though. The Theme Time Radio Hour - "with your host, Bob Dylan" - will take a different theme each week, showcasing songs selected from his personal record collection, and yesterday's topic was the weather.
The result was an eclectic stew of blues, pop, easy listening, jazz and rock, featuring Fats Domino, Judy Garland and Stevie Wonder, to name just a few. But the show's celebrity presenter will not be playing his own songs, so his own forays into meteorology - Blowin' in the Wind and A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall, among others - were absent.
If Dylan himself did not seem sleepy at such an hour, that is because the show was pre-recorded. The XM satellite radio network has provided him with equipment so that he can record his thoughts as they strike him at home, or on his still frequent tours. And while he has grown progressively less reclusive in recent years, publishing a memoir in 2004 and appearing last year in a Martin Scorsese documentary, No Direction Home, his comments in yesterday's show remained enigmatic.
"West coast weather is the weather of catastrophe, and the Santa Ana winds are the winds of apocalypse," he said at one point, in a speaking voice that is just as much of an acquired taste as hissinging voice, and which probably would not have made it through the station's audition process had it not belonged to Bob Dylan.
"Chicago ... it's known as the windy city but it's not the windiest city [in America] ... the windiest city is Dodge City, Kansas."
Subsequent themes are said to include cars, dance, police, whisky, and - for Mother's Day, which falls on May 14 in the United States - a show about mothers, featuring Merle Haggard's Mama Tried and LL Cool J's Mama Said Knock You Out: a juxtaposition of country and hip-hop seemingly typical of Dylan's catholic taste.
"He sounds like he's been doing it for years," the Dylan expert and rock critic Greil Marcus told Reuters. "In his head, he probably has."
In No Direction Home, Dylan recalled how radio had given him his first sense of an American musical culture that reached far beyond his hometown of Hibbing, Minnesota.
"We'd have to, like, listen late at night for other stations to come in from other parts of the country," he said.
"Johnnie Ray, he had some kind of strange incantation in his voice, like he'd been voodoo'd, and he cried, kind of, when he sang ... it was the sound that got me, it wasn't who it was ... I began to listen to the radio, [and] I began to get bored being there [in Minnesota]."
Never one to worry about enraging his fans by embracing new technology - as during the 60s, when he abandoned acoustic for electric guitars - Bob Dylan has chosen to present his show on one of the two satellite radio networks now battling for domination of the medium's next generation.
XM also carries shows presented by Tom Petty, Oprah Winfrey and Snoop Dogg, while the station's competitor, Sirius, has signed Eminem.
The Playlist:
Blow, Wind Blow Muddy Waters
You Are my Sunshine Jimmy Davis
Just Walkin' in the Rain Prisonaires
After the Clouds Roll AwayConsolers
Let the Four Winds Blow Fats Domino
Raining in my Heart Slim Harpo
Summer Wind Frank Sinatra
The Wind Cries Mary Jimi Hendrix
Come Rain or Come Shine Judy Garland
It's Raining Irma Thomas
Stormy Weather Spaniels
California Sun Joe Jones
Jamaica Hurricane Lord Beginer
A Place in the Sun Stevie Wonder
Uncloudy Day Staple Singers
I Don't Care if the Sun Don't Shine Dean Martin with Paul Weston and his Dixieland 8
Keep on the Sunny Side Carter Family
