Michael Gray

Music writer & pioneering Dylan fanzine editor John Bauldie died 30 [!!] years ago today. I joined him in his northern home to watch, and feel embarrassed by, Dylan live on Live Aid in 1985. Two years later we co-edited the first collection of his fanzine in book form, "All Across The Telegraph".

💙💛 Described as "the most significant English-language poet born since the Second World War”, writer and poet Paul Muldoon has received the UCD Ulysses Medal, the highest honour the University can bestow. @artshumanitiesucd.bsky.social #poetry

Question, possibly for Roy Kelly: when did the Beatles stop wearing stage suits please?

Sat Oct 10, 3pm: my event at the Isle of Wight Literary Festival 2026: a talk with audio and footage: WHICH BOB DYLAN CAME TO THE ISLE OF WIGHT? Northwood House, Cowes, IOW. tickets: www.ticketsource.com/isle-of-wigh...

Snow Raven is a member of the shamanic Sakha people from Arctic Siberia. Her amazing voice takes its breath from traditional Sakha culture and is truly an instrument. Original post

😕

Like Bob Dylan? Like Westerns? The Gunfighter is on Film 4 this week, Wednesday 17.00, Saturday 11.00 youtu.be/9FaUx-Re8i0?...

It's no wonder only three men, three women and a dog are on BlueSky - it takes ten times as long to load a photo as on any other platform. Why is it so feeble?

UPDATE: a link that works! WHICH BOB DYLAN CAME TO THE ISLE OF WIGHT? talk with audio and footage Sat Oct 10, Northwood House, Cowes, Isle of Wight www.ticketsource.com/isle-of-wigh...

The link to buy tickets for this has malfunctioned. If you'd like to come, please try this link for tickets: www.ticketsource.com/isle-of-wigh...

Somehow the link the festival itself gave me does NOT work for buying tickets... apologies to those who have tried. Please try again using THIS link, which actually DOES work... www.ticketsource.com/isle-of-wigh...

WHICH BOB DYLAN CAME TO THE ISLE OF WIGHT? Talk with audio and footage at this year's Isle of Wight Literary Festival: My one remaining live event of the year. Tickets now on sale at www.ticketsource.com/booking/sele... If you see me, say hello...

This morning, with Iris, almost in Spain...

I turn 80 years old today: a challenging idea for me to accept. But I am very glad to be alive, and still able to work. (I shall be speaking at the Isle of Wight Literary Festival on October 10th). I'm deeply to many people for their support over the decades, especially to my family and wife Sarah.

Our house is for sale, and in French Property News this month; contact www.frenchestateagents.com/.../giles-ti...

I loved this film when it was new (I saw it on a big screen in York in 1966) - and it was so very modern. I saw it again 40+ years later, expecting the worst... but it seemed to me it held its head up pretty well:

A heartwarming story www.youtube.com/watch?v=29ab... ..

In a recent issue of London Review of Books, I saw this - 'Jewish Restaurant, Brick Lane [London]', by Pearl Binder, 1931 - and thought how much the waiter looked like 1970 Bob Dylan:

Is there any tech wizard out there who could make WAVs or mp3s of just 2 tracks from this video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOoj... ie Under The Red Sky and I Shall Be Released? And if so, please can that person message me? I ask because - and it's very rare - the vocals are high enough in the mix!

Feel like my eyes Are two pieces of broken glass Well I'm standin' in the shadows Waitin' for the parade to pass Feel like the hand of fate Has jammed its finger in my eye I'm in the land of the lost Where dreams come to die Not Dark Yet, take 1 Bob Dylan

45 YEARS AGO TODAY: updated edition of my Dylan book; this one reversed the title to THE ART OF BOB DYLAN: Song & Dance Man; published Hamlyns in simultaneous hardback and paperback. (US edition came a year later.) The main appeal of this 2nd edition was its far greater use of photographs.

First US hardback edition of THE BOB DYLAN ENCYCLOPEDIA was published 20 years ago today (June 15) in NYC. If you bought that edition, it included this CD-Rom of the whole 750,000-word text.

Remarkable that he should alight on this - but more remarkable is the way that you can quite clearly hear that Basement Tapes spirit in the voice: that 'Apple Suckling Tree' mood and sound. I'm thrilled by this and need a complete recording, and not made from alongside a moron who needs the toilet

I've long assumed "passed away" to be an irritating modern euphemism; but in Rebecca West's 'Return of the Soldier' I find this exchange: "[He] passed away twelve years ago." "Good God, can't you say he *died?*" Her novel was published in 1918.

Today marks one year since the publication of my book “Frank Zappa’s America,” & I’m grateful for all the support I received from friends & readers this past year. Frank’s musical legacy is inseparable from his politics, & it was a privilege to document why he still matters decades after his death.

Have just finished J.G. Farrell's wonderful novel "The Siege of Krishnapur" (1973). Hard to pin down what makes this such a great book. The author's humane, thoughtful, calm personality glows unobtrusively in the background. He's great at Victorian tech, at characters and building a compelling plot.

I'm one of the talking heads on this edition - this afternoon in you're in the UK and afterwards anywhere on whatever the BBC now calls Listen Again:

OTD in 1964, Bob Dylan recorded 3 songs for the Hallelujah TV show at the Capitol Building in Didsbury, Manchester. The story of the recording evocatively opens CP Lee's book Like the Night. Here's one of the songs recorded that day: www.youtube.com/watch?v=BN5V...

I first saw Bob Dylan live 60 years ago today - Liverpool 1966: youtu.be/CL_5amBcS-s?...

Three years ago today I was pleased to deliver a talk at the Bob Dylan Center in Tulsa OK:

Little Richard died six years ago today. Here's my obituary of him: www.theguardian.com/music/2020/m...

Hubert Sumlin: a favourite electric guitarist (along with Freddy Koella and Robbie Robertson):

Joe Ely, Jimmy Dale Gilmore, Butch Hancock - If You Were A Bluebird youtu.be/0xOQN_5AgXs?...

This is wonderful (as is the version from Newcastle that year, which has the advantage of close-up footage of his face and guitar):

Along with the Rev. Malcolm Guite, I shall be on the BBC Radio 4 "faith" programme Beyond Belief on Sunday May 19, discussing Bob Dylan, his Jewishness and Christianity, and his career-long resourceful use of biblical text. www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b...

I'm very pleased to have accepted an invitation to speak at the Isle of Wight Literary Festival on Saturday October 10. Skeletal details are on my website: www.michaelgray.net It will be my first time on the island since, er, 1969...

Furry Lewis - Turn Your Money Green youtu.be/tgLVe95ngMc?... Recorded live at The Gaslight New York August 1971 From his 1971 album Live At The Gaslight At The Au Go Go

It's still maimed by the dodginess of "first step was touching the moon", but it's a more heartfelt protest song than Dylan manages: and more poignant, because he omits the bridge altogether and because he finds that lovely, straightorwardly descending melody for the repeated title line:

🎵 You lost your ring and wallet, and it's Easter time, too 🎵