Theme Time Radio Hour: With Your Host Bob Dylan

Additional Theme Time Radio Hour: With Your Host Bob Dylan Information

This is the only officially-authorized release associated with the Theme Time Radio Hour. Its 50 tracks represent the first series of radio shows. The track-listing reflects Dylan's wide taste and ranges from Billie Holiday and George Jones, through Aretha Franklin to the Clash and the White Stripes. Although each track was chosen by Dylan for the radio show, the CD itself was compiled by the show's producer Eddie Gorodetsky and Ace's own Roger Armstrong.

The luxury package contains a 2-CD jewel case with an accompanying 48-page full color book, all in a cardboard slipcase. The sleeve notes include a track-by-track commentary by some of the world's great music writers including Barney Hoskyns, Colin Escott, Billy Vera and Fred Dellar. Each track, no matter how obscure, is illustrated with a sleeve, label shot or photo of the artist.

Other Theme Time Radio Hour compilations have concentrated on the very early material, essentially because that material was in the public domain and thus royalty payments could be avoided. As with all Ace releases, this is a fully legitimate production and royalties are paid on every track.

What Customers Say About Theme Time Radio Hour: With Your Host Bob Dylan:

The sound quality on most is surprisingly good, and where it is bad, it has that haunting, "listening in the dark to that weird AM station that sometimes bleeds through" quality that can make a song so evocative of another time and place. Many styles, from punk to blues to old-timey country, proto-rock, reggae, R&B, gospel, etc. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed most of the songs, though I can see how some people wouldn't like this or that genre. This is the best of the Theme Time Radio Hour presentations where Dylan's commentary is absent. If you aren't too narrow-minded in your musical taste, this is highly recommended. The booklet is extremely well-done, as good as or better than any in The Bootleg Series, with many photos of those old artists and the cool old 45 single labels etc., with very informative and well-written info about each song. (Get the deluxe version of his latest album if you'd like to hear a disc with his DJ patter, which is fascinating in itself). The music is very eclectic and wide-ranging, some of it 21st-century though most tends to be from the '50s, '40's and '60's.

This rates only a 4 Star rating by me because some of the material predates my five & one-half decades of music interest. I'm always interested in whatever music interest Bob Dylan since he has such a eclectic music himself.Recommended highly. Cool choice of old and obsolete recordings. My favorite being 'He don't love you' by Jerry Butler.There is added value on this UK import from the enhanced sound quality.

Why does it take Amazon so long to correct errors. Lots of fast honking numbers, not enough moody pieces.The first and last tracks have Freed's voice introducing them, and at least one track has some handclapping.BTW this cd listing is STILL accompanied by the Bob Dylan cd reviews. If there is a means for customers to notify someone about these errors, Amazon does a good job of hiding it :( This Ace CD of Freed's 1950s rock big band material is worth a listen. But the variety of music was disappointing to me.

The shows themselves are easily found by either subscribing to XM/Sirius online for only 7.99 per month and recording them yourself, or by doing a simple search for downloads of the shows on the net. The context within which the songs appear is vital to the full appreciation of what this show is about. Go ahead and buy the collection, but don't for one minute think it will give you an idea of what the show is like. Without Bob doing the introductions and explanations, this is simply one of many collections of songs. To suggest that it in any way gives the listener a sense of what Theme Time Radio is like would be ridiculous.

That makes this disk a huge disappointment to me. Nice collection of tracks, but has none of Bob Dylan's commentary and patter from the radio show.