Sorry but no thanks. I think I know enough about this stuff already, and I don't like music biographies.

Much better: thank you.

Vocal absurdly low in the mix: most unfortunate. Lovely guitar work.

This is incredible.

As I said about an earlier AI graphic you posted (and you post a lot of them) they all share this creepy yellow tinge. You seemed puzzled when I said it before but here it is again, and with that same weary scroll design. If you like them, fair enough - but don't tell me they're not all the same.

And the way that every new design of anything from car to building, every strong taste, every scene in nature, every holiday destination, every great house, every lovely garden, is always "stunning".

That - "always nice to get the Michael Gray stamp of approval (even if the stamp singes the paper a little)" - is clever, and so pleasing a way to describe my work: thank you.

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:

Oops: I misread this as @GirlieMagazine...

Here this evening, from our front door...

The most successful reimagining is of the youngest song, What Was It You Wanted? Originally one of his hostile, who-d'you-think-you-are songs, on Shadow Kingdom he changes the meaning completely (without, of course, changing the words). It becomes a moving portrait of a confused old person.

Many thanks. I'll remain content with this for the time being.

A really beautiful vocal - and mostly even audible enough! - on I Made Up My Mind To Give Myself To You. Makes me want an even better recording of this track in particular.

I forgot to add that this interview catches me while I'm still researching my later book "Hand Me My Travelin' Shoes: In Search of Blind Willie McTell" - a biography that tells his story and also the story of *getting* the story.

Come to that, whatever happened to Skype? "I'll skype you," we used to say, before there was WhatsApp. (Or at least, those of us older than about 14 did.)

Here's an interview Andrew Muir did with me. It's old but says a lot about music I grew up with, first hearing Dylan, changing tech & the freelance writer's life, writing unheeding people's opinions, my books and more besides. It's a short scroll down this page: www.michaelgray.net/interviews.h...

Yes, quite...

Memphis '66

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

Haha! But not the carefully attentive. I'm always trying to persuade those who have never got past Tarantula's beat-druggy-stream-of-not-exactly-Woofian-consciousness splurges that the book also contains very funny letters from and to a wonderfully imagined series of nerds. And those couldn't be AI.

Yes: a marvellous and brave performance in the lions' den.

Joan, smiling quietly there, must have such a strange feeling to be back, after all these decades, singing a protest song with a young man with acoustic guitar & harmonica!

I wanted to watch it but I lost the remote
That tatterdemalion cost me a groat.

Thank you. What a pleasant way to be reading it.

Nice new line in Man In The Long Black Coat, though: “I went down to the river, but I just missed the boat”.

Nervous Breakdown YouTube video by Eddie Cochran - Topic

Becomes a surprisingly knowing repetition of his more famous C'Mon Everybody, but with less political correctness.
youtu.be/xGt0rhEuU_E?...

An extraordinary film - or it was when new, anyway.

Chip Taylor - One of Us Must Know ( Sooner or Later ) YouTube video by Meltem A.

My favourite Chip Taylor track - a radical revisit to a Blonde On Blonde song:
youtu.be/vOwNGzBTgWw?...

Love the couplet he sticks in in the middle:
"Anything you ask me, you know I'm willin'
I just sho can't be Bob Dylan."

Appraising Bob Dylan's Private Archives An interview with rare record collector, dealer, and archivist Jeff Gold

New interview: I spoke to rare record dealer Jeff Gold about Dylan collecting and his work appraising the Bob Dylan archives before its sale to Tulsa

Yes, poor old Updike. Fancy being 32 years old and having to put up with this affront to his own notions of good music.