Over the course of his career, and especially in recent years, Bob Dylan has kept most personal details close to the chest. So it’s quite the surprise to see that Dylan has now opened up in a lengthy interview with writer Bill Flanagan on Dylan’s own site about all the things you’ve been dying to know about him but probably could’ve guessed. Unless your query has to do with why he snubbed the Nobel Prize committee — then, no dice. Does Dylan do streaming? Nah. (“I listen on CDs mostly.”) Do his old-fashioned ways stop there? Hah. (On his tour bus he watches I Love Lucy “all the time, nonstop.”) Did losing all the greats last year hurt him as much as it hurt us? Incredibly so. (“We were like brothers, we lived on the same street and they all left empty spaces where they used to stand. It’s lonesome without them.”) But then, of course, there’s the stuff few could ever predict would align with Dylan’s taste. When asked if he’s “heard any good records lately,” here’s where Dylan gets real Dylan-y:
Iggy Pop’s Après, that’s a good record. Imelda May, I like her. Valerie June, The Stereophonics. I like Willie Nelson and Norah Jones’ album with Wynton Marsalis, the Ray Charles tribute record. I liked Amy Winehouse’s last record.
He goes on to call the late Winehouse “the last real individualist around,” but, wait, back to the Stereophonics. Who told Dylan, who’s got a triple album of American Songbook covers coming out this month, about these Welsh rockers? Has he only just now heard their 1999 cover of “Positively 4th Street”? No one’s more gleefully amused by the mystery than front man Kelly Jones:
