10 Bob Dylans

The term is thrown about quite loosely but this list will give you an idea. The list was prompted by a documentary I watched on Alan Hull, leader of the seventies folk rock group Lindisfarne. In the documentary fronted by Sam Fender he is referred to as the Geordie Bob Dylan. It reminded me of  a lady I met who described her father to me as the Hungarian Bob Dylan. I also recalled hearing Meic Stevens being called the Welsh Bob Dylan.

1. The English Bob Dylan - Donovan, Richard Thompson, Billy Bragg
2. The Geordie Bob Dylan - Alan Hull
3. The Welsh Bob Dylan - Meic Stevens
4. The Canadian Bob Dylan - Leonard Cohen, Gordon Lightfoot
5. The French Bob Dylan - Jean Ferrat
6. The Mexican Bob Dyan - Rodrigo Gonzalez
7. The Dutch Bob Dylan - Armand
8. The Swedish Bob Dylan - Ulf Lundell
9. The Russian Bob Dylan - Boris Grebenshikov, Vladimir Vysotsky
10. The Christian Bob Dylan - Larry Norman

(The Bob Dylan of punk - Reckless Eric)

PS This is a different category to "The new Bob Dylan " which we might run some time.

Free Wales Harmony

I enjoyed this introduction to Welsh pop and rock music on Radio 4 recently. Tebot Peuce, Edward H Dafis, Catatonia, etc. It's mostly outside my knowledge though I'd heard of most of the talking heads (Dafydd Iwan, Caryl Parry Jones, Meic Stevens, etc). I remember seeing Disc a Dawn sometimes as a kid, a sort of Welsh Top of the Pops. Heather Jones would be on there with the weirdest looking backing band. They even had a boy from Cwmbran on there once, Steve Beck. He used to dress like a rockstar (one glove, high heeled boots, make up) even in Croesy! I saw him once and called him a name and he chased me.  Check out the link here.

Gwyl Dewi Sant 01

This has probably never bothered anyone else but living on the very edge of the Welsh language as I do I have often wondered about how that man Meic Stevens could produce both erudite tomes of lingusitic excellence and be the original Welsh popstar. My wife said to me the other day that he is coming to the school and so I thought now is the time to get this sorted out. A little research showed (not for the first time) how dumb I can be. Meic Stephens (b 1938) and the author of "Golygydd The Oxford Companion to the Literature of Wales", etc, is one person and Meic Stevens (b 1948) and "the Welsh Dylan" is someone else. Now it all makes more sense. Just to complicate it slightly Meic Stephens, the academic not the singer, is father to Radio 1 DJ Huw Stephens.

Well, I thought it was interesting.