Bob Dylan: About Man and God and Law

Welcome to the final episode of the show. It's a map and a key to your door, a Last Waltz, and a final salute to Bob Dylan, holiness, and being free with the Band, Van Morrison, Joni Mitchell, Neil Young and many more.

Check out the book About Man and God and Law: The Spiritual Wisdom of Bob Dylan wherever fine books are sold, and learn about related projects at mangodlaw.com.

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We are still living on Tulsa time, reflecting back on the World of Bob Dylan conference in Tulsa at the beginning of June. This time we're talking about how Dylan plays inside and outside the lines of authenticity, roots, race, and the never-ending tour of the popular music hustle.

Our very special guest is music impresario Mark Montgomery French, whose encyclopedic knowledge of music, framing of cultural questions, humor, and creativity will keep you riveted. This is a conversation that takes on tough, essential questions about race and music. Mark is just the person to go deep with those questions with honesty, wisdom, and grace.

San Francisco-native Mark Montgomery French is an award-winning film composer with the group Spiky Blimp, Creative Director and Co-Producer of Glide Church’s Sunday Online Celebration, host of the podcast “All Your Favorite Music is (Probably)…”, staff writer at PopMatters, and the manager of critically acclaimed queer country band Secret Emchy Society and classic power-punk band The Furys. He’s also a music historian noted for his talk All Your Favorite Music is (Probably) Black, the series 28 Days, 28 Black Music Documentaries, and Uppity Music—Your Guide to Unsung Black Departure Albums. He was formerly the co-leader of the ’90s progressive funk band Endangered Species. Find out more about Mark's work at www.mmfrench.com.

Check out the book About Man and God and Law: The Spiritual Wisdom of Bob Dylan wherever fine books are sold, and learn about related projects at mangodlaw.com.

We are proud to be part of the Pantheon Podcasts Network.

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We are still living on Tulsa time, reflecting back on the World of Bob Dylan conference in Oklahoma at the beginning of June in a world gone wrong when Bob Dylan gets it all wrong. The set-up of these four stories of Dylan going off the path actually leads us back to where this podcast began three years ago. The destination for Dylan has always been salvation. Four paths, four windows, four doorways frame Dylan wrestling with salvation, bargaining for salvation, and somehow, walking himself back from taking a lethal dose.

Check out the book About Man and God and Law: The Spiritual Wisdom of Bob Dylan wherever fine books are sold, and learn about related projects at mangodlaw.com.

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It's time for the Bob Dylan's Top Ten - Bob Dylan's Ten Commandments, that is. Welcome to Bob Dylan and the Bible, a journey through the values, schemes, hopes and dreams that Bob Dylan holds sacred that might just be rules to consider living by ourselves.

Check out the book About Man and God and Law: The Spiritual Wisdom of Bob Dylan wherever fine books are sold, and learn about related projects at mangodlaw.com.

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The Philosophy of Modern Song. We're going to take the title of Bob Dylan's recent book seriously and try to read between the lines: What is the philosophy here? What’s modern about it? Is there a code for living the good life embedded within? We’ll be calling on the writing of Father Richard Rohr for help. He’s a man of faith, myth, contemplation, and action whose work gives a parallel lay to Dylan’s philosophy of modern song. He, Dylan, is also a man of faith, myth, contemplation, and action. We’re going to see where these teachers and The Philosophy of Modern Song lead us.

Check out the book About Man and God and Law: The Spiritual Wisdom of Bob Dylan wherever fine books are sold, and learn about related projects at mangodlaw.com.

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Join us for a discussion of Greil Marcus's new book Folk Music: A Bob Dylan Biography in Seven Songs. It reads like an elegy in many ways — for Dylan as a figure both shaped by and shaping his times, and also of Marcus reflecting on his own journey with Dylan and rock 'n' roll as a whole. With his generous, eloquent, signature voice, it is hard to imagine hearing Dylan without Marcus's harmony. Discover the biography underneath the history in which facts are steppingstones for what really matters.

Check out the book About Man and God and Law: The Spiritual Wisdom of Bob Dylan wherever fine books are sold, and learn about related projects at mangodlaw.com.

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We’re going bookish as this final season of Bob Dylan: About Man and God and Law comes to a close. From the bookends of Tarantula to the The Philosophy of Song, we are holding steady in the section marked Chronicles: Volume One. What's the wisdom of Dylan as a reader and author? What can be gleaned between the lines ofTarantula and Chronicles in particular? Find out in the second of a four part series on Bob Dylan and the Book.

Check out the book About Man and God and Law: The Spiritual Wisdom of Bob Dylan  wherever fine books are sold, and learn about related projects at mangodlaw.com.

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We’re going bookish as this final season of Bob Dylan: About Man and God and Law comes to a close. First up, from the bookends of "Like a Rolling Stone" to Portnoy's Complaint in the 1960's to masterworks in 1997 and prophecies at unexpected peaks of their careers in the 2000's, Bob Dylan and Philip Roth has been laid down the Man, God, and Law as well as any artists of their era. Where do they intersect and what does it mean? 

Check out the book About Man and God and Law: The Spiritual Wisdom of Bob Dylan  wherever fine books are sold, and learn about related projects at mangodlaw.com.

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We are going electric with Bob Dylan and  Professor Kathryn Lofton. 

Few pop culture moments have been analyzed more closely than Bob Dylan "going electric" at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival. We ask what is all means for American religion, race, and music with our special guest, Kathryn Lofton.

Kathryn is the Lex Hixon Professor of Religious Studies and American Studies, Professor of History and Divinity, and FAS Dean of Humanities at Yale University. She has written extensively about capitalism, popular culture, and the secular, from her first book, Oprah: The Gospel of an Icon (2011) to the book Consuming Religion (2017), parsing the  relationship between religion and consumer capitalism from the Kardashian family to  Goldman Sachs. Her article on Dylan going electric in the Journal of Popular Music Studies knocked us off our feet. Enjoy this wide-ranging conversation about some of our most favorite topics in rock music, the life of the spirit, and more. 

Check out the book About Man and God and Law: The Spiritual Wisdom of Bob Dylan wherever fine books are sold, and learn about related projects at mangodlaw.com.

We are proud to be part of the Pantheon Podcasts Network.
 

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What are the greatest friendships in rock and roll? The Boss and the Big Man? Lennon and McCartney? Mick and Keith? Joni Mitchell and Prince? This episode, we’ve got perhaps Dylan’s sweetest friendship, and also a brother – a brother of the Wilbury kind. That’s right. Meet George Harrison and Bob Dylan.

Our guest Seth Rogovoy is the author of Bob Dylan: Prophet Mystic Poet, published by Scribner in 2009 and Within You Without You: Listening to George Harrison, due from Oxford University Press in Fall 2023. Find more of Seth's writing at www.rogovoyreport.com.

Visit www.mangodlaw.com for more on this podcast and the new book About Man and God and Law: The Spiritual Wisdom of Bob Dylan available wherever fine books are sold.

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