Robin Thicke has decided who he should best be compared to.

Surprisingly, it's not Paul Raymond and Peter Stringfellow:

''A lot of good white soul singers, like Hall & Oates and Michael McDonald, did soul music for a while then had their pop breakthrough. That's what's happening to me.
''But I think John Lennon is blue-eyed soul. Bob Dylan is blue-eyed soul, Bruce Springsteen is blue-eyed soul.''

This was in a piece in Vanity Fair. More like a sodding carnival of vanity.

Turns out that Joni Mitchell wants to quit music to concentrate on helping people with Morgellons.

People with Morgellons feel as if they have bugs or threads on their skin - yes, your first thought is the one they usually get from their doctors. Joni did when she went for help for the condition:

“In America, the Morgellons is always diagnosed as “delusion of parasites,” and they send you to a psychiatrist,” she added later. “I’m actually trying to get out of the music business to battle for Morgellons sufferers to receive the credibility that’s owed to them.”

Some people believe there are actually bugs or threads or something there; and from there it is but a short step to deciding that it's something to do with nanotechnology and chemtrails and government experiments. And nothing helps you get people to take something serious than having symptoms that sound like an acid flashback and a community fixated on an X-Files style conspiracy.

So Mitchell is going to try and get the condition properly investigated.

But she still has time for a quick pop at Bob Dylan:

“Bob is not authentic at all,” Mitchell said. “He’s a plagiarist and his name and voice are fake. Everything about Bob is a deception. We are like night and day, he and I.”

No word yet on if Dylan has been manufactured using nanotechnology.

Funny, while he was in China Bob Dylan was quiet as a mouse; now the gig has happened, he's suddenly found his voice:

"As far as censorship goes, the Chinese government had asked for the names of the songs that I would be playing," Dylan wrote on his website. "There's no logical answer to that, so we sent them the set lists from the previous three months. If there were any songs, verses or lines censored, nobody ever told me about it and we played all the songs that we intended to play."

There is a logical answer, in that you might say "why do you want the list?" or "you do know you don't get any pre-approval, don't you?" but perhaps Bob gets his set list signed off by all governing territories at each venue he plays.

Dylan doesn't bother to engage with the question of why he was so happy to indulge the Chinese government while Ai WeiWei was being held somewhere unknown, but I'm sure he has a great explanation for that one, too. My guess is he's just waiting for it to clear.

The decision of Bob Dylan to play only those songs that the Beijing government approved of always looked a bit weak.

Playing that approved list of songs while the same government had Ai Weiwei spirited away? That seems somewhat less than heroic.

The Spectator's David Blackburn is quite laid back about Dylan's silence:

Given that it’s nearly 50 years since Dylan purposefully stopped being the ‘voice of conscience’, his reticence does not come as a shock.

Except, of course, Dylan hasn't done any such thing, never missing a chance to turn up at the White House to hook himself up to the achievements of the Civil Rights Movement.

And, as David Aaronovitch observes in today’s Times, why should Dylan do what we are too timid and politic to do?

Here's a suggestion, David and David - because we haven't been invited to play a gig approved by the people who have locked Weiwei up. I can say, fairly certainly, that even if I attempted to interest people in the news that I wasn't going to play the Beijing Academy, nobody would turn up.

Yes, our governments have been as grubby and spineless as normal, but whoever thought that "Bob Dylan is no more useless and unprincipled than William Hague" would be a phrase that he would ever aspire to?

Besides, what could he achieve?

A small amount of media focus on the wrongdoings of the Chinese state? A small crowd of the rich Chinese who'd paid for the tickets realising that they can't expect to enjoy visits from Bob Dylan and similar artists while dissidents disappear? A bit more than doing bugger all would?

Dylan’s words might be welcome to some Western ears...

Well, that would be a start - not looking like a self-obsessed, amoral, money-grubbing chimp dancing to whims of Beijing might be a positive move.

... but he’s just one man selling records.

And when did simply having a massive audience and a global platform ever count for anything, eh?

He does not command divisions, even in the metaphorical sense. Human rights violations in China are for governments to challenge. Perhaps Dylan's silence expresses that.

Perhaps. You don't really believe that, though, do you, David? If Dylan wanted to say 'look, I'm just a humble singer of songs, I'm not going to get involved in politics as that's for governments to do', he could have said that. But he'd presumably not bother, as it would sound like a weaselly statement trying to smudge over the grisly spectacle of having to turn up his amp to drown out the cries of tortured dissidents (no wonder Dylan went electric - can you imagine trying to drown that out with an acoustic guitar?).

Even if Dylan had stepped down from being the voice of a generation's conscience when it stopped being convenient, are we supposed to accept that he also detached his personal conscience as well?

Bob Dylan has happily agreed to play dates in China with a set list approved by the government.

Sure, it's easy to say things like "remember when Dylan was a protest singer" and "wasn't there a political singer called Bob Dylan a few years back? Whatever happened to him" and "what a craven, spineless lickspittle", but let's not forget what a large market China is.

Susan Rotolo, one of Bob Dylan's muses, has died.

Rotolo met Dylan in 1961 and the pair moved in together the following year. It was her background - child of radical parents - which helped shape Dylan's political direction; her depature to live in Europe then opened a second front, as a lonely Dylan wrote Boots Of Spanish Leather.

She left Dylan for good in 1963, believing him untrustworthy, but not before she appeared on the cover of the Freewheelin' Bob Dylan.

A full life of activism and a forty year marriage to Enzo Bartoccioli, and yet she never quite shook of her "Dylan's muse" label - and here it is again, leading her memorials. Dylan was better off for having met her; it's not clear that she would have chosen the same route if given her time again. For her, Dylan was "the elephant in the room of my life."

Suze Rotolo was 64. She's survived by her husband and her son, Luca.

To be frank, "Bob Dylan smiles" would be a surprise in itself; the granting of Old 97s the right to use the melody from Desolation Road.

Sir Bufton Tufton doesn't actually exist; he's a catch-all invention of Private Eye used as a generic Tory backbench MP. He's more or less been put out to pasture by the magazine these days. Not, presumably, because Tufton's vanished, but it's much easier to make fun of his kids, Algy Tufton, who desperately try to pretend their virtually common.

There's lots we went looking for here to illustrate this one - Peter Lilley's horrific rap at party conference; any one of the numerous laboured Gilbert and Sullivan parodies Tories indulge in from time to time; Peter Brooke doing Clementine on The Late Late Show. None seem to be around.

So, instead, let's turn our attention to Michael Ancram and his none-more-conservative approach to Bob Dylan, as detailed by Pinboy on a Dylan message board:

I watched the Daily Politics show on BBC1 this afternoon. It mentioned that Michael Ancram (Tory MP for Devizes) was "Bob Dylan's biggest fan" and showed him singing Blowin'. It then showed a clip of Hard to Handle.

I also found this at The Guardian's website.

Dear Mr Ancram

I know you play a bit of guitar in the 60s folk style. So are you a Bob Dylan fan? Surely you don't think he'd vote Conservative, do you?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
MichaelAncram - 04:40pm May 12, 2004 BST (6.1)
I indeed still play a 12 string Martin guitar and many of my songs are those of Bob Dylan who until he went electronic was my favourite folk singer. I don't know his politics but "the times they are a changin'" seems a very apposite theme for us today.

My second favourite singer is Paul Simon. His "Bridge over troubled water" still rings true today.

Here, then, for the Earl Of Ancram, is Bob Dylan and Joan Baez, Blowin:



[Part of The Illustrated Hello]

The Chinese authorities have decided that they don't want Bob Dylan playing Beijing. Or, for that matter, Shanghai. His China tour is thus off.

Apparently the Chinese government heard he'd let his music be used in ads for the Co-Op, and concluded that sounded a little too much like socialism for them to be comfortable with him turning up.

Whatever the actual reason, Dylan has scythed off a whole slew of other dates:

The verdict scuppers Dylan's plans to play his first dates in mainland China. The singer, who plays around 100 concerts a year on his Never Ending Tour, had hoped to extend a multi-city Japanese leg with concerts in Beijing, Shanghai, Taiwan, South Korea and Hong Kong. All these would now be called off, Wu told the newspaper.

"With Beijing and China ruled out, it was not possible for him just to play concerts in Hong Kong, South Korea and Taiwan," he said. "The chance to play in China was the main attraction for him. When that fell through everything else was called off."

I'm not sure that quite makes sense - "yeah, I really fancied playing Beijing so somehow organised a date in Seoul to make it happen"? It's not like Dylan's putting on a U2 style epic, and surely once the stuff has made it to Japan you might as well take it to Korea? Wouldn't the dates in China have been the more expensive part of the jaunt, given that there's less rock and roll infrastructure there - wouldn't axing those two dates make the others more lucrative?

And besides: allowing the Chinese government to effectively deny the people of Hong Kong and South Korea a gig they'd like to see? Is Dylan really sure he wants to play along with that?

While the Bob Dylan SatNav was a joke, the Christmas Album is in deadly earnest. They've even made this little film to promote it.

[via Last Year's Girl]

In a desperate bid to shore up his reputation as the world's grumpiest man, Bob Dylan has had his music tugged off from We7 and Spotify:

Clive Gardiner, we7’s digital music SVP, [told Music Ally]: “We took it off the site a few days ago. Spotify would have had the same instruction. But it may be a short listing and it may come back again.

“There are some artists that will take umbrage at this from time to time. We expect this sort of thing, especially with streaming, and it not being fully understood where it sits yet. “

It's not entirely surprising that Bob Dylan - a man who you suspect still doggedly gets up off the sofa and walks to the TV to change channels - is having trouble coming to terms with streaming, and just how different the figures are. Still, you'd have thought someone might have explained that choking off legal supply when there's still a demand isn't exactly a sensible financial approach, either.

Jim Dickinson, keyboard genius and producer, has died.

Born in Arkansas and growing up in Memphis, Dickinson was a member of Atlantic Records' house band The Dixie Flyers. This group - wheeled in to beef up other people's tracks - positioned Dickinson behind the piano for some great works. It's his keyboards on Teenage Head by The Flaming Groovies; on Spirit In The Dark by Aretha Franklin and - crucially - on The Rolling Stones' Wild Horses. It's fair to say there wouldn't be a Wild Horses without Dickinson's involvement.

During the 1970s, he moved in to production, working with Mojo Nixon and Green On Red amongst others; he was the man sitting in the small glass room when Big Star made Third. In 1998, he returned to big name producing for Mudhoney's Tomorrow Hit Today - this just a few months after helping Dylan to a Grammy by playing on Time Out Of Mind. He continued working with bands from Memphis, as mentor and producer, up until he fell ill.

As a musician, he never really stopped working, either. His final solo album, Dinosaurs Run In Circles, was released in May.

Dickinson has been ill for some time - living a country where people would rather scream than have state support, Dickinson had been relying on friends and supporters to help pay his medical bills.

His wife told the Memphis Commercial Appeal that there are no plans for a public memorial. Jim Dickinson was 67.

At first, there's a charm about the story that New Jersey police didn't recognise Bob Dylan when they stopped him:

The police officer drove up to Dylan, who was wearing a blue jacket, and asked him his name. According to Woolley, the following exchange ensued:

"What is your name, sir?" the officer asked.

"Bob Dylan," Dylan said.

"OK, what are you doing here?" the officer asked.

"I'm on tour," the singer replied.

A second officer, also in his 20s, responded to assist the first officer. He, too, apparently was unfamiliar with Dylan, Woolley said.

The officers asked Dylan for identification. The singer of such classics as "Like a Rolling Stone" and "Blowin' in the Wind" said that he didn't have any ID with him, that he was just walking around looking at houses to pass some time before that night's show.

The cops took Dylan back to the venue, where staff vouched for him. (Although they must have been so tempted to go "nope... never seen this guy before, officer". I know I would have done.)

So, a little charming footnote. Except... all Dylan was doing was wandering round the neighbourhood. Why would that even require police intervention, much less proving who you are?

Who knew? Holding outdoor gigs in Arizona during August could put people at the risk of health problems from the sun? Bob Dylan's gigs have been pulled as the thermometer hits 110. Fahrenheit, admittedly, but that's still weather you don't want to be outdoors in.

It sounds like some sort of joke dreamed up by a sketch show nearing its deadline, but no: Bob Dylan really is making a Christmas album.

Bob Dylan.

Lung cancer has claimed the life of Kenny Rankin, songwriter and musician.

Signing to Decca records while still a teenager, Rankin's solo work (peaking on 1976's The Kenny Rankin Album) was perhaps outshone by his contributions to other's work. His guitar is on Bringing It All Back Home; his backing vocals are on the Beatles' Blackbird. He wrote the standards Peaceful, Haven't We Met and In The Name Of Love.

Having spent much of the 1980s concentrating on live music, Rankin returned to the recording studio for the mid-90s albums Professional Dreamer and Here In My Heart.

Kenny Rankin, who was 69, is survived by three children.

The Enemy turn up to play some songs for Gordon Smart and - lord help us - John Gaunt this morning, and set their hats at tumbling their idols:

Tom & Co will be supporting OASIS this summer, but hope to take over as our No1 band before long.

That sentence implies that Oasis are our number one band, but let's let it pass, shall we?

The Enemy are set to play with the GALLAGHERS in front of 90,000 people at Wembley, their determination means they won’t be truly happy until they are headlining there themselves.

Tom said: “I don’t think NOEL needs to do it any more. He’s doing it for the love of it. That’s the dream.

“That’s when you can say you’ve made it.”

Is Noel doing it for love? Aren't he and his brother more like a married couple who have long gone past passion, through love and beyond comfort; now they're barely even going through the motions.

They even took the news that Bob Dylan had pipped them to No1 spot in the album chart early this month with good humour.

Tom said: “I was disappointed for about two minutes then it occurred to me it was Bob.

“You have worse days than coming second to him.”

Oh yes. A bloke who hadn't had a number one album since sweets came off the ration. There's no shame in being the first band in decades to be kept off the top spot by him.

While Gordon is nodding quietly along to The Enemy, he's left it to Caroline Iggulden to pick up the Jackson story. She trots through the usual cancer story stuff - brave, waving at fans, more bravery. The story has everything, except for the denial of the whole story by the Jackson camp. Which might be something a Sun reader should at least be made aware of, don't you think?

Some - good bloody god - six years after No Rock went to the Beatles' childhood homes, Bob Dylan's popped in for a look about.

The only question about the BBC's news story:

Dylan unnoticed on Beatles tour

Folk legend Bob Dylan mingled unnoticed with Beatles tourists during a minibus tour to John Lennon's childhood home.

If he was "unnoticed", how exactly did someone manage to tell the press about him going?

Bob Dylan's number one album isn't just his victory, you know. Oh, no: it's also Liverpool's. At least, according to to the Liverpool Echo:

Liverpool Local News
Liverpool hero Bob Dylan is top of the album chart with Together Through life

The paper's basis for claiming Dylan as a "Liverpool hero"? Erm... that he played a gig in the city:

JUST days after his sellout appearance at the Echo arena, superstar Bob Dylan leapt straight to the top of the album chart – almost 40 years since his last number one record.

And, hey, if you want to read a causal link in to 'appearing at an Echo-sponsored building' and 'having a number one record', that's your prerogative, right?

The arrival of Bob Dylan at the top of the UK album charts has puzzled the editorial team of Pendle Today. How could such a thing happen, and in 2009, too?

They send, naturally, for Gennaro Castaldo, thought-wrangler for HMV:

HMV's Gennaro Castaldo said: "Dylan is arguably our greatest cultural icon and his words and music remain as relevant and as powerful today as they did five decades ago.

"His albums always sell consistently well, but with demand for his catalogue of recordings up significantly in recent months, it's evident that Dylan is going through one of his zeitgeist moments, as a new generation of fans join his more established followers in appreciating his musical legacy."

Mam! Mam! Our Bob is upstairs having one of his zeitgeist moments again, and I'm not going to clean it up with a damp rag this time...