I keep hearing rumblings of discontent about what’s alleged to be the growing commercialisation of Dylan’s creativity.

One Dylan Daily reader confided a few days ago: “incidentally I’m pissed off with all the latest money-grabbing (or should that be grubbing) antics of Bob Dylan Inc - absolutely no need for any of it!”

It was provoked by the fanciful price for the top spec super-duper version of the forthcoming album, Tell Tale Signs.

There have been similar stirrings in the past, of course, principally about Dylan’s involvement in TV ads.

While respecting the views of those who are uncomfortable when art mixes too readily with commerce, I take a more relaxed view of the merchants in the temple.

I don’t blame anyone, creative artist or not, for maximising the return for their labour, as long as what they do doesn’t offend my moral sense.

But record companies and concert venues testing whether the market will bear silly prices doesn’t offend me – it’s capitalism in action. I can choose to ignore them. And it hardly ranks alongside selling people into slavery or biting off the heads of babies.

It’s Sony’s commercial decision to set prices for Bob product. If they get it right, people will buy. If not, they’ll be left with eggy faces (and unsold stock).

Me? I wouldn’t touch the Tell Tale Signs Special/Limited DeLuxe Collector’s Edition @ $130 with a four metre bargepole. But, then, it’s not aimed at me - I dare say that if I was a serious collector, I’d have placed my order weeks ago.

I’ll be snapping up the standard Tell Tale Signs 2CD on release day, though!

Gerry Smith

Music for grown-ups on BBC radio/TV in the next 10 days. It’s the thinnest week of the year, as the audiences have deserted their radios/TVs for Med beaches:

Wed 20 August
1200 Rameau, Composer Of The Week (rpt) – BBC Radio 3
(3/5, continues Thurs-Fri)
2230 Angelika Kirschlager (mezzo), Proms Artist Focus – BBC Radio 3
(3/4, continues Thurs)

Thurs 21 August
2300 Theme Time Radio Hour with Bob Dylan (Rpt) – BBC Radio 2

Fri 22 August
2230 Charlie Haden Quartet, Jazz On 3 – BBC Radio 3

Sun 24 August
2400 Theme Time Radio Hour with Bob Dylan (Series 2) – BBC 6 Music

Thurs 28 August
2300 Theme Time Radio Hour with Bob Dylan (Rpt) – BBC Radio 2

Online access: many BBC radio programmes are broadcast online, streamed. Please see the channels’ web sites for details. Archived BBC radio and TV programmes are accessible online for a short period via:

www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer

Gerry Smith

I’m not a massive fan of HMV Choice, the music chain’s in-store mag.

It covers an attractively eclectic range of music – everything except rockpop, in fact. But its style reveals its purpose - a sales catalogue. And it covers a lot of new crossover pap you couldn’t give me for free.

That said, the latest issue HMV Choice covers new releases by an unusually high proportion of Music for Grown-Ups favourites, including Jim Moray, Wynton Marsalis, John McLaughlin, Juan Diego Florez, Rolando Villazon, Ry Cooder, Simon Keenlyside, Angelika Kirschlager, Cassandra Wilson and Eddie Cochrane.

Quite a roster!

You can pick up a free copy of HMV Choice in-store.

Gerry Smith

De La Soul, with a seven night residency from Monday 25 August, lead an eclectic roster at London’s Jazz Café.

Also scheduled are:

October
23 Grandmaster Flash
30/31 Sly & Robbie

November
7/8 Robben Ford
27-29 James Taylor Quartet

December
27-31 Roy Ayers Ubiquity

January 2009
2-4 Roy Ayers Ubiquity
9-11 Lee “Scratch” Perry
30/31 Fred Wesley

Deeply eclectic. Deeply impressive. Lovely intimate (standing) venue for grown-up music. Highly recommended: check it out!

www.jazzcafe.co.uk

Gerry Smith

After the sad demise of Pavarotti, most opera lovers would probably rank Placido Domingo as the top living tenor. Me too.

BBC Music Magazine polled a panel of 16 critics a few months ago and Domingo outranked Pavarotti (and even Caruso) to take top spot.

But I’d be just as happy to queue to see an exciting younger talent who always thrills the house on his regular visits to Covent Garden – the Argentinian Marcelo Alvarez.

The top five tenors in the BBC Music poll were:

1. Domingo
2. Caruso
3. Pavarotti
4. Wunderlich
5. Bjorling

I hardly know the recordings of Wunderlich or Bjorling, so I must investigate: joy to come!

Gerry Smith

I’m usually very wary of musicians who suddenly appear on the radar, as if from nowhere. I suspect that some corporate exec or other has decided the s/he is to be the next big thing and has invested a lot of money to ensure that it happens.

The problem with over-promoted musos is that they can’t possibly live up to the advanced billing.

Having suddenly become very aware of her, I automatically put American chanteuse Melody Gardot in this category.

But then, watching Channel 4’s Live From Abbey Road for the first time on Friday, to catch the great Herbie Hancock, I stumbled upon Melody in a live performance from Herbie’s recent album, River: The Joni Letters.

My, my – what a distinctive voice. Gardot’s beautiful tone and her innate swing enlivened Mitchell’s Edith and The Kingpin, an already great song.

I’ll be watching closely for more recordings and performances from Melody Gardot, one of my most striking recent music for grown-ups discoveries.

Music for grown-ups on BBC radio/TV in the next 10 days:

Wed 13 August
1200 Rossini, Composer Of The Week – BBC Radio 3
(3/5, continues Thurs-Fri)
2400 I Wanna Be Adored – The Stone Roses Story (1/2, rpt) - 6 Music

Thurs 14 August
2300 Theme Time Radio Hour with Bob Dylan (rpt) – BBC Radio 2
2330 John Cale, BBC Four Sessions (rpt) – BBC Four
2400 I Wanna Be Adored – The Stone Roses Story (2/2) - 6 Music

Fri 15 August
2300 Van Morrison, BBC Four Sessions (rpt) – BBC2

Sat 16 August
1830 Handel, Belshazzar, Proms – BBC Radio 3

Sun 17 August
2400 Theme Time Radio Hour with Bob Dylan (Series 2) – BBC 6 Music

Mon 18 August
1200 Rameau, Composer Of The Week (rpt) – BBC Radio 3
(1/5, continues Tues-Fri)
2230 Angelika Kirschlager (mezzo), Proms Artist Focus – BBC Radio 3
(1/4, continues Tues-Thurs)

Friday 22 August
2230 Charlie Haden Quartet, Jazz On 3 – BBC Radio 3

Online access: many BBC radio programmes are broadcast online, streamed. Please see the channels’ web sites for details. Archived BBC radio and TV programmes are accessible online for a short period via:

www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer

Gerry Smith

Today’s reissue of 1991’s Room to Roam, the Waterboys’ Celtic folk outing, completes the reissue programme of the impressive first decade of recordings, and secures the band’s legacy.

The new release has the original album plus a rich offering of previously unreleased material.

Tracklist:

CD 1
In Search Of A Rose (2008 Digital Remaster)
Song From The End Of The World (2008 Digital Remaster)
A Man Is In Love (2008 Digital Remaster)
Bigger Picture (2008 Digital Remaster)
Natural Bridge Blues (2008 Digital Remaster)
Something That Is Gone (2008 Digital Remaster)
The Star And The Sea (2008 Digital Remaster)
A Life Of Sundays (2008 Digital Remaster)
Islandman (2008 Digital Remaster)
The Raggle Taggle Gypsy (2008 Digital Remaster)
How Long Will I Love You (2008 Digital Remaster)
Upon The Wind And Waves (2008 Digital Remaster)
Spring Comes To Spiddal (2008 Digital Remaster)
The Trip To Broadford (2008 Digital Remaster)
Further Up Further In (2008 Digital Remaster)
Room To Roam (2008 Digital Remaster)
The Kings Of Kerry (2008 Digital Remaster)

CD2
In Search Of A Rose (Full Band)
My Morag (The Exile’s Dream)
A Man Is In Love (Alternate)
The Wyndy Wyndy Road
Three Ships
Sunny Sailor Boy
Sponsored Pedal Pusher’s Blues
The Wayward Wind
Danny Murphy / Florence
The Raggle Taggle Gypsy (Live)
Custer’s Blues (Live)
Twa Recruitin’ Sergeants (Live)
A Reel And A Stomp In The Kitchen
Down By The Sally Gardens
A Strathspey In The Rain At Dawn
A Song For The Life (2008 Digital Remaster)
The Kings Of Kerry (Outdoor)

It’s available from play.com at a giveaway £8.95 delivered! That has to be the bargain of 2008.

Head Waterboy Mike Scott has been assiduous in tending his rich legacy. He started curating an enhanced reissue programme of the core repertoire – the first five albums – in 2002, with the release of the 1983 album The Waterboys – as a Collectors Edition, with many new tracks, over 2CDs, in enhanced sound and with informative and beautifully designed and illustrated cover art. It was followed by the 2CD Collectors Editions of Pagan Place, This is the Sea and Fisherman’s Blues.

Room To Roam now completes the set. Kudos Scott for raising the bar - this is a case history in just how to do it.

Gerry Smith

Don’t get me started about arena gigs. I f**king hate ‘em.

Rubbish sound. Nasty buildings. Crap sightlines. Muck served as food and drink, poor access, overpriced parking… . They make me feel like a conforming ant, a ripped-off consumer who’s lost all self-respect, just by being there.

Arenas are appalling places: you couldn’t design a worse environment for enjoying music for grown-ups if you tried.

So, after being repeatedly alienated by the worst concert-going experiences on offer in England – Wembley Arena, Newcastle Arena, London Arena (now closed), NEC, Sheffield Hallam Arena et al – I decided some years ago that enough was enough, regardless of who was playing.

Even if it was the Second Coming, they’d have to manage without me.

Then Leonard Cohen announced his tour, but bizarrely decided to waste four nights in far-flung Manchester, limiting his performances in English England to the O2 Arena (aka the Millennium Dome/New Labour’s Folly).

Simple choice: keep avoiding arenas or get to see the great Leonard Cohen for the first, maybe the last, time.

So I booked the O2 - very reluctantly, baulking at the inflated ticket price. And I had very mixed feelings as the gig got nearer, even on the Tube approaching the venue.

My mood lightened immediately on alighting at North Greenwich station. Impressive, I conceded: looks great, works… . The mood was maintained on the short walk to the venue – a quality environment, vision, design, investment… .

And inside the O2 perimeter it was just as good – an exciting, well-specified building, housing a wide range of high quality food outlets, relaxed atmosphere, loads of helpful staff.

Agreeably surprised, but still harbouring doubts, I entered the arena and found my seat. Very, very high, but not vertigo-inducing, as I’d feared.

Hmmm! Amphitheatre beautifully designed: there were 20,000 people in, but in didn’t feel like it. Access clear and easy, seating comfortable, sight lines perfect, though the stage was miles away.

Then the acid test: the gig itself.

The show was outstanding – a great setlist and Cohen performance helped, but it was outstanding technically, too: crystal clear sound, probably the best I’ve heard outside a village hall; three enormous video screens, filled all night with broadcast-quality pictures; and beautiful lighting.

A mighty gig – in an arena: I was mightily surprised. The show was obviously a Leonard organisation production. But the point is – the O2 Arena accommodated it, comfortably.

London’s O2 is a wonderful grown-up music venue. If you ever see a bum gig there, blame the artist’s management, not the venue.

I’ll be going again.

Gerry Smith

Tempting TV/radio broadcasts in the next 10 days:

Thurs 7 August
1200 Bruckner, Composer Of The Week – BBC Radio 3
(4/5, continues Fri)
2300 Bert Jansch, BBC Four Sessions – BBC Four
2300 Theme Time Radio Hour with Bob Dylan (rpt) – BBC Radio 2

Fri 8 August
2100 Ella Fitzgerald, Legends – BBC Four
2335 Herbie Hancock, Live From Abbey Road - More4

Sat 9 August
2410 Herbie Hancock, Live From Abbey Road (rpt) - C4

Sun 10 August
2400 Theme Time Radio Hour with Bob Dylan (Series 2) – BBC 6 Music

Mon 11 August
1200 Rossini, Composer Of The Week – BBC Radio 3
(1/5, continues Tues-Fri)
1900 James Hunter, Paul Jones blues show - BBC Radio 2
2040 Puccini, Il Tabarro (with Barbara Frittoli), Proms - BBC Radio 3

Wed 13 August
2400 I Wanna Be Adored – The Stone Roses Story (1/2) - 6 Music

Thurs 14 August
2330 John Cale, BBC Four Sessions – BBC Four
2400 I Wanna Be Adored – The Stone Roses Story (2/2) - 6 Music

Fri 15 August
2300 Van Morrison, BBC Four Sessions – BBC2

Online access: many BBC radio programmes are available online, streamed. Please see the BBC channels’ web sites for details.

Archived radio and TV programmes are accessible online for a short period via

www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer

Gerry Smith