Bob Dylan Latest Celebrity News & Gossip

U2 have announced that they are releasing a new album. News that will either fill you with joy or a sense of dread. Ditto the fact that it will have a tracklist of 40 songs.

Pavement, the venerable indie rock band fronted by Stephen Malkmus, is getting its own feature film treatment.

Leonard Cohen’s signature song, “Hallelujah,” had its journey to music immortality stopped almost at birth by a record executive. The chief of Cohen’s label, Columbia, vetoed the finished album containing the track in 1984 because he considered it unmarketable in the United States. 

Bob Dylan has said that allowing an ‘auto-pen’ machine to be used to scrawl his signature onto books and artwork prints was “an error in judgment”.This follows the admission last week from book publisher Simon & Schuster that the “hand signed” copies of Dylan’s new book ‘The Philosophy Of Modern Song’ it had been selling for $599 were not, in fact, hand signed.That admission in turn followed chatter online that the signatures appearing in the signed copies of ‘The Philosophy Of Modern Song’ were all very similar indeed, albeit with some slight variations having seemingly been built into the machine-based signing process.The book firm initially denied that the hand signed books were not hand signed, later implying that it had not been aware that an auto-pen had been used. But once it became clear that technology had been employed, Simon & Schuster issued an apology and pledged to refund all the $599s that had been paid by Dylan’s fans.The man himself admitted in a statement this weekend that the auto-pen has been used to sign artwork prints as well a books.

Simon & Schuster has admitted that the 900 “hand signed” copies of Bob Dylan’s new book ‘The Philosophy Of Modern Song’ – which the publisher sold through its website – were not actually signed by either of Dylan’s hands. Or anyone else’s for that matter.

Danny Kalb, who led the downtown blues scene in New York during the 1960s and 1970s as a guitarist with his band the Blues Project, died Saturday at a nursing home in Brooklyn where he lived. He was 80. His death was confirmed by his brother, Jonathan.

Bob Dylan was treated to an unusual street performance in Glasgow on Monday night after his sell out gigs in the city.

In a rare moment of conversation with his audience, Bob Dylan paid tribute to the late Jerry Lee Lewis before covering the keyboardist’s 1970 hit, “I Can’t Seem to Say Goodbye.”

Jem Aswad Senior Music Editor Bruce Springsteen and Bob Dylan selling their catalogs for $600 million, Genesis and Phil Collins for $300 million, Stevie Nicks for $100 million — over the past few years dozens of artists have sold the rights to their music catalogs for eight or nine figures. There are all kinds of reasons why this is happening: Artists are getting older and are basically estate planning, the pandemic proved that copyrights can be a great investment, and the booming market is bringing more and more buyers and sellers to the table. But what do you do with that catalog once you’ve bought it? The old approach was to basically to sit and wait for the songs to make money — through radio, sales, use in films or TV shows or advertising campaigns, Broadway shows and lots of other ways.

David O Russell’s oeuvre, it’s that great film-making chops (Three Kings!) meet wildly divergent outcomes (often within a single film); Russell will fall out with some of his cast, and said cast will be star-filled. His latest is Amsterdam, a period crime romp led by Margot Robbie, Christian Bale and John David Washington, abetted by Robert De Niro, Anya Taylor-Joy, Chris Rock, Rami Malek, Mike Myers, Andrea Riseborough, Zoe Saldaña, Michael Shannon and Taylor Swift. Results may vary.

Jeff Bridges and Helen Mirren have been listed as just two of the names who will be reading chapters on the audiobook edition of Bob Dylan‘s forthcoming essay collection.The book, The Philosophy of Modern Song, contains over 60 essays written by Dylan about songs by artists such as Stephen Foster, Elvis Costello, Hank Williams and Nina Simone. It is set for release on November 1.Sissy Spacek, Oscar Isaac and Steve Buscemi will also be reading essays written by Dylan.

$500 million Bruce Springsteen banked from selling his catalog to Sony last year and the $300 million Universal Music paid for Bob Dylan’s catalog in 2020, but may be the first such deal for a punk rocker. Estates and musicians from The Beach Boys to Michael Jackson have sold catalogs in recent years.The deal was reportedly struck by Primary Wave in a new partnership with Canadian mega-investment firm Brookfield Asset Management, an outgrowth of the fortune built by the Seagram Company that is best known for its massive real estate holdings, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Jem Aswad Senior Music Editor Primary Wave Music has acquired a major stake in Joey Ramone’s music-publishing assets for around $10 million, according to people close to the transaction. Terms of the deal include non-exclusive rights to license Joey Ramone’s name and likeness, as well as income for songs across the band’s repertoire of music; the news was first reported by the Wall Street Journal. While the music-catalog market has been booming for the past several years, with blockbuster deals for catalogs by Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen (both for around $600 million), Neil Young, Stevie Nicks, James Brown (all around the low nine figures) and more, this is possibly the first such deal for a punk-era artist, and could open up a new field of opportunity in a rapidly narrowing market.

French novelist Annie Ernaux, whose novel Happening was the inspiration for Audrey Diwan’s 2021 Venice Golden Lion winner of the same name, has won the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Hong Kong multi-hyphenate Peter Chan Ho-sun is far too intellectual to call himself an “arms dealer,” as Sony Pictures has in casting itself as an unattached supplier to streaming platforms. But politeness and Bob Dylan references aside, Chan’s new company, Changin’ Pictures, aims to become a major independent purveyor of premium Asian TV content for the streamers. The company is using this week’s Busan International Film Festival as its launchpad and will unveil the first five series of its 20-title pan-Asian slate.  Chan’s thesis is that global audiences are hungry for Asian content but have not been able to access it easily under legacy film and TV distribution systems. With streaming making everything accessible everywhere, and audiences no longer balking at subtitles, quality Asian drama can and will travel.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic The question is no longer just what Bob Dylan will have to say about Elvis Costello’s “Pump It Up” or the Clash’s “London Calling” when he writes about them in his new book, “The Philosophy of Modern Song.” Now we can wonder how Helen Mirren or Renée Zellweger will sound giving voice to Dylan’s prose as they read those chapters, respectively, in the audiobook version, which, like the hardback, arrives Nov. 1. Variety previously reported the titles of the historical songs Dylan has written essays about for the tome, followed by the the names of the actors enlisted to read individual chapters for the audiobook, but those two lists hadn’t been paired up till now. A look at the list below, being revealed for the first time today, shows that all of the stars involved have been given multiple assignments, including Jeff Bridges, Oscar Isaac, Rita Moreno, Jeffrey Wright, Sissy Spacek, John Goodman, Alfre Woodard and Steve Buscemi as well as Mirren and Zellweger.

Farewell to an icon. Loretta Lynn has died at age 90.

A.D. Amorosi There’s a handsome backstory to Friday night’s concert “The Town Hall and T Bone Burnett Present a Tribute to Bob Dylan” — produced in partnership with the Bob Dylan Center — that went beyond present-day artists merely doing a set of covers. Dylan. New York City’s Town Hall. The two go hand-in-hand like whiskey and soda. In 1963, when the bourgeoning poet-folkie could no longer be confined by Greenwich Village’s coffee houses, his shrewd then-manager Albert Grossman chose the civic hall built by the League for Political Education to mark Dylan’s major league debut and unite his social consciousness with commerce for the first (but not the last) time.Dylan and T Bone Burnett also go hand-in-hand like whiskey and pretty-much-anything. Not only did Dylan pluck Burnett to be a guitarist on his legendary Rolling Thunder Revue tour of the late 1970s, Burnett recently produced Dylan’s one-off recording of “Blowin’ in the Wind” for Burnett’s Ionic Original acetate-format project with an auction price of nearly $1.8M. (Burnett is also linked to Town Hall with his smart co-production of 2013’s “Another Day, Another Time at the Hall”) in celebration of the Coen Brothers’ cinematic ’60s folk love letter “Inside Llewyn Davis.”

tumbling pound has encouraged dollar buyers to snap up hit songs with Phil Collins and Genesis the latest big names to cash in on their back catalogue with a $300m (£270m) deal. Collins, Mike Rutherford and Tony Banks sold the rights to hit songs including “Mama”, “Land of Confusion” and “Invisible Touch” to the US-based Concord Music Group.

It's been announced that Phil Collins and his fellow members of the rock band Genesis have sold a portion of the group's songs - including their publishing rights and master recordings - in a deal valued at more than $300 million. 

Phil Collins and his Genesis bandmates have sold a portion of their songs’ assets to Concord Music Group, including the publishing rights and master recordings for much of Genesis’ music.According to the Wall Street Journal, the deal was valued at more than $300million and will also include master recordings of songs from throughout Collins’ solo career, such as ‘In the Air Tonight’, ‘You’ll Be In My Heart’ and ‘Against All Odds’, and his popular covers of Diane & Annita’s ‘A Groovy Kind Of Love’ and ‘You Can’t Hurry Love’ by the Supremes.Genesis recordings within the package will likely include hits such as ‘Invisible Touch’, ‘That’s All’, ‘Land Of Confusion’ and ‘Follow You, Follow Me’. The deal also includes material that Genesis guitarist Mike Rutherford released with his group, Mike & the Mechanics.Speaking to WSJ, Concord president Bob Valentine said they were aiming to bring Collins and Genesis’ back catalogue to a younger generation of listeners.

The list of narrators for the audio version of Bob Dylan’s new book has been revealed. Because, after spending twelve years writing his examination of modern songwriting, he’s fucked if he’s going to spend hours in a studio reading it himself.So, instead, the 66 essays that make up ‘The Philosophy Of Modern Song’ will be read aloud by the likes of Steve Buscemi, Helen Mirren, Sissy Spacek, John Goodman, Renée Zellweger and Jeff Bridges.Dylan – who won the Nobel Prize For Literature for his own lyrics in 2016 – started work on the book in 2010, giving his own critiques of a wide range of songs and culminating in what publisher Simon & Schuster calls “his extraordinary insight into the nature of popular music”.Before you get all excited about getting insight into what Bob Dylan thinks of modern musicians like Billie Eilish, Harry Styles and Ed Sheeran (which I know you were), you should probably know that his definition of ‘modern’ pop music is a bit different to yours.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic The list of narrators for the audiobook version of Bob Dylan’s upcoming book has come to light, and it reads like a who’s who of Oscar contenders from the past few decades, along with the author himself doing some of the reading. The lineup of voice talent reading chapters from “The Philosophy of Modern Song” aloud includes Jeff Bridges, Steve Buscemi, John Goodman, Oscar Isaac, Helen Mirren, Rita Moreno, Sissy Spacek, Alfre Woodard, Jeffrey Wright and Renée Zellweger. This lineup of all-star Dylan surrogates has yet to be officially announced. It was first published by the U.K. magazine Uncut; Variety has confirmed the list.

Kanye West is reportedly exploring a sale of his song catalog and he’s seeking big bucks.

The Beatles is currently involved in an ongoing silent auction all in the name of charity. This month, The Art of Music event is taking place in London - and globally, online - where a collection of unique pieces are being auctioned off online for Teenage Cancer Trust. One of the prized pieces is a photo taken by Paul McCartney's wife of The Beatles on the steps of the iconic recording studio Abbey Road.

The Snuts have spoken about touring with Kings Of Leon, as well as the influence that Arctic Monkeys have had on the band.The West Lothian band’s frontman Jack Cochrane spoke to NME about their new album ‘Burn The Empire’ in a new interview published yesterday (September 13), and recalls being blown away by the experience of touring with the Followill brothers.“I remember listening to Kings Of Leon when I was playing FIFA in 2004. I was like, ‘What is this music? I’ve never heard this!’ It’s crazy watching guys you who just absolute pros.

Public Enemy rapper Chuck D has sold a huge stake of his back catalogue to his longtime publisher.Reach Music has acquired 100 percent of the rapper’s writer royalties along with half of his copyright interest as a publisher.The sale doesn’t cover the entirety of Chuck D’s output, but it includes over 300 songs including Public Enemy’s most formative work released between 1987 and 2012.During that period, Chuck D and Public Enemy released several classic albums, including ‘It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back’, ‘Fear Of A Black Planet’ and ‘Apocalypse 91… The Enemy Strikes Back’.Chuck D co-wrote most of Public Enemy’s songs during this period, including the likes of ‘Bring The Noise’, ‘Fight The Power’, and ‘Welcome To The Terrordome’.“[D]oing this deal was the right timing for a forward and logical evolution of our business together in an ever changing industry,” Chuck D said in a statement via Rolling Stone.

Jem Aswad Senior Music Editor Anyone who clicked on this article knows that the Byrds are one of the greatest and most influential rock groups of all time: They weren’t only influenced by the Beatles, they influenced them; they showed the world that Bob Dylan songs could rock; and via their own songs like “Eight Miles High,” “So You Wanna Be a Rock and Roll Star,” “I’ll Feel a Whole Lot Better” and “Time Between,” they paved the way for countless artists that followed, from jangle-pop to psychedelia to country rock. Well, fans are getting the Byrds history they’ve always dreamed of with BMG Books’ stunning “The Byrds: 1964-67” — out Sept. 20 — which is a comprehensive oral history and a gorgeous coffee-table photo book all in one: The editors basically licensed virtually every known photo of the group from the era, sat down with surviving founding members Roger McGuinn, David Crosby and Chris Hillman and got them to share their memories of the moments, the band, the era, each other and lots more. (The book follows the group as it gradually goes from a quintet to a quartet to a trio, and leaves off before Gram Parsons’ arrival in 1968, which launched a whole new chapter of the Byrds.)

Singer-songwriter Feist has announced that she will no longer fulfil the support slot on Arcade Fire's world tour, after the band's frontman was accused of sexual misconduct.