Bob Dylan is back on the radio, a whiskey show

NEW YORK - After a decade and 100 episodes Bob Dylan returns to DJ on the radio: a two-hour episode (double the usual time) with a whiskey theme broadcast on the satellite station Sirius XM and now available in streaming on the website of the Nobel Prize is also a maxi spot for "Heaven's Door", his personal label named after one of his most famous songs.

The 79-year-old author of "Masters of Wars" has been in lockdown since March because of the Coronavirus which canceled the stages of his Never Ending Tour: for Dylan the quarantine proved to be productive with the release of the new album, " Rough and Rowdy Ways ", the first of unreleased in eight years.

Now the "Theme Time Radio Hour": the series aired on SiriuxMX from 2006 to 2009 had had an episode theme chosen by the singer-songwriter from Duluth among those that were most dear to him - among many, baseball, cars, time, presidents - and explored through songs, poems, digressions and back and forth with guests like Elvis Costello, Tom Waits, Merle Haggard, Jack White and John Cusack.

"Does anyone still have a radio?", This time the singer jokes without hiding his personal interest in the subject of the episode: "I don't want to make fun of you, it wouldn't work. You have to taste it: it speaks for itself. But we all thought it would be a good idea to do an episode on this amber intoxicant. There are a lot of songs with this theme and it was fun to put the team back together. "

Taking advantage of the coincidence with Bourbon History Month which falls right in September, the spirits-themed songs chosen are by Van Morrison, George Jones, Thin Lizzy, Tom Waits, the Stanley Brothers and Julie London, old glories of the blues such as Byllye Williams and Wynonie Harris, and of course Frank Sinatra to whom the singer dedicated a cover album, "Shadows in the Night", in 2015. Dylan also resurrects Charlie Poole's 1920s version of "If the River Was Whiskey" (Hesitation Blues ") interspersed with jokes and gleanings about whiskey and hangover.

The Nobel laureate made his debut in the world of spirits in the spring of 2018 in collaboration with Marc Bushala, a fan of life and entrepreneur of spirits from the Midwest.

The bottles of the collection, a rye, a bourbon and a "double barrel", are available online and in specialized stores in some US states.

The dive into the world of spirits was on the other hand the latest adventure in the hundred lives of Dylan who is by no means new to the world of advertising.

The minstrel of "Mr. Tambourine" has in the past lent face and voice to the lingerie brand Victoria's Secret, to a Cadillac SUV.

And then Apple, Pepsi, IBM and Google, up to Chobani yogurt and Chrysler for the 2014 Superbowl.