The Female Bob Dylan

Our ode to the prolific and multidimensional musician, scholar, activist, Freedom Singer, and co-founder of Sweet Honey in the Rock, Bernice Johnson Reagon (1942-2024). Guided by her writings, interviews, and "song talks," we explore her congregational coalition politics, revolutionary organizing through song in the civil rights movement, transformative contributions as a culture worker at institutions like the Smithsonian, Highlander, and the Southern Folk Cultural Revival Project, and clarity of vision that was the backbone of everything she did. 

Emily interviews old-time music legend and reigning “deviled egg queen” Alice Gerrard live at The Celebration of Women in Old-Time at the East Tennessee History Center in Knoxville. Alice calls her new memoir Custom Made Woman: A Life in Traditional Music “a scrapbook”—those scraps are the meat of this far-ranging conversation about the DC + Baltimore scenes, Alice’s collaboration with Hazel Dickens, the Southern Folk Cultural Revival Project’s integrated tours in the South “chas(ing) after a better world,” and the women musicians she met who didn’t “play out” but were known in their communities. She also divulges the secrets to her pandemic pet-project in which she taught her dog to bring her a beer from the fridge. 
Recorded March 7, 2026 as a part of the celebration of Women in Old-Time Music weekend event in Knoxville, TN. Special thanks to Eric Dawson at the East Tennessee History Center and to Knoxville Community Media.
https://www.knoxcountylibrary.org/album/celebration-women-old-time-music 

We took the podcast on the road to Knoxville and invited our friend Jessie Wilkerson to join us in celebrating the late great labor songwriter and groundbreaking bluegrass musician Hazel Dickens (1925-2011)! In front of a live audience at the Celebration of Women in Old-Time Music event at the East Tennessee History Center, we discuss Hazel's life and her powerful songs that narrate the Appalachian migrant experience, advocate for working people (including sex workers & migrant workers), and outline an intersectional working class feminism. 

Recorded March 7, 2026 as part of the Celebration of Women in Old-Time Music weekend event in Knoxville, TN. Special thanks to Eric Dawson at the East Tennessee History Center and to Knoxville Community Media. https://www.knoxcountylibrary.org/celebrating-women-old-time-music

We caught up with Rolling Stone Senior Research Editor Jonathan Bernstein about his recent interview with Lucinda Williams on her (and Dylan's) take on "the female Bob Dylan" label. Then we ponder the concept and construction of "the singer-songwriter" and go off the rails a little as we grapple with the role and efficacy of protest songs in our current political hellscape. In the mix: Tiktok-ification, mass movements (and the loss thereof), hopelessness and hope, the violence of the state, and the songs of the people. 

Special thanks to Ian Lynch and Lankum for the use of "Rocks of Palestine." We highly recommend Ian's excellent podcast Fire Draw Near: https://campsite.bio/firedrawnear

Special thanks also to our guest Jonathan Bernstein. Read his article, “Lucinda Williams on Trump Bashing, New Album: ‘Should I Be Afraid?’” in Rolling Stone and check out his new book What Do You Do When You're Lonesome: The Authorized Biography of Justin Townes Earle: https://www.dacapopress.com/titles/jonathan-bernstein/what-do-you-do-when-youre-lonesome/9780306833274/

We talk with Julia Greenberg, co-director of the excellent 2024 documentary, Dory Previn: On My Way to Where. The film recounts Dory's far-flung creative life at the intersection of classic Hollywood, pop music, and Laurel Canyon bohemia. As a close friend of Dory's, a performer of her music, and one of the carriers of her legacy (and her microphone !), Julia shares stories of Dory's painting and needlepointing in her Berkshire farmhouse, Frank Sinatra's deaf cat, and plans for the Dory Previn archive.

Learn more about Dory Previn: On My Way to Whereat https://www.doryprevindoc.com/

The outro music on this episode is "Quiet Day" by Julia Greenberg

Paying our respects to lyricist, truth-teller, and style icon Dory Previn (1925-2012). Previn was an accomplished songwriter for film and TV for years before pivoting to the spotlight as a cult-famous singer-songwriter in her 40s. We deep dive into her writing and the way she translates emotion and experience into song, detouring to talk mental health advocacy, Valley of the Dolls, Catholicism, and more. As a wise man (Sarah Bachman) once said, you will love Dory Previn if you've ever really snapped. Hop on into the Gorgon Revelator 240 Coupe with us, we're blasting "Twenty-Mile Zone"....

Detroit music writer and film buff Ana Gavrilovska joins us on our podcast time machine to revisit the 2013 Coen Brothers' anti-biopic Inside Llewyn Davis. We discuss the film's moody representation of the Greenwich Village folk scene and the flattened renderings of its women, the protagonist's "bleak circle of failure," and the hero's journey of the cat Ulysses—and consider where it ranks on our "golden dulcimer" scale of folk music films. 

Catch us ugly crying in the car to the late great Karen Dalton! We chat about who and how she was “in her own time”: a sublime, confident folk musician and interpreter who made everything she played—trad, pop, blues—sound like a Karen Dalton song. Also a renowned cooker of beans, apparent Michael Hurley adapter, and early feminist who liked hangin out with weird people (Cheech Marin among them). 

We also welcome our new “sponsor,” the shadowy yet inventive Peppermill Goose Farm and Chemical Manufacturing Plant. 

They’re Back and They’re PISSED: The Female Bob Dylan Season 2!

*New Bits & Rants*

*New Female Bob Dylans*

*New Corporate Sponsor*

Put on the kettle, grab that heirloom quilt and pull it up over your head cause it’s time for ROUND 2!  Episode 1 drops 9/29

We're back to review the new Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown(**SPOILER ALERT**).We discuss Hollywood-ifying the cultural and political tensions of Dylan going electric, who's represented, misrepresented (Toshi Seeger, Alan Lomax) & left out entirely (Jean Ritchie, Harry Smith), Timothée Chalamet's press tour, and our yearning for the Nosferatu of the folk revival.

In our last official episode of the season, we celebrate the brilliant, iconoclastic life of singer, guitarist, and activist, Odetta. We talk interpreters & inheritors, Black music & Black history, and Odetta's role as a connector between the folk revival & the civil rights movement. We also redeem theater kids and confess our brushes with Unitarianism.

Our Last Waltz Thanksgiving Special! While Sophie rests her voice, our friend Kana Zink steps in to help us rate the performances in Martin Scorsese's documentary of The Band's 1976 farewell show on a scale from "superior" to "madness or genius?" We also discuss Levon Helm's thousand yard stare, visit Garth Hudson's mulch factory, and consider the correlation (or causation?) between V-neck depth and ego.

We bring one of our favorite songwriters and theme song artist Lou Turner on the pod to discuss Joni’s road album Hejira and Lou’s not-on-the-road album Microcosmos (2022). We also talk Nashville’s weird music underbelly, try hard troubadours, and that Wolf Eyes side project “Crazy Labrador.”

Round two of our own personal Joni Jam. Hissing of Summer Lawns - Hejira- Don Juan’s Reckless Daughtercorridor, confronting Joni’s blackface and redface, collaborations with Jaco Pastorius and Larry Klein, streaming-era gripes, and sitting through Brandi to hear Joni.

An on-the-ground recap of last night’s Joni Mitchell & The Joni Jam show at the Hollywood Bowl from someone who was really there, man. 

We enter the world of Joni Mitchell to discuss the dialectic of muse and muse-er, the appeal and cultural baggage of confessional songwriting, the bad men of the folk revival, "the cool girl" trope, life in Saskatoon and Laurel Canyon, and more. Featuring the brilliant and very fun Joni expert Allison Chomet!

As we dug deep into Joan Baez’s history and lore we found ourselves drawn to her little sister Mimi Fariña, whose story is usually hewn to her husband Richard and to Joan. For a few minutes, we unspool the moment and send our flowers to Mimi and her beautiful voice.

We follow Joan Baez’s life through her meteoric popularity when folk music was the thing and discuss what exactly that thing was: as in, we talk revival and invention, tradition and interpretation, authenticity, corniness, and theft. We also sit with Joan’s politics, how she’s been positioned as *the* female counterpart to Dylan, and her vibe as a committed barefoot person.

Vashti Bunyan’s 1968-69 horse-drawn caravan trip from South London to the Isle of Skye has become a symbolic heroine’s journey of the British folk revival, but what was Vashti’s own vision for the trip? Drawing from her introspective memoir Wayward, we consider that voyage–with its terrible lentils and terrible men–which required her to let go of so much, including her music career. We discuss her preference for “plain sounds,” her rejection of the folk label, and how through her rediscovery 30 years later, she finally found her artistic agency and adoring audience. 

Riffing on that Richard Thompson song about Anne Briggs (or was it Vashti Bunyan?), haylofts, and steamies.

We have the inimitable Jake Xerxes Fussell on the pod to help us think through the big question: WHAT (not who) is Bob Dylan? We also discuss Bobby D’s fashion choices, the difference between interpreters, presenters, and makers of tradition (and whether that matters), who (or what) Bob Dylan serves, and the difficulty of writing a good song about the current political moment.

Working from a biography with an unreliable narrator, we attempt to shake the great Connie Converse free from its pages and offer a fresh perspective on her music, radical politics, and deep community ties. We consider how to grapple with an artist’s legacy and the cloud of mystery surrounding them in a way that is respectful and ethical, while mindful of a biographer’s positionality, biases, and personal connection to their work.

In the words of the inimitable Garth Brooks this is the week we let the conversation begin. Intro to the pod + Sophie, Sarah, and Emily. And to Bob Dylan (courtesy Chat GPT), and the wonderful Connie Converse (as well as to the book about her, which we did not love). Episode 0! Who is she!

THE FEMALE BOB DYLAN launches Thursday 8/22 with new episodes every other Friday.