Erin Callahan received her PhD from Drew University in 2014. Her dissertation was entitled I Am American Singing: Bob Dylan’s Identity Unified Through Linguistic Performance. She has been a professor of English at San Jacinto College in Houston, Texas, since 2007. In addition to The Politics and Power of Bob Dylan’s Live Performances, Erin has published “Bringing the Margin to the Centre: Bob Dylan’s Visible Republic” (in 21st Century Dylan: Late and Timely, 2021). Her other publications, have used cultural phenomena (Star Trek, Star Wars, and Peanuts), as basis of discussion of gender and women’s changing roles. She has given 7 presentations on Bob Dylan at national and international conferences. Erin and Anne Marie Mai have organized a conference on “Dylan and Masculinity” that will take place in May 2024 in Odense, Denmark.
Erin is a regular contributor to The Dylantantes substack's written and podcast platforms. Among her recent guests on Dylantantes podcasts are Nina Goss, Laura Tenshert, Roberta Rakove, Elizabeth Cantalamessa, Harold Lepidus, Rebecca Slaman, and Anne Marie Mai. You can find Erin’s interesting and entertaining interviews through this link: Erin C. Callahan | Substack
For the inaugural podcast of the Dylantantes : Jim Interviewed with Erin Callahan (June 5, 2022) and so began a series of interviews, many conducted by Erin, that begin with the fundamental and inescapable question What is it about Bob Dylan? One of Erin’s own answers to this question was, “The language! Mr Tambourine man. Shot through me like lightning”.

Court Carney received his PhD from Louisiana State in 2003 and has been a Professor of History at Stephen F. Austin State University, in Houston, Texas, since 2008. He teaches classes on cultural history, including such topics as race, music, and memory. In addition to The Politics and Power of Bob Dylan’s Live Performances he published Cuttin’ Up: How Jazz Got America’s Ear (2009). He is the author of a forthcoming book, Reckoning with the Devil: Nathan Bedford Forrest in Myth and Memory. Among his current articles and book chapters are four on Bob Dylan and another on Woody Guthrie
Court has given 12 presentations on Dylan and participated in 10 podcast discussions of Dylan’s work.
Court is a frequent contributor to the Dylantantes. His substack can be found at https://substack.com/@courtcarney.
Court is a founding member of the Teaching Wood Guthrie Collective (www.teachingwoodycollective.com). For more details see: www.courtcarney.com.

SETLISTS, DYLAN GOES ELECTRIC, & THE JUDAS SHOW . One thing that is fun for me is that there are cross links between the books we’ve read--. In Elijah Wald’s book Dylan Goes Electric, our October Book Selection, there is an intriguing reference to setlist advice that Peter Yarrow gave Bob Dylan—which links to our February 2024 book, The Politics & Power of Bob Dylan’s Live Performances by Erin Calahan and Court Carney. On p. 284 of Wald’s book we find this report on his interview of Peter Yarrow: “Peter Yarrow is convinced Dylan could have played the same songs with the same instrumentation [That is, ELECTRIC] and been ACCEPTED [my emphasis], saying he advised him to ease into the electric set: [Here Peter Yarrow quotes what he said to Dylan] ‘Sing a couple of songs acoustically, then say, “I’ve been working on a new way and its very exciting and I want to share it with you”’.

We don’t know if Peter was the direct cause (I personally think, given the times and the vibe, his advice went in one of Dylan's ears and out the other), but starting with the concerts after the night at Newport in 1965, he did do the 50-50 splits: an acoustic set, intermission, and the electric set. From Forest Hills and onward into the 1966 tour, including the Judas show. However, Dylan definitely did not use Peter Yarrow’s softer words, saying simply with dramatic flare and possibly with a touch of exasperation: “it used to go like that, now it goes like this”. And guess what, Yarrow’s scheme, in fact, did not work. As Erin & Court remind us, the shock of the electric set was like the band firing machine guns into the night in the movie "I'm Not There".

Podcasts about The Politics and Power of Bob Dylan’s Live Performances: Play a Song for Me:
All of the Million $ Bash members (Jim Salvucci, Erin Callahan, Court Carney, Rob Reginio, Nina Goss, and Graley Herren), wrote chapters for this book—listen to their Roundtable here:
Play a Song for Me (substack.com)
Erin Callahan & Court Carney in a conversation with Craig Danuloff of dylan.fm on their new book click HERE.
For Harold Lepidus’s conversation with Erin & Court click HERE.
For Rob Kelly’s conversation with Erin & Court click HERE.

The Dylantantes
Jim Salvucci is the founder and “keeper” of the Dylantantes, a collective of Dylan scholars. As Jim writes, “The Dylantantes features interviews, essays, art, occasional poetry (doggerel-quality only, please!), and delectable confections to present the shallow side of deep thinkers. Does this sound like something you’d want to see? Of course it does! Subscribe to get full access to the newsletter and website. Never miss an update.” To subscribe, visit:
The Dylantantes | Substack
One of the Dylantantes projects was the formation of the Million $ Bash, a group consisting of Jim, and fellow Dylan scholars Erin Callahan, Court Carney, Rob Reginio, Nina Goss, and Graley Herren. The Million $ Bash Definitive Roundtables have, so far, produced 7 podcasts—check them out through the link above. Check out the Roundtable on The Politics and Power of Bob Dylan’s Live Performances: Play a Song for Me, here:
Play a Song for Me (substack.com)
Court & Erin are founding members of the Million $ Bash.

Peter White, January 2024

Erin Callahan & Court Carney’s new book, The Politics and Power of Bob Dylan’s Live Performances: Play a Song for Me (2023), charts new territory for the understanding and appreciation of Dylan’s work. It addresses not only song performances but also how Dylan fits songs together into setlists and how those setlists provide a new layer of meaning to his work.
Christopher Ricks has written: “Dylan has a purpose. There's an extraordinarily powerful sense of mission in him. The generosity of him, in what he gives in the creation of these songs and the performance of these songs, the range and variety of what he has undertaken, the extraordinary balance and reconciliation of opposite or discordant qualities…”
The most important place for Dylan to achieve his purpose is on the stage. In Dylan’s Nobel Lecture he writes about the importance of setlists from his very first performances of folk songs: he writes that he learned quickly that “you had to know what to play and when”. He has said about touring, “I’m driven to do it”, “it’s like breathing”, and, at times, “the only place I have been happy is when I am on stage.”
Fast forward to his latest album, Rough and Rowdy Ways. In Mother of Muses, Dylan angles for the hand of Calliope, but why her and not her sister Erato, the muse of lyric poetry (was that you, Erato, in Mr. Tambourine Man?)? Calliope is the muse of epic poetry—the muse who inspires the telling of stories of lives lived and lost and the high stakes contained in the unfolding of history. The last line of Dylan’s Nobel Lecture is: “I return once again to Homer, who says, ‘Sing in me, oh Muse, and through me tell the story”, ephasizing Dylan’s mission in story telling. Also on Rough and Rowdy Ways, in My Own Version of You Dylan sings about bringing something to life from many separate parts. Thanks to Laura Tenschert of Definitely Dylan for helping us see this song as an allegory of the collage style that Dylan brings to his late songwriting and the key importance of breathing life into that creation—in this case, literally, because singing is, in fact, that breathing air into the lyrics. In the context of Erin and Court’s book we can also now appreciate that the songs should be seen as parts of a setlist that has its own collage-like layered meaning, separate from those songs.
I suspect we ourselves know about the process of making setlists—when, in the old days, we made mixed tapes for each other, we understood immediately the challenge and seriousness of purpose of what songs to play, in what order to play them, and what larger story to tell.
The book can be ordered from Routledge Press. Check out the less expensive digital version which also has some attractive features.