Bob Dylan

The pairing of Bob Dylan and the Grateful Dead suggests an ungainly reunion of veteran bohemians, but Friday night at JFK Stadium, the combination worked surprisingly well. After a mind-bending set by the Dead and a sturdy, hits- filled outing by Dylan, the 4 1/2-hour show ended with a Dead encore featuring its new single, "Touch of Grey. " "I will survive," Jerry Garcia, the Dead's founder and psychedelic father figure, sang to a full house of mostly youthful music fans for whom the Summer of Love could just as well be the Stone(d)

Bob Dylan will sing for Pope John Paul II next month at a Catholic Eucharistic Congress in Bologna, Italy. A Vatican spokesman said yesterday that the rock icon will be among several singers performing at a youth rally closing the congress on Sept. 27. The pope is expected to attend about 1 1/2 hours of the rally, address the young people, and stay to hear at least some of Dylan's music. "We chose him as the representative of the best type of rock," said the spokesman. "He has a spiritual nature.

LOS ANGELES - Bob Dylan has taken to his website to address a swirl of commentary and analysis stemming from his performance last month in Beijing, specifically responding to accusations that he sold out for adhering to what has been described as a set list vetted and approved by the Chinese government. Others criticized the singer and songwriter for not speaking out on behalf of Chinese artist Ai Weiwei. Dylan dismissed the notion that he was following anyone else's order in choosing songs for the show.

The times, they sure are a-changin.' Just a few months ago, Bob Dylan was knockin on heaven's door. Now the mumblemouthed '60s songwriting icon, recovered from a potentially fatal heart infection, has a gig next month in Italy as the opening act for the pope. That's John Paul II, minus George and Ringo. Coincidence? We think not. Turns out Il Papa's got a brand new youth rally planned on Sept. 27 in Bologna during the Catholic Eucharistic Congress. Monsignor Ernesto Vecchi said the patron saint of counterculture would be among several singers to perform at the rally, which the pontiff will headline.

The Good Samaritan, he's dressing. He's getting ready for the show. He's going to the carnival tonight On Desolation Row. - From "Desolation Row" by Bob Dylan In a scene as surreal as some of his old songs - just off the Boardwalk, upwind from the fortunetelling ladies and down from the gilt pleasures of Bally's Grand, next door to the room in which kids play games such as Xenophobe and Bad Girls, and a stone's throw from...

These days, when Bob Dylan takes the stage on his Never Ending Tour - if it's Tuesday, he must be in Charleston, S.C. - he's introduced as "the poet laureate of rock-and-roll. " The songwriting bard has answered to that title since the early 1960s, when the jingle jangle of his "skipping reels of rhyme" exploded notions of pop music's creative limitations, and in the words of Bruce Springsteen, "freed your mind the way Elvis freed your body. " But do great pop songs qualify as great poems?

MUCH TO HER dismay, West Philly native Eve, is the star of the Internet's newest celebrity sex video. The 30-second clip, dated Nov. 20, 1999, shows a man using a sex toy on the naked Martin Luther King High graduate while he pleasures himself. The man has been identified by the New York Daily News as Bad Boy Entertainment producer Stevie J. A spokeswoman for Eve, formally Eve Jihan Jeffers, told the New York tab that the tape was made "years ago with her boyfriend of over two years.

It is hard for me to accept the fact that Memorial Day is upon us already, as I'm just getting ready to celebrate Easter. Area auctioneers, however, fully aware of the calendar, have scheduled several sales for the holiday - including these, which I think are worth taking a break from the picnic grill to attend. If you like rock 'n' roll, sports memorabilia, celebrity autographed items, pressed steel trucks and other old toys, then the Audubon's Auctioneers Gallery is the place to be at noon Monday.

It seems hard to pick up a new album without encountering a John Hiatt tune. In the last few years, his songs have been recorded by Bonnie Raitt, Bob Dylan, Rosanne Cash, Marshall Crenshaw, Earl Thomas Conley, Marti Jones and a dozen or so others that slip my mind. This summer will see recent Hiatt songs covered by the Dirt Band (two tunes), Iggy Pop (yes, Iggy Pop) and Jeff Healey. Stevie Ray Vaughan, the Fabulous Thunderbirds and Dion already have Hiatt songs in reserve for future albums.

Amos Lee is going places. So many places, in fact, that he has nowhere to call home. "I've been on tour for the last year," said the soulful, 6-foot-2 singer-songwriter, back in Philadelphia for a quick breather this month before the March 1 release of his self-titled debut album on Blue Note. "I don't have a place. " Ever since Norah Jones came calling a year ago, "have guitar, will travel" has been the abiding philosophy for Lee, 27, who grew up in South Philadelphia and Kensington and spent his teenage years in Cherry Hill.