It starts with the sound of rain. A woman's voice tells us it is night in the city, and a nurse is smoking the last cigarette in the pack. Then comes a nasal, gravel-like voice, more familiar in song: "It's time for Theme Time Radio Hour. Dreams, schemes and themes." The career of Bob Dylan, radio DJ, has begun.

Once the most iconic recluse in the music business, Dylan will spring a surprise on fans next month by broadcasting a weekly music show across the United States. His debut behind the microphone is due to be broadcast on May.

As the quaint title, Theme Time Radio Hour, implies, it is a simple format, even old-fashioned. Taking a different theme each week, Dylan introduces his favourite records with a wry line or pithy anecdote, then lets the music do the talking. First is "weather."

Sounding utterly imperturbable in his new role, he drawls in characteristically rhythmic tones: "Today's show, all about the weather. Curious about what the weather looks like? Just look out your window, take a walk outside. We're gonna start out with the great Muddy Waters, one of the ancients by now, who all moderns prize." He has been provided with a digital recording kit so that he can present the hour-long programme from home, studio or tour bus. He sends a play list to XM Satellite Radio's researchers, who then assemble the music around his narration.

Future shows will be built around themes such as "cars," "dance," "police" and "whisky" and also feature special guests including songwriter Elvis Costello, film star Charlie Sheen, Penn Jillette, the TV illusionist, and comedians Sarah Silverman and Jimmy Kimmel. Dylan will read and answer selected e-mails sent by listeners a thrill for fans who have regarded him as a Messiah-like figure of unreachable mystique.

The play list for the first show ranges from Muddy Waters's "Blow, Wind, Blow" to Dean Martin's "I Don't Care if the Sun Don't Shine," from Jimi Hendrix's "The Wind Cries Mary" to Judy Garland's "Come Rain or Come Shine." The list, much of it from the Fifties, offers a fascinating insight into the sources of Dylan's musical inspiration. But there is no place for the counter-culture hero's own nod to meteorological mischief, "Blowin' In The Wind."

Radio is a natural return to Dylan's roots. In his youth, Robert Zimmerman, as he was then called, was an avid listener, first to blues and country music stations broadcasting from New Orleans, then to the first stirrings of rock and roll.

It took three years for XM's chief creative programming officer, Lee Abrams, to persuade Dylan, 65 next month, to do the show. He said: "With Theme Time Radio Hour, Bob redefines 'cool radio' by combining a sense of intellect with edginess in a way that hasn't been on radio before. Bob has put a lot of work into his XM show, and it's clear that he's having a good time behind the mic."

XM, whose presenters include Dylan's friend and fellow musician Tom Petty, is the United States' biggest satellite radio service with more than 6.5 million subscribers and 170 digital channels. Michael Gray, who is about to publish The Bob Dylan Encyclopaedia, said the programme offered Dylan the opportunity for an exercise in nostalgia. "Theme Time Radio Hour is a retro title that reeks of the Fifties, as if he wants to retreat to what for him was radio. He has said 'I don't know why everyone asks me about the Sixties, it was the Fifties that interested me'." Gray, also the author of the Dylan bible Song and Dance Man, added: "I like the fact that this radio thing is an un-Dylanesque thing to do although, if it's an attempt to put certain music before people who wouldn't normally listen to it, it's an extension of what he's been doing."

Another Dylan devotee, British Poet Laureate Andrew Motion, the play list "has a good mixture" and "confirms a good many things we know about the eclecticism of his taste, and about his skill in combining light-heartedness with seriousness."

The bad news for fans worldwide is that, although the show can be heard online, it is available only to people with a US billing address. So few outside the United States will hear Dylan sign off his first outing with the words: "Well, the old clock on the wall says it's time to go. Until next week, you are all my sunshine. If you think the summer sun is too hot, just remember, at least you don't have to shovel it."

(China Daily 04/24/2006 page7)