Variety reports today on a new project by pop songwriter Poo Bear, production music writer Jingle Jared, and iHeartMedia’s podcasting subsidiary that, the post clarifies, “was a labor of art.” The project is an eight-song album of “low-fi Americana,” billed under the name Bear and a Banjo, that will be packaged with a narrative podcast, based on the music, featuring a narrator “spinning yarns at the intersection of folk and noir.” Jingle Jared (real name Jared Gustadt) said he also hopes to adapt the album-inspired podcast into a television show. He and Poo Bear first met through a brand collaboration writing music for History’s Roots reboot.
Somehow, Bob Dylan was convinced to contribute. His legacy apparently hovers over the project, which Jingle Jared described as inspired by Dylan’s Rolling Thunder Revue tour and Griel Marcus’ book of flyover state reportage, The Old, Weird America: The World of Bob Dylan’s Basement Tapes. (Another cited inspiration: T Bone Burnett’s soundtrack work for the Coen Brothers. Burnett produced the album.) Jimmy Jellinek, a former TBS executive who is writing the podcast’s script, cited Richard F. Thomas’ book Why Dylan Matters as his own reference. Zimmy, according to Variety, wrote lyrics for the Bear and a Banjo song, “Gone But Not Forgotten.”
You can listen to that song here. It sounds how you might expect. Variety also shared a second Bear and a Banjo song entitled “Can You Hear Me Now,” which you can check out here.
