It’s Bob Dylan’s 79th birthday. We’re celebrating, of course, but also anticipating his new album in a couple of weeks.

So for Bob’s birthday I thought we’d go back to 1969 to a little known album called “Dylan’s Gospel.” The great Lou Adler produced it for his then new Ode Records. Within two years, Ode would take off with Carole King, and Cheech and Chong, among others.

For “Dylan’s Gospel,” an album of Dylan covers, Adler brought in some stunning singers including Merry Clayton (the Rolling Stones, Carole King) and Gloria Jones– the very same Gloria Jones who had a soul hit in the UK with “Tainted Love,” a song Soft Cell would cover in 1979 and turn into a new whole new hit again.

The group called themselves “The Brothers and the Sisters.” There were so many terrific singers including Clydie King, Edna Wright, and so on. All the names are on Wikipedia.

I’m putting the Spotify embed below, and a promotional documentary. But first, Merry Clayton singing “The Mighty Quinn,” which had been a Dylan cover hit for Manfred Mann. Merry, a superstar, makes this a candidate for best track on the album. Merry, out on the West Coast, we salute you as always.

Dylan wasn’t into gospel in 1969. But ten years later he was, just think of “Tight Connection to My Heart.” Adler, as with everything, was ahead of his time. “Dylan’s Gospel” was a flop but it was re-released, I just learned, in 2014. Who knew?

Happy Birthday, Bob! Thanks, Lou and Merry and Gloria.

The Mariah Carey fans, who hate me, are doing it again.

They’re gaming the iTunes chart, pushing the “Glitter” soundtrack album from the god awful movie of the same name, back up the chart. They’ve got it at number 13.

The fans did this November 2018 for two weeks, buying around 7,000 copies of “Glitter” and sending it to number 1. It fell off the chart a week later.

Just recently, Mariah’s “lambs” did this with another long and buried album, “E=MC2.” They drove it up to number 1 over a weekend. It hit the top on a Monday and was gone by Friday.

The only difference is that “E=Mc2” was discounted to $4.99. So even though it was money wasted, it wasn’t so much. The “Glitter” download is $8.99. The stakes are higher. Also sitting at number 1 right is a KPop album called “D2,” and those fans are already gaming the chart. So the lambs have a tougher go of it this time around.

“Glitter” sold no copies last week, or the week before. It will be interesting to see what the fans have done. We’ll get the first numbers for today over the weekend. Nature abhors a vacuum, and the Carey fans rush to fill it. I guess this is how they send their stimulus checks.