NEW YORK (AP) — Bob Dylan opened about his music and songwriting and discussed his relationships with Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley and others in a rare and lengthy interview posted to his website Wednesday. 
 
 In the Q&A with author Bill Flanagan, Dylan recalled Sinatra telling him, "'You and me, pal, we got blue eyes, we're from up there ... These other bums are from down here.'" 
 
 Of the many superstars who died last year, including Muhammad Ali and Merle Haggard, Dylan said the deaths hit him hard: "We were like brothers ... It's lonesome without them," he said. 
 
 When asked about why Presley didn't show up for a recording session with Dylan and George Harrison, he replied: "He did show up — it was us that didn't." ||||| Bob Dylan was honored as the MusiCares Person of the Year for 2015 last night at an all-star tribute in Los Angeles, and almost more noteworthy than the concert itself – which included performances by Bruce Springsteen, Neil Young, Beck, Willie Nelson and many more – was a 30-minute acceptance speech delivered by Dylan where the Blood on the Tracks singer used the spotlight to both slam his "detractors" and thank his "supporters." 
 
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 While Dylan thanked Joan Baez ("the queen of folk music then and now"), the Byrds, the Turtles, Nina Simone and Peter, Paul and Mary in his speech, he focused in on Johnny Cash and Jimi Hendrix, who transformed John Wesley Harding's "All Along the Watchtower" into a worldwide smash. 
 
 "We can't forget Jimi Hendrix. I actually saw Jimi perform when he was with a band called Jimmy James and the Blue Flames. Something like that. And Jimi didn't even sing. He was just the guitar player," Dylan said. "He took some small songs of mine that nobody paid any attention to and brought them up into the outer limits of the stratosphere, turned them all into classics. I have to thank Jimi, too. I wish he was here. 
 
 "Johnny Cash recorded some of my songs early on, too," Dylan said. "I met him about '63, when he was all skin and bones. He traveled long, he traveled hard, but he was a hero of mine. I heard many of his songs growing up. I knew them better than I knew my own. 'Big River,' 'I Walk the Line.' 'How High's the Water, Mama'? I wrote 'It's Alright Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)' with that song reverberating inside my head." 
 
 Dylan, who collaborated with Cash for Nashville Skyline's "Girl From The North Country," continued, "Johnny was an intense character, and he saw that people were putting me down [for] playing electric music. And he posted letters to magazines, scolding people, telling them to 'shut up and let him sing.' In Johnny Cash's world of hardcore Southern drama, that kind of thing didn't exist. Nobody told anybody what to sing or what not to sing." 
 
 However, Dylan didn't just use his 30-minute speech to thank those who inspired him and supported him. His oration was also checkered with moments where he took aim at his early detractors like Merle Haggard and the songwriting duo of Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller. In one instance, Dylan criticized an unnamed "very popular soul-singing sister" who butchered the National Anthem before a Floyd Mayweather boxing match. 
 
 "I didn't really care what Leiber & Stoller thought of my songs. That was all right they didn't like them. 'Cause I didn't like their songs, either," Dylan said of the "Hound Dog" writers. "Yakety yak, don't talk back. Charlie Brown is a clown. Baby, I'm a hog for you. Novelty songs. They weren't saying anything serious." Dylan then complimented the work of "This Magic Moment" songwriter Doc Pomus. 
 
 As for Merle Haggard, "[He] didn't even think much of my songs. I know he didn't. He didn't say that to me, but I know way back when he didn't. Buck Owens did, and he recorded some of my early songs," Dylan said. "Together Again, that's Buck Owens. And that trumps anything else out of Bakersfield. Buck Owens or Merle Haggard, if you had to have somebody's blessing, you can figure it out." 
 
 However, Dylan reserved most of his vitriol for "Harper Valley PTA" writer Tom T. Hall. "Now some might say Tom was a great songwriter, and I'm not going to doubt that. At the time, during his interview, I was actually listening to a song of his on the radio," Dylan said. "It was called 'I Love'. Listening to it in a recording studio. And it was talking about all the things he loves. An everyman song. Trying to connect with people. Trying to make you think he's just like you and you're just like him. We all love the same things. We're all in this together. 
 
 "Tom loves little baby ducks. Slow-moving trains and rain. He loves big pickup trucks and little country streams. Sleep without dreams. Bourbon in a glass. Coffee in a cup. Tomatoes on a vine," Dylan continued. "Now listen, I'm not every going to disparage another songwriter. I'm not gonna do that. I'm not saying that's a bad song, I'm just saying it might be a little over-cooked." Dylan criticized Hall for having Nashville "all sewn up" until Kris Kristofferson entered the scene. 
 
 Dylan also poked fun at critics who trash his singing voice. "Why don't they say those same things about Leonard Cohen?" Dylan said. "Why do I get special treatment?" ||||| Photo 
 
 LOS ANGELES — At the Grammys’ annual charity gala on Friday, Bob Dylan stole the show without singing a single note. 
 
 In a wide-ranging 35-minute speech that had the 3,000 or so music executives and stars in the audience hanging on his every word, Mr. Dylan touched on the roots of his songwriting, the musicians who inspired him, and the naysaying of critics and others along the way. 
 
 A transcript of the speech is available here (PDF). 
 
 It was an extremely rare and revealing speech from Mr. Dylan, 73, but in his usual fashion it was anything but straightforward. Reading from a thick cache of papers, he spoke in what at times was a kind of rhapsodic, canny prose-poetry, like one of his lyrics or an outtake from his 2004 memoir, “Chronicles, Volume One.” 
 
 “These songs of mine,” he said, “they’re like mystery plays, the kind Shakespeare saw when he was growing up. I think you could trace what I do back that far. They were on the fringes then, and I think they’re on the fringes now.” 
 
 Mr. Dylan was accepting the person of the year award from MusiCares, a charity affiliated with the Grammys that supports musicians in financial need or in health crises. Since MusiCares began in 1989, it has distributed nearly $40 million in aid, according to the group, and the event on Friday, at the Los Angeles Convention Center, raised a record $7 million through sales of tickets and memorabilia. 
 
 The night was packed with performances of Mr. Dylan’s songs by the likes of Bruce Springsteen; Neil Young; Norah Jones; Sheryl Crow; Willie Nelson; Jack White; Tom Jones; and Crosby, Stills and Nash. The award to Mr. Dylan was presented by former President Jimmy Carter, who said that Mr. Dylan’s “words on peace and human rights are much more incisive, much more powerful and much more permanent than those of any president of the United States.” 
 
 Mr. Dylan began with thanks to people who helped his career early on, like John Hammond, the storied talent scout who signed him to Columbia Records, and Peter, Paul and Mary, whose version of “Blowin’ in the Wind” gave Mr. Dylan his first big hit, in 1963. He paid tribute to Joan Baez, Jimi Hendrix and Johnny Cash, and also thanked the Byrds, the Turtles and Sonny and Cher, whose covers brought him more pop hits, even if, he said, he never wanted to be a pop songwriter. 
 
 “Their versions of songs were like commercials,” he said. “But I didn’t really mind that, because 50 years later my songs were used for commercials. So that was good too.” 
 
 He gave a lesson in the folk-inspired songwriting process, saying that “my songs didn’t just come out of thin air — I didn’t just make them up.” Giving numerous examples, Mr. Dylan showed how the traditional songs he sang in his youth inspired his own writing “subliminally and unconsciously.” 
 
 “If you sang ‘John Henry’ as many times as me — ‘John Henry was steel-driving man, driving with a hammer in his hand, John Henry said a man ain’t nothing but a man,’ ” he said. “If you sang that song as many times as I did, you would have written ‘How many roads must a man walk down,’ too.” 
 
 Mr. Dylan took jabs at music icons like the songwriters Leiber and Stoller (“Yakety Yak,” “Stand by Me”), saying that he didn’t care that they didn’t like his songs, because he didn’t like theirs either. Nashville wasn’t spared. In barely diplomatic terms, Mr. Dylan mocked the country songwriter Tom T. Hall, saying that his sentimental 1973 song “I Love” (“I love baby ducks, old pickup trucks”) was “a little overcooked,” and implying that Mr. Hall was part of an old guard that was bemused and left behind by the musical revolution of the 1960s and ‘70s. 
 
 But he saved most of his bile for critics, clearly showing that he has read enough of his reviews over the years to let them get under his skin. “Critics have been giving me a hard time since Day 1,” he said. “Critics say I can’t sing. I croak. Sound like a frog.” He paused, as nervous giggles spread through the crowd. “Why don’t critics say the same thing about Tom Waits?” (Well, actually, they do.) 
 
 Mr. Dylan wound up his speech with tender comments about his friend Billy Lee Riley, a 1950s rockabilly singer on Sun Records, the original home of Elvis Presley and Johnny Cash. Known to collectors for his 1957 song “Red Hot,” Mr. Riley never made it big. When he got sick, Mr. Dylan said, MusiCares helped pay Mr. Riley’s medical bills and mortgage, to help make his life “at least comfortable, tolerable, to the end, and that is something that can’t be repaid.” Mr. Riley died in 2009. 
 
 Usually the annual MusiCares concerts, which in the past have featured stars like Barbra Streisand, Paul McCartney and Mr. Springsteen, end with a performance by the honoree, but after a few quick photos from the stage Mr. Dylan was off, and Mr. Young ended the night with a haunting “Blowin’ in the Wind.” As the high-heeled and tuxedoed crowd filtered out, few seemed to complain.
– Bob Dylan opened up about his music and songwriting and discussed his relationships with Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley, and others in a rare and lengthy interview posted to his website Wednesday, the AP reports. In the Q&A with author Bill Flanagan, Dylan recalls Sinatra telling him, "You and me, pal, we got blue eyes, we're from up there ... These other bums are from down here." Of the many superstars who died last year, including Muhammad Ali and Merle Haggard, Dylan said the deaths hit him hard: "We were like brothers ... It's lonesome without them." When asked about why Presley didn't show up for a recording session with Dylan and George Harrison, an old story Flanagan had once heard, Dylan replied: "He did show up—it was us that didn't." Full interview here.