Who was on the business end of Dylan disses?

LOS ANGELES — Bob Dylan may have just released an album of material from the Great American Songbook, but don't expect him to cover Hound Dog or Okie From Muskogee any time soon. Dylan used part of his 30-minute speech at the MusiCares Person of the Year event Friday to skewer some sacred cows, including songwriters Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller and country singer Merle Haggard.

"My songs had detractors and supporters," Dylan said, after thanking several of the acts who covered his songs early in his career, including The Byrds and Jimi Hendrix. "The last thing I thought about was who cared what song I was writing. I was just writing them. I didn't think I was doing anything different. I thought I was just extending the line."

The event featured several of Dylan's acolytes, including Bruce Springsteen, Neil Young, Jackson Browne, Sheryl Crow and Crosby, Stills & Nash, performing his songs.

Dylan's half-hour speech was sometimes tongue-in-cheek, sometimes sarcastic. But he also took some shots at other songwriters in a way that only legends can.

'50s songwriters Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller

"I didn't really care what Leiber & Stoller thought of my songs," Dylan said of the songwriting team who wrote several of Elvis Presley's early hits, including Hound Dog and Don't Be Cruel. "They didn't like them. But Doc Pomus did.

"That was all right they didn't like them. 'Cause I didn't like their songs, either.

"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.

"But Doc's songs, they were better. This Magic Moment. Lonely Avenue. Save the Last Dance for Me. Those songs broke my heart. I figured I'd rather have his blessings any day than theirs."

Atlantic Records founder Ahmet Ertegun

"Ahmet Ertegun didn't think much of my songs, but Sam Phillips did," comparing two giants of the recording industry. "Ahmet founded Atlantic Records. He produced great records — Ray Charles, Ray Brown, LaVern Baker, just to name a few. There were some great records there. No question about it. But Sam Phillips, he recorded Elvis and Jerry Lee, Carl Perkins and Johnny Cash. Radical artists that shook the very essence of humanity. Revolution and style and scope, every shape and color. Radical to the bone. Songs that cut you to the bone. Renegades in all degrees. Doing songs that would never decay and still resound to this day. Oh, yeah. I would rather have Sam Phillips' blessing any day."

Merle Haggard

"Merle Haggard 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.

"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."

Marsha Ambrosius

Dylan was gracious enough not to identify by name the singer who was the recipient of his sharpest barbs. But he seemed to be referencing Ambrosius, who has had several R&B hits, most notably 2010's Far Away, sang the national anthem at a 2012 Floyd Mayweather-Manny Cotto fight.

"Critics say I mangle my melodies, render my songs unrecognizable," he said. "Let me tell you something: I was at a boxing match a few years ago, seeing Floyd Mayweather fight a Puerto Rican guy. And the Puerto Rican national anthem, somebody sang it. And it was beautiful, it was heartfelt, it was moving. After that, it was time for our national anthem, and a very popular soul-singing sister was chosen to sing it. She sang every note. That exists. And some that don't exist. Talk about mangling a melody. Take a one-syllable word and make it last for 15 minutes. To me, it was not funny. Mangling lyrics, mangling a melody, mangling a treasured song. No, I get the blame."

Tom T. Hall

Dylan recalled reading an interview with Tom T. Hall, the country singer and songwriter noted for story songs like Harper Valley PTA and (Old Dogs, Children And) Watermelon Wine, during a Nashville recording stint many years ago. In the interview, Dylan said, "He was (complaining) about some kind of new song coming in. And he couldn't understand what these new kinds of songs were that were coming in or what they were about."

"Now, Tom, he was one of the most pre-eminent songwriters at the time in Nashville. A lot of people were recording his songs, including himself. But he was on a fuss about James Taylor and a song James had called Country Road. Tom was going all off in this interview: 'Well, James don't sing nothing about a country road; he just says that he can feel that ole country road. I don't understand that."

"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 in the recording studio. It was called I Love. 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 and onions."

"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 said that Hall and a few other writers had the Nashville scene "sewn up" — until Kris Kristofferson came along and started writing songs like Sunday Morning Comes Down, which Johnny Cash turned into a No. 1 single.

"That one song blew Tom T. Hall's world apart," Dylan said. "It might have sent him to the crazy house. God forbid he ever heard one of my songs."

"If Sunday Morning Coming Down rattled Tom's cage amd sent him into the looney bin, my songs surely would have made him blow his brains out."