Read On the Road with Bob Dylan Online
Authors: Larry Sloman
On the Road with Bob Dylan (2 page)
M
insky was my first hero. Minsky was a Jewish hood who wore a black leather motorcycle jacket, carried a greasy black comb in his back pocket, hung round the benches in Forest Park in Queens, occasionally spitting or cursing at homos or stealing weaklings’ basketballs. He was always flicking his burned-down cigarette at least fifteen feet in a marvelous blazing arc, all of which in 1958 was grounds for pariahhood.
But I loved Minsky, I loved his mountain slope of a pompadour and his perfect Elvis sneer and the incredible knack he had of holding a can of beer in one hand and fielding a grounder with the other, dropping his glove, picking up the ball, and throwing the runner out at first with a behind-the-back fastball. And Minsky was my hero because he was going out with Kathy Muldoon, a beautiful Irish redhead who lived in my building and who escorted me home from the park every afternoon, riding me up the elevator to my floor, then giving me a sweet, mischievous smile as I gaped at her boobs.
But then we moved to Bayside, leaving Minsky and Kathy Muldoon and Forest Park light-years behind. And I started going to high school and I cultivated a new hero, Andy Bathgate of the Rangers. But it wasn’t the same. Then, I wandered into a music store on Bell Boulevard in June of 1965 and picked up the latest Top 100 list and noticed a strange name at Number 43. The entry read “Like a Rolling Stone—B. Dylan.”
I got furious, steaming to myself about this Dylan character trying to rip off the Stones name, riding to fame on their boot heels. In anger, I bought the single. It changed my life.
Oh, that sound! That rapturous organ and that searing guitar and that mocking piano. And that voice, that half-sneer, half-lullabyic razor of a voice. The next day I took my father’s car for the first time since I had finished Driver’s Ed and I drove into Flushing where Gertz had a sale on Dylan’s
Highway 61
LP. $1.88 in mono.
And the album finished me off. Those incredible songs, “Tombstone Blues,” “Ballad of a Thin Man,” “Highway 61 Revisited,” “Desolation Row.” There I was, a nice Jewish boy, almost in the suburbs, with an after-school job reconciling bank statements for the accountant down the hall, ready to start Queens College and pick a nice, safe, respectable career, like accounting.
After
Highway 61
, I rushed back to Flushing and, one by one, I picked up all the other albums. And listened, really listened. Then I started going to the Village, to the Paul Sergeant store that was mentioned in the liner notes to
Highway 61
, then to MacDougal Street, finally to the Players Theatre, where the Fugs were setting new standards for perversity and honesty.
So when I spotted a small ad for a Bob Dylan concert in February of 1966, in White Plains, I immediately wrote for two tickets, one for me and one for my friend Fiegelberg, who had a long leg cast as a result of a skiing accident.
The night of the concert I was on pins and needles, enthralled at the prospect of seeing Dylan live, in the flesh! My parents drove us out there, then left to take in a local movie. I walked and Fiegelberg hobbled to our seats, in the rear but at least on the floor. And, after an hour’s wait, Dylan strode onstage.
He did a stunning solo set, the classic folk ballads, some of the middle-period love-hate songs, then the new, intense stuff, like “Freeze-Out” (later to be released as “Visions of Johanna”) and “Desolation Row.” A quick bow and he was off.
After the intermission, the lights dimmed and five strange-looking figures wandered out onstage and plugged into amplifiers. And then Dylan was back, in an olive box-checkered suit. And I
heard the most incredible rock music of my life. But all too fast, it was over, Dylan taking a final half-bow, then pausing to wave to someone in the audience. I stumbled into the lobby in a haze.
My parents met us and we walked to the car, Fiegelberg and me climbing into the back seat. After a few minutes, my father half turned to us.
“So how did you like it?” he asked.
“It was incredible. I loved it!” I managed to answer over the din of all those songs still running through my head.
“It’s funny,” my father shouted, alternately turning to us, then checking the road ahead, “when we came to pick you guys up, we got there early and two people were leaving so I got their stubs and went in to look for you. I walked right up the aisle, right up to the front. That noise!” He held his head in one hand and shook it.
“You what!” I shouted. “You walked by us? I didn’t see you. Which aisle? How far up did you go?”
“Right up to the front. The first row. I looked up and saw Dylan from about ten feet away.” My father chuckled.
“What! You saw him that close. What did he look like? What was he wearing? Suede boots? What kinda shirt was that? Did he see you? What did he look like?” I was starting to repeat myself.
My father just shrugged and looked back at the road. “What are you getting so excited about?” he shouted, one hand on the wheel, the other punctuating the air. “He didn’t seem like anything special. The songs seemed nice, loud but nice. But he didn’t look so hot. What are you making such a fuss over? He was a small, ordinary guy. He looked like a shipping clerk,” the old man said with finality. With that, I slumped back down into the seat and rode the rest of the way home in silence.
The next day I ran into someone from Kew Gardens who told me that Minsky had been busted.
T
o begin at the beginning, you’d have to go back to the old folkie days of the Village or maybe just the set of
Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid
or maybe even the old auditorium of Hibbing High. Who knows where Dylan first got the idea, really decided that he wanted to go out again and do what it was that he does so well. Namely, tell the tribe the news of the hour. Depending on who you speak to, you’ll get a hundred different versions of how the Rolling Thunder Revue idea was crystallized. Some say it was Bobby Neuwirth’s pet project, a guerrilla attack on the hamlets of Middle America. Others credit Ramblin’ Jack Elliott with the original idea. Still others believe it was Bob’s all along, that he was only waiting for the right time and people. No matter, it happened. With a vengeance. Guitar sounds filled the air, Scarlett’s haunting gypsy violin presiding over the clatter in hot, musky gyms and clean, stainless-steel auditoriums. The Rolling Thunder Revue was a caravan of gypsies, hoboes, trapeze artists, lonesome guitar stranglers, and spiritual green berets who came into your town for your daughters and left with your minds. They took to the road in the fall of ’75, a weird karass, Dylan, Baez, Mitchell, Elliott, Neuwirth, McGuinn, Ronson, Blakley, Ginsberg, it went on and on, and you’ll meet them all here, sooner or later. And they barnstormed for six weeks, shaking up the great Northeast, making a quick foray over the border into the land of snow. Then, with a bang at Madison Square Garden, playing to twenty thousand in a benefit for Rubin “Hurricane” Carter, it was over. At least, until Dylan decides to round up the troops, pack up the guitars, and head your way again.
But to begin at the beginning of this story, we might as well flash back to a lazy Indian-summery Sunday night in October 1975.
I remembered that Sammy Walker was playing at Gerdes Folk City on Third Street, so I walked in. Typical Gerdes night: Allyn (she’s a girl) was tending bar, owner Mike Porco was tending Allyn with a hawk’s eye. A few patrons at the bar. Inside, in the music room, Walker was onstage singing about Patty Hearst and her scorpions. My eyes scanned the room and stopped short at center rear. Ensconced at the table near the men’s room was none other than old friend Roger McGuinn and party.
McGuinn is one of the rock ’n roll hall-of-famers. With Chris Hillman and David Crosby, he founded America’s greatest rock band, the Byrds. And long after Crosby departed for the greener pastures of CSNY and Hillman founded the Burrito Brothers, McGuinn was still plugging away as a Byrd. Then around 1970, he started anew, first fronting a small combo, then going out solo and doing the folkie harmonica neck-rack bit. And it was hard years for the man who gave us “Eight Miles High,” and the definitive hard-rock version of “Tambourine Man.” The solo Byrd never really got off the ground, so Roger went back to a combo idea and re-formed the Roger McGuinn Band. And here at Gerdes up from a date in Philly, were Roger, his guitarist, Richard Bowden, and his road manager, Al Hirsh.
I joined Roger and his party and Porco came by and bought us all a round of drinks. Porco, of course, is best known in the music biz as one of the first discoverers of Bob Dylan. Dylan’s first professional appearance was at Mike’s original club on Fourth Street, and in those days, Porco was like a father to Bob, making sure that he had his cabaret cards, and generally looking after the ragamuffin minstrel.
Porco has fathered many a rising star over the years; among the headliners who first got their careers moving at Gerdes are Simon and Garfunkel, Judy Collins, and Phil Ochs. And that night, in that same folk tradition, Sammy Walker, a teenager from Norcross,
Georgia, was onstage singing a selection of songs from his first album on the small folk label, Folkways Records. And among those songs was “Ragamuffin Minstrel Boy,” a tribute to Dylan, whom Walker resembled both musically and physically. McGuinn was listening intently, enjoying the new comer, and at one point, after I egged him on a bit, he agreed to do a guest number with Sammy—only McGuinn did it in his own inimitable fashion. Since Roger’s an electronics freak, he carries around two two-way walkie-talkies wherever he goes, so Hirsh was dispatched to the stage where he whipped out his gadget, and held it up to the mike.
“There’s some that’s born in New York town,” an eerie disembodied voice floated over Hirsh’s walkie-talkie into the microphone, and McGuinn became the first guest star to sit in from his seat. But after the cackly sea chanty, “Heave Away,” the audience screamed for more, so Roger vaulted up to the stage, borrowed Sammy’s guitar, and broke into “Chestnut Mare,” the compelling saga of a boy and his horse that Roger cowrote with Off-Broadway director, Jacques Levy.
Apparently the singing had built up Roger’s appetite, so we all headed down to Chinatown for a late dinner. And over martinis, the talk turned to Dylan. “I’ve been hanging out a lot with Bob in Malibu,” Roger told us, “playing basketball, and stuff. One day, he was sitting on my couch and we were trying to write a song together and I asked him if he had anything and he said he had one that he started but he was probably gonna use it himself and he started playing ‘Never Say Goodbye.’ He hadn’t written all the verses yet, but he had the tune. I liked it, but it was his.
“He’s really brilliant, but sometimes he acts naive, like there are gaps in his perception and if you fill in the spots for him, he really freaks out.
“We once were talking about the airplane Bob used to have and I asked him if he would charter it out when he wasn’t using it and he said no. And I said, Well, that’s what people do who have those airplanes, you gotta charter it out in order to pay the maintenance
because they’re too expensive to keep otherwise. Even everybody who’s really rich charters them out and stuff.’ And Bob said, real wide-eyed, ‘Nobody ever told me that before.’ What a great line.”
It was getting on to 2
A.M.
and McGuinn was set to pack it in and go back to his room at the Gramercy, but I suggested we stop for a nightcap at the Other End. Roger demurred. “C’mon, Roger, I hear Dylan just got into town and even if he’s not there I’m sure Levy’ll be there.” So we took a cab over to LaGuardia Place, jumped out, and rang Jacques’ bell. No answer. Roger led the way around the corner to the Other End. Bleecker Street was unusually quiet, almost eerie with a moist mist floating in. Something was in the air. I led the way into the club and immediately saw owner Paul Colby, who, at the sight of us, frantically summoned us to a side table. We turned the corner, and hidden in the first niche were two tables that had been pushed together. I scanned the tables and saw singer David Blue, Off-Broadway director and McGuinn song collaborator Jacques Levy, assorted other nondescript friends, and, hidden in the center of this motley crew, a black-jacketed Bob Dylan. “Roger!” Dylan screamed out, and lunged to hug McGuinn, spilling most of the drinks in the process. “Where you been, man, we been waiting for you all night.”
By then a large crowd was observing and Levy suggested we go someplace a bit quieter. “Let’s go to Menachem’s,” Bob interjected. So we trudged out of the Other End, Dylan and McGuinn in the lead, the others slowly following. “Hey Roger, we’re going to go out on tour, wanna come with us?” Dylan was cajoling McGuinn, who seemed to be still recovering from the greeting. We hit the sidewalk outside the club and Dylan turned to me. I introduced myself. “Oh,
you’re
Larry Sloman. I heard you were doing an article on Hurricane Carter. Did ya see him, how is he?” I began to answer but got cut off when a nervous teenager squeezed between us and asked Dylan if she could shake his hand. Dylan peered at her quickly, then broke into a smile. “Sure.” She grabbed his hand and began a monologue about how much Dylan had changed her life.
Bob began to look a bit uncomfortable and we got rescued by Lou Kemp, Dylan’s friend, who steered our party to Bob’s car: a cherry-red Eldorado. Jacques, his friend Muffin, Kemp, and I piled into the back seat, and Dylan, McGuinn, and Bob’s friend Mike jumped in the front. Dylan careened around the Village, made an incredible left onto MacDougal, and pulled up in front of the Olive Tree. But Menachem had already called it a night, so we trudged across the street, to the Kettle of Fish, an old hangout for the folkies in the early ’60s. As we crossed the street, Dylan picked up on our conversation about Hurricane Carter, the boxer who’s spent ten years in jail in New Jersey for a crime he never committed. “You’re doing a story, good, he needs that, that’ll be a big help. So will the song I did. We got to get that out, get it out right away. Maybe you could put some pressure on Columbia, Larry. You can lean on them, you got some pull there.”