Speaker 1: For a plan to recognize the injustice of what had
Speaker 1: happened to Bonnie was quite amazing, really, and this is
Speaker 1: not going to start this. This diminutive woman with the
Speaker 1: flaming red hair say you're singing by song, and he
Speaker 1: was taken aback by it, and he did the right thing.
Speaker 1: He helped her, he used his influence and he got
Speaker 1: recognition for her that the song is actually all her
Speaker 1: and nobody else.
Speaker 2: We're totally booming rock and roll.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'll leave you. You're reading Little Hands says
Speaker 1: it's time to rock and roll, roll out.
Speaker 2: I totally booked. Welcome back to Book Down Rock conversations
Speaker 2: with authors, musicians and insiders revealing the stories behind classic
Speaker 2: rock's greatest songs, albums and artists. And if you enjoy
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Speaker 2: onto our guest. A key figure in the folk music
Speaker 2: boom of the late nineteen fifties, Canadian born singer songwriter
Speaker 2: Bonnie Dobson wrote the folk classic Morning Do in nineteen
Speaker 2: sixty one, but after another artist wrongly claimed co writing credit,
Speaker 2: she spent decades fighting to reclaim the song that became
Speaker 2: a standard for everyone from The Grateful Dead to Robert Plant.
Speaker 2: Author John Aynerson joins me to discuss take Me for
Speaker 2: a Walk in the Morning Dew, the remarkable story of
Speaker 2: Dobson's career, her influence on folk music, and her long
Speaker 2: battle for rightful recognition. John, Welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: Thanks Eric, nice to be here.
Speaker 2: The introduction opens with Bonnie's triumphant return alongside Robert Plant
Speaker 2: in twenty thirteen, then works backward, making it feel almost
Speaker 2: like the final scene of a film, a great movie,
Speaker 2: before revealing how she got there. And a great moment
Speaker 2: in the introduction is Plant admitting that he had no
Speaker 2: idea Bonnie had actually written Morning Do until she literally
Speaker 2: knocked on his door. Can you talk about this story? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I just absolutely love that story, and Bonnie enjoys telling
Speaker 1: it as well, because he lives She lives in Primrose
Speaker 1: Hill in kind of a bit of North London, and
Speaker 1: he has a house, he has many and he's spending
Speaker 1: a lot of time in North America nowadays. But he
Speaker 1: has a house, you know, just about two streets over
Speaker 1: from her Primrose Hill, and yeah, he had in interviews
Speaker 1: with him, he talked about how he was very much
Speaker 1: aware of the song, you know, going back to going
Speaker 1: back to the late sixties, and how John Bonham played
Speaker 1: in a bandon that backed up Tim Rose, who's the
Speaker 1: guy that we're going to be talking about, and how
Speaker 1: much he loved the song and he said he did
Speaker 1: it in other bands on his own as well, and
Speaker 1: then he covered it on an album of covers and
Speaker 1: I credited to tim Rose. And that's the crux of
Speaker 1: really the whole story is how tim Rose was able
Speaker 1: to get his name on the song and it went
Speaker 1: from being Bonnie Dobson to Bonnie Dobson and tim Rose
Speaker 1: to tim Rose, Bonnie Dobson to tim Rose period. And
Speaker 1: so she kind of lost control of it that way,
Speaker 1: and it was her battle to get it back. But
Speaker 1: what's what's funny, and I didn't really play this out
Speaker 1: in the book, is let Zeppelin have a terrible record
Speaker 1: for stealing other people's music. You know, they said, I
Speaker 1: always think of Babe, I'm going to leave you off.
Speaker 1: The first led Zeppelin album, which was written by Ann
Speaker 1: Breddon who was a folk singer. Joan Bayez recorded it
Speaker 1: on a live album and that's where that's where Jimmy
Speaker 1: Page learned the song, and it was credited to Ann Breddon.
Speaker 1: But then a few years later let Zeppelin do it,
Speaker 1: and there is credited to Jimmy Page and Robert Plant
Speaker 1: and Anne Bretton had to fight for years to get
Speaker 1: to get her name back on. And so what happens
Speaker 1: is it now, says Anne Bredon, Jimmy Page and Robert Plant,
Speaker 1: is if they were all sitting in a room together
Speaker 1: writing the song, you know, and also stealing Willie Dixon
Speaker 1: songs and Howling Wolf and that sort of thing. So
Speaker 1: for for Plants to recognize the injustice of what had
Speaker 1: happened to Bonnie was quite amazing, really, and it's not
Speaker 1: going to store this. This diminutive woman with the flaming
Speaker 1: bread hair at you say you're singing my song. And
Speaker 1: he was taken aback by it, and he did the
Speaker 1: right thing. He helped her, he used his influence and
Speaker 1: he got recognition for her that the song is actually
Speaker 1: all her and nobody else.
Speaker 2: It's a great story and the title of the introduction
Speaker 2: is thank you for helping me get my song back.
Speaker 2: And that isn't really about so much royalties. It's about identity, right.
Speaker 2: I mean, as you researched Bonnie's life, did you come
Speaker 2: to feel that reclaiming authorship was ultimately more important emotionally
Speaker 2: to her than it was financially.
Speaker 1: Oh, that's exactly right. It was for her it was,
Speaker 1: you know, this is my property. I wrote this, and
Speaker 1: I just want to be recognized that I am the
Speaker 1: writer of it. It wasn't financially motivated. But you also
Speaker 1: have to keep in mind that that Tim Rose was
Speaker 1: taking a percentage of the royalties on that song song credits,
Speaker 1: so that that was important but always secondary Bonnie. Bonnie
Speaker 1: lives comfortably. I mean she still gets wrowthies from morning
Speaker 1: dew and other things that she has done. It was
Speaker 1: recognition that this is my song and not anybody else's,
Speaker 1: and that he had no right to put his name
Speaker 1: on it and take credit for it. And it's the
Speaker 1: credit for it that really is the crux.
Speaker 2: Of it all for her. And she worked with you
Speaker 2: to tell the story for the book. What was your
Speaker 2: first conversation with Bonnie, Like, did she immediately embrace the
Speaker 2: idea of telling her life story and the story of
Speaker 2: the song. Where did it take time to earn her trust?
Speaker 1: Well, there's a lot of history that goes into this book.
Speaker 1: I mean I was first aware of Bonnie Dobson thinking
Speaker 1: about sixty five, you know, and seeing her on television
Speaker 1: performing with folk music in Canada, folk music songs, Oscar
Speaker 1: Brand kind of shows and that sort of thing, and
Speaker 1: hearing Morning Dew, which I think came out about sixty
Speaker 1: three or so on her third album. But I was
Speaker 1: aware of the story around it and aware of the
Speaker 1: fact that it was a controversy involved. I mean, I
Speaker 1: became more aware of the controversy when as a hard
Speaker 1: rock guitar player in sixty eight playing in a band
Speaker 1: that did the Jeff Beck Rod Stewart version of Morning
Speaker 1: Dew off hit the Beck Truth album and it said
Speaker 1: Tim Rose on it, and I knew it wasn't just
Speaker 1: Tim Rose or it was Bonnie Dobson, and so that
Speaker 1: the whole story of it kind of started for me
Speaker 1: from there. And even though The Grateful Dead had recorded
Speaker 1: it a year before, I didn't come to their album
Speaker 1: until sixty eight, after the Jeff Beck group one and
Speaker 1: there again you see tim Rose in there as well.
Speaker 1: So I knew about her and I knew about her career.
Speaker 1: But when I was writing a book on Ian and Sylvia,
Speaker 1: who were very much a part of the folk boom
Speaker 1: of the late fifties into the mid sixties and of
Speaker 1: course four strong wins of like Canada's unofficial national anthem,
Speaker 1: I interviewed Bonnie. I got a phone. I got a
Speaker 1: phone number for her in England from a friend. I
Speaker 1: called her, upset him doing the book in eaton Sylvia.
Speaker 1: You were contemporary, you knew them back in the day.
Speaker 1: And she was lovely to talk to, very open, very insightful,
Speaker 1: and we kept in touch over the years. That was
Speaker 1: about two thousand and nine, and every few years I'd
Speaker 1: give her a call and say, hey, how about a book.
Speaker 1: You know you have a story to tell, And I said,
Speaker 1: morning do. It is a song that's never going away.
Speaker 1: It's going to outlive you, it's going to outlive me.
Speaker 1: People are still going to be covering it. But you
Speaker 1: need to set the record straight on all of that
Speaker 1: and talk about your life. And she was, I mean,
Speaker 1: I didn't know at the time. When I would talk
Speaker 1: with her, you know those in those intervening years that
Speaker 1: she was I mean, her son took his own life,
Speaker 1: her third husband died, and so she was dealing with
Speaker 1: all of these things and you know, and issues raising
Speaker 1: your children. So she kept saying, no, I'm not ready,
Speaker 1: I'm not ready, but I I guess what are we?
Speaker 1: Twenty twenty six, twenty twenty five. It was late twenty
Speaker 1: twenty four, probably December. I think I gave her another
Speaker 1: call and she was more open to it because she
Speaker 1: had gone through all of this and she felt it
Speaker 1: was kind of time. And it worked out well because
Speaker 1: I made arrangements to go and spend a week with
Speaker 1: her in London, and her album with the Hanging Stars
Speaker 1: called Dreams had just come out and it was getting
Speaker 1: tremendous attention. I mean, it didn't sell a lot because
Speaker 1: it was a small label that didn't have distribution great distribution,
Speaker 1: but it was really getting great reviews and articles on Bonnie.
Speaker 1: So she was going through a bit of a career renaissance.
Speaker 1: So it's kind of like the planets aligned and everything
Speaker 1: came together and it was the time to do it.
Speaker 1: And it was also important to her that the book
Speaker 1: not be all about Morning dew because there's more to
Speaker 1: her as a traditional folk artists and then as the
Speaker 1: singer songwriter. I mean, she really developed into a very
Speaker 1: gifted songwriter. But a lot of that stuff nobody knows about,
Speaker 1: and it's it's a fascinating life. And whenever I'm doing books,
Speaker 1: I'm looking for the human interest story in it and
Speaker 1: the ups and downs that you know, in someone's life.
Speaker 1: It's more than just a music story. I mean, that's
Speaker 1: why I write. Yeah, I wrote a book about Arthur Lee,
Speaker 1: and I wrote a book about Gene Clark because these
Speaker 1: people have had fascinating lives, you know, Ian and Sylvia,
Speaker 1: Randy Backman in there too, So that's what that's what
Speaker 1: really drew me to want to tell tell her story.
Speaker 1: And the timing was right, as they say, for her
Speaker 1: to want to do it. And she was a little
Speaker 1: trepidacious at first sitting down with me, and I'm you know,
Speaker 1: I'm trying to take her through her life and asking
Speaker 1: you know, pointed questions and insightful that sometimes deep questions,
Speaker 1: of course, but she gradually warmed up to it. And
Speaker 1: you know, after the four or five days that we
Speaker 1: had spent in her kind of kitchen slash living room.
Speaker 1: Going through this, she said at the end, you know,
Speaker 1: this was a marvelous experience. Thank you so much for
Speaker 1: doing this. It really brought a lot out of me
Speaker 1: that I'd kept inside. But it also kind of rejuvenated
Speaker 1: me too. So I mean it everything came out well,
Speaker 1: The book came out well. Body is very happy with
Speaker 1: the book. I'm very happy with the book, and I
Speaker 1: think it tells more than just a music story. It's
Speaker 1: a life story.
Speaker 2: That Arthur Lee story. Boy, I love to talk to
Speaker 2: you about that book. Yeah.
Speaker 1: One of the one of the things about the Arthur
Speaker 1: Lee book was I first he was passed away, of course,
Speaker 1: and I approached his widow through a friend and she
Speaker 1: was she she was kind of okay to do it,
Speaker 1: she said, you know, it's time. But when we met
Speaker 1: in California to do interviews with her and all the
Speaker 1: other guys from Love and Other and other associates, she
Speaker 1: said to me, you know, Arthur tried writing a memoir.
Speaker 1: No one's there read it. So she posts this thing
Speaker 1: out of a drawer and it's Arthur talking about his
Speaker 1: life and his career in love and all of that.
Speaker 1: The no one's ever seen. So it wasn't principle as
Speaker 1: it was. I mean, Arthur kind of defamed a few
Speaker 1: people in it. It allowed me as Arthur would. It
Speaker 1: allowed me to have his voice in the book in
Speaker 1: ways that I wasn't just picking old interviews. It allowed
Speaker 1: me to every other interview was new, but this now
Speaker 1: was new Arthur. And I think that's a real strength
Speaker 1: in the book, is having Arthur's voice talking about things
Speaker 1: in a way he never talked about them before in interviews.
Speaker 2: And Robert planned a big fan.
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely a bit.
Speaker 2: The first time I've realized that was when they did
Speaker 2: a tribute concert to Arthur Lee, like twenty years ago, right,
Speaker 2: I think right after he passed or oh.
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, it was around the time that he was
Speaker 1: sick and going to be passed for sick medical bills,
Speaker 1: and Robert platt Ian Hunter and a number of other
Speaker 1: artists flew over in their own dime rehearse band and
Speaker 1: played the show and all the money went to the
Speaker 1: Arthur to help defray his medical expense. He had no healthcare.
Speaker 1: Musicians don't have health benefits.
Speaker 2: Well, let people know where they can go to find
Speaker 2: all of your books, but for this one, it includes
Speaker 2: not only Bonnie's recollections, but perspectives from people like Robert
Speaker 2: Plant and lifelong friends. How much detective work was involved
Speaker 2: in tracking down those voices and was there any interview
Speaker 2: that surprised you the most.
Speaker 1: Well, I always like to paint a broader picture, you know,
Speaker 1: cast a wider net and a broader story. It's kind
Speaker 1: of like, I know how I feel about myself and
Speaker 1: the things that I've done, but how do others? How
Speaker 1: am I perceived by others and the things decisions that
Speaker 1: I have made, And it really paints a broader picture,
Speaker 1: a wider picture, more insightful picture of the subject, the
Speaker 1: topic or whatever. So I would like to I always
Speaker 1: like to do that in all of my books, and
Speaker 1: it helps if you have the cooperation of the subject.
Speaker 1: Of course, with Arthur Leave with dead and with Jean Clark,
Speaker 1: he was dead too at the time.
Speaker 2: He hasn't come back.
Speaker 1: But Bonnie then had people so that she should see.
Speaker 1: She suggested, I contact.
Speaker 2: How many seashells by the seashell I know, don't get
Speaker 2: me started.
Speaker 1: So she had a list of people and they were
Speaker 1: all very open to talking about Bonnie. She I mean,
Speaker 1: she's got a million friends all over the world. So
Speaker 1: that helped a bit, and you know, there are some
Speaker 1: people you've got to chase after. But the other realization
Speaker 1: is that Bonnie's eighty five. She started her career in
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty nine. Many of her contemporaries, other than say
Speaker 1: Bob Dylan, they passed away, so that made it a
Speaker 1: little more difficult to do that. But again, if if
Speaker 1: you approach people right and you tell them that this
Speaker 1: is a this is a book that's really looking at
Speaker 1: the life of this wonderful person that you the interview
Speaker 1: person knew and knew well then that they were open
Speaker 1: to talk about it. But you know, it's I really
Speaker 1: wanted to talk to Bob Weird from The Grateful Dead.
Speaker 1: I mean, I would love to have talk to Jerry Garcia.
Speaker 1: I mean he's obviously been dead for a number of years,
Speaker 1: but sadly Bob passed away before I got the chance
Speaker 1: to do that, and we were kind of going through
Speaker 1: various channels. I mean, it's not the kind of guy
Speaker 1: that you say, hey, Bob, I want to talk about money.
Speaker 1: You know, he has These guys at a certain level
Speaker 1: of rock star fame have a lot of a lot
Speaker 1: of walls around them. And and a lot of people
Speaker 1: who filter all of this out. But I was. I
Speaker 1: was getting closer to him, and we were about to
Speaker 1: set something up through one of their emissaries when he
Speaker 1: sadly passed away. But I was fortunate to get Dennis McNally,
Speaker 1: who is the grateful dead archivist and writer of books,
Speaker 1: and he, you know, he is involved very much in
Speaker 1: all the archival albums come out and again, as they say,
Speaker 1: the book, and he was wonderful. He had tremendous insights
Speaker 1: about what Morning Dew meant to Jerry, he said, and
Speaker 1: I have it in the book too from Dennis. There
Speaker 1: was some kind of a tribute to Jerry being put on,
Speaker 1: and I don't know if it was bands or just
Speaker 1: playing music or whatever. Not long after Jerry died in
Speaker 1: San Francisco and the organizers came to Dennis and said,
Speaker 1: you know, what do we do for a closing song?
Speaker 1: We don't know what to do, and Dennis said, don't
Speaker 1: be silly. It's Morning Dew is Jerry's favorite song. And
Speaker 1: so they closed with that, whether a game, whether someone
Speaker 1: played it or whatever. But it would have loved to
Speaker 1: gotten Jerry or Bob. But unfortunately things happened that way.
Speaker 2: That's how I discovered the song, the Dead version Europe
Speaker 2: seventy two, then heard the Beck version, which is phenomenal,
Speaker 2: but there's some great versions.
Speaker 1: Devoy well Bunnie doesn't like the divo.
Speaker 2: Okay, it's quite interesting. I mean I didn't hear it
Speaker 2: until just literally literally today, just going through a playlist
Speaker 2: of all the different versions. But yeah, a lot of
Speaker 2: different ones. One of the biggest surprises in the book
Speaker 2: is her childhood, which she lived in government housing behind
Speaker 2: a chain link fence. How important was it for you
Speaker 2: to established that she wasn't simply a folk singer, but
Speaker 2: somebody who had actually experienced poverty and social inequality firsthand.
Speaker 1: Y That was actually a revelation to me too, because
Speaker 1: various short form biographies of her over the decades have
Speaker 1: placed her growing up in Scarborough. Scarborough in Toronto is
Speaker 1: a I know, it's an England too, Scarborough and Toronto.
Speaker 1: It's a nice suburb and it's nice homes and middle
Speaker 1: class and all of that. And so I went in
Speaker 1: with that, and she said, oh no, no, I was
Speaker 1: born in an old army barracks just on the outskirts
Speaker 1: of Toronto, surrounded by chain link fence. They were former
Speaker 1: barrackses during the war where soldiers were you know, lived,
Speaker 1: and they were mostly made of cardboard, and they were
Speaker 1: bug infested, you know, sharing shower facilities and all of that.
Speaker 1: That was a revelation to me because I didn't know
Speaker 1: that she'd never talked about it before either, And I
Speaker 1: think it did inform her in many ways, informed the
Speaker 1: character that she is because she came to she came
Speaker 1: to understand what poverty was really like, you know, and
Speaker 1: what doing without was really like. And there's lots of
Speaker 1: people who are very wealthy and they said, well, I'm
Speaker 1: for the poor people. I understand that, but no, you
Speaker 1: don't unless you lived. And she did live it, and
Speaker 1: more importantly, she got out of it. She managed to
Speaker 1: escape that poverty cycle that exists and a couple with
Speaker 1: that too. Her parents were together in a part together,
Speaker 1: a very dysfunctional family. Her mother was an alcoholic, her
Speaker 1: father was an avowed communist. So it presented a lot
Speaker 1: of problems that she overcame. I mean, she was class
Speaker 1: valedictorian when she graduated school, and she got she couldn't
Speaker 1: afford to pay for university, nor could her family, so
Speaker 1: she got a scholarship to go to the University of Toronto,
Speaker 1: and now she didn't stay after her first year. Serendipitously,
Speaker 1: a music career, you know, sprung up in front of
Speaker 1: her and she took it. But you know, one of
Speaker 1: the questions I asked her, I think it's the answers
Speaker 1: in the book. I said to her, you know, how
Speaker 1: did it feel standing on the inside of that chain
Speaker 1: link fence and looking out the broader world out there?
Speaker 1: And she said, it was like we didn't belong there.
Speaker 1: And when we take the bus home and the bus
Speaker 1: would stop by the army barracks places in the chain
Speaker 1: link fence and all that, the other people on the
Speaker 1: bus judged us. We were poor, we were trash. And
Speaker 1: that obviously had an impact upon her to improve her life,
Speaker 1: you know, and and good for her that she did.
Speaker 2: And her father introduced her to protest music Pete Seeger
Speaker 2: Paul Robeson. She ultimately developed her own worldview rather than
Speaker 2: simply adopting his. How did you see the tension between
Speaker 2: influence and independence that shape her as both an artist
Speaker 2: and a person.
Speaker 1: She's she's very, very stubborn. She is ther own person.
Speaker 1: She makes up her own mind about everything, and her
Speaker 1: dad was Her dad was smart enough to say to her,
Speaker 1: you know, you don't have to be a communist, you
Speaker 1: don't have to be religious, you don't have to be this,
Speaker 1: you don't have to be that. Just choose what you
Speaker 1: want to be. And she grew up around communism and
Speaker 1: he believed strongly in it and was devastated years later.
Speaker 1: I guess, you know, when when we started to learn
Speaker 1: the real you know, the reality of communist Russia and
Speaker 1: communist China, and was quite devastated by that because he
Speaker 1: grew up to bel it was like it was utopia's idea,
Speaker 1: that was Paradiser's perfection. And she questioned all those things.
Speaker 1: And she credits one of her elementary school teachers who said,
Speaker 1: don't accept everything, question it, ask go to the sources,
Speaker 1: find out what this is all about. But what's fascinating
Speaker 1: too is when she went to get an American green card,
Speaker 1: they had a dossier on her dad and obviously from
Speaker 1: the RCMP, and so the Americans had information about her
Speaker 1: dad and they and they had information about her being
Speaker 1: with her dad at rallies and things, and she had
Speaker 1: to really explain herself to American authorities in order to
Speaker 1: get that green card, and having that green card was
Speaker 1: so important to her she never wanted to lose it
Speaker 1: because she'd never have a chance to have a career
Speaker 1: with without it. But she's what fast fascinating. Was scared
Speaker 1: her was just that the RCPP had been following her
Speaker 1: dad for years and her and her sister probably too,
Speaker 1: because her sister was involved even more so in communism
Speaker 1: and rallies and all that sort of thing. But she
Speaker 1: developed her own perspective on life, and that's that's the
Speaker 1: way she is. She's she's very she's extremely well read.
Speaker 1: She's a news junkie, and she reads and watches and
Speaker 1: takes everything in and then forms her own opinions on everything.
Speaker 2: She could have been a journalist, she could have she
Speaker 2: could have been as investigative. Mind.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you have also been in prison for being a communist.
Speaker 2: One of the things that's interesting about her story too
Speaker 2: is maybe the younger people that are watching this or
Speaker 2: listening right now, they may not know about this, but
Speaker 2: in the early folk revival, writing your own songs was
Speaker 2: almost frowned upon. You know, folk artists are expected to
Speaker 2: preserve tradition, not add to it. How difficult is it
Speaker 2: for young readers to appreciate just how revolutionary somebody like
Speaker 2: Bob Dylan and eventually Bonnie herself really were.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you're right, You're correct with the word revolutionary,
Speaker 1: because folk music was. It started out as music of
Speaker 1: the people, because that's kind of a broader definition of
Speaker 1: folk music. But it was based on traditional music and
Speaker 1: music that told stories from the past, from history, and
Speaker 1: you know, it was education, educational and it also inculcated
Speaker 1: some some some of the ideals and ideals of you know,
Speaker 1: the way things used to be in society and all
Speaker 1: of that. But you, yeah, you didn't write, you you
Speaker 1: research folk music. You dug it up. And even Bonnie
Speaker 1: went to Ottawa to study at the National Archives to
Speaker 1: find all these old songs that had been there and
Speaker 1: and song books that were passed around. She even got
Speaker 1: the People's Song Book, which was you know, kind of
Speaker 1: marching and rallying songs and union songs and all of that.
Speaker 1: And that's how she started her career. And as you say,
Speaker 1: nobody was writing songs then, or at least not not
Speaker 1: in any kind of a a big way. I mean,
Speaker 1: she wrote a song called Ben's Lullaby I think on
Speaker 1: her second album it was just it was a little,
Speaker 1: sweet little song for a little boy who was the
Speaker 1: child of a friend of hers. But she was not
Speaker 1: immune to what was happening in the world. And she
Speaker 1: was very much influenced by the movie On the Beach,
Speaker 1: And that's a movie I think from fifty nine or
Speaker 1: fifty eight, and it's about, you know, what is the
Speaker 1: world like after a nuclear holocaust? How do people deal
Speaker 1: with it? And you know, the key scene in the
Speaker 1: movie is a husband and wife and they're about to
Speaker 1: have a baby, and it's like, well, do we want
Speaker 1: to raise the baby in this environment? What do we do?
Speaker 1: And all of this impacted on her, and you know,
Speaker 1: again a woman who didn't grow who had been following
Speaker 1: a career of traditional music, ended up writing a song
Speaker 1: that really brought together all of the themes of her
Speaker 1: life to that point, whether it's a about government, whether
Speaker 1: it's about society, whether it's about war, and the whole
Speaker 1: band the bomb thing was happening at that time too,
Speaker 1: and just the idea of you know, what is the
Speaker 1: nuclear winter going to be like? So out of that
Speaker 1: one night, out of a discussion with it with a
Speaker 1: number of other folkies. When she was in La playing
Speaker 1: at the Golden Bearer. The ash grob that all of
Speaker 1: this came to a head when she went back to
Speaker 1: her where she was staying and wrote the song, and
Speaker 1: being a game, being someone who grew up with folk
Speaker 1: music that was traditional and not written, she phoned up
Speaker 1: a friend and said, I've written a song, you know,
Speaker 1: like like puzzlingly. I can't believe it, and she said,
Speaker 1: do you want to hear it? And so she sang
Speaker 1: it over to the phone to her friend Janie and
Speaker 1: said to Jennie, well, what do I do with it?
Speaker 1: And she said, oh, you're going to have to record it.
Speaker 1: The song is great. But she went back. She recorded
Speaker 1: that song, of course, and it showed up. She played it,
Speaker 1: you know, from sixty one on in her live shows.
Speaker 1: It was published in Broadside magazine, which was a mistake
Speaker 1: on her part, and it was recorded on her third album.
Speaker 1: But she continued the traditional folk route of traditional folk music.
Speaker 1: She always would record at least one or two French
Speaker 1: Canadian songs under albums, and the folk songs that she
Speaker 1: researched and performed and recorded were songs that nobody else
Speaker 1: really knew about and that's what made her interesting. It
Speaker 1: was her choice of material, and she would arrange the
Speaker 1: songs herself too, so it's not like it was a
Speaker 1: revelation for her, Oh I'm now going to be a songwriter.
Speaker 1: Because even then, like you say, no one was writing songs.
Speaker 1: I mean, Dylan changed the game for everybody. Woody Guthrie
Speaker 1: could write songs, Pete Sieger could write folk songs because
Speaker 1: they had gravitus and they had history. But you, the
Speaker 1: folky playing at the bitter End this week on the
Speaker 1: acoustic guitar did not have the right the right write
Speaker 1: r I A. G HD to write r I T. E. W.
Speaker 1: Wright to write folk music. And again when Dylan started that,
Speaker 1: I mean that it took some convincing for people to
Speaker 1: accept that because you had the traditionalists versus this this
Speaker 1: new folk artist writing his own material. And once Bob
Speaker 1: Dylan gained acceptance, I mean even even take his first album,
Speaker 1: Bob Dylan wrote two songs on that album.
Speaker 2: The other song, yeah, yeah, that A lot of people say.
Speaker 2: The second album is really his.
Speaker 1: First it's absolutely for him. For a number of reasons.
Speaker 1: He met Susie Rotelo, who's the girl on the front
Speaker 1: cover of the picture and she became as mused. She
Speaker 1: got him reading books, she got him reading newspapers. I
Speaker 1: was fortunate to interview her before she shortly before she died,
Speaker 1: for the Ian and Sylvia book, and she was an
Speaker 1: absolute delight. But she said Bob didn't have any social
Speaker 1: conscience or awareness. But once he started reading the news
Speaker 1: papers and reading books and educating himself, that's where the
Speaker 1: Bob Dylan we know, blowing in the wind, the times
Speaker 1: they are changing, all your masters of war, all of
Speaker 1: that came out and the trajectory of original folk music
Speaker 1: just went up.
Speaker 2: Bonnie had some memories of Bob Dylan. She's got some
Speaker 2: great stories in there. One is where where he's typing
Speaker 2: what may have become boots of Spanish leather. He would
Speaker 2: tag along and go to an alehouse, pulled out his guitar.
Speaker 2: Bartender tells him you can stay, but the guitar has
Speaker 2: to go. And he's an unknown, you know, so that
Speaker 2: they don't know who he's about to become. But also
Speaker 2: she remembered a different Dylan from what was depicted, particularly
Speaker 2: in the recent film, Like he was more he was
Speaker 2: almost like a stand up comic on stage back in
Speaker 2: those days.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he had apparently a lot more personality. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's too bad we don't have any of the live
Speaker 1: performance as a recorded of him. She said he was
Speaker 1: more fun and he was more on off stage too. Again,
Speaker 1: he was just like everybody else then. He was just
Speaker 1: a guy who loved folk music. Who was you know,
Speaker 1: we're scrambling to get gigs like everybody else was. And
Speaker 1: he found he found his voice as you and I
Speaker 1: both second album. But the story about him in the
Speaker 1: restaurant and the guy saying you can stay, but you
Speaker 1: can stay with the guitar has to go. I mean
Speaker 1: we were sitting around we've been done an interview and
Speaker 1: Bonnie said, talked about something. Well, I remember the time
Speaker 1: we were and she just told the story matter of fact,
Speaker 1: and I said, money, that's gold. He also complimented her
Speaker 1: on morning Do in passing.
Speaker 2: The lyrics are walked me out the morning dew, my honey,
Speaker 2: walked me out in the morning dew. Today I can't
Speaker 2: walk you out in the morning do my honey. Also
Speaker 2: talks about hearing a baby cry. I heard a young
Speaker 2: man mourn this morning. So it's somebody that's waking up
Speaker 2: in the morning after a nuclear bomb devastation.
Speaker 1: Yeah, nuclear bomb. And it's it's a dialogue, yes, you know,
Speaker 1: I assume it's the woman talking first and then the
Speaker 1: man replies, I can't take you out in the morning.
Speaker 1: Do your babies cry? It's it's a dialogue between the
Speaker 1: two the couple in the movie. That I mean, she
Speaker 1: invented that. Of burse, that dialogue didn't exist in the movie,
Speaker 1: but she took the context of it and wrote it
Speaker 1: in that way of discussing, well, what do we do?
Speaker 1: We can't?
Speaker 2: You know, everything's changed. There is no morning anymore, right
Speaker 2: because they want to They want to go on as
Speaker 2: if life is normal, but it's not anymore. Now. It
Speaker 2: ends with I guess it doesn't really matter anyway. So
Speaker 2: what do you make of the ending there?
Speaker 1: It's very fatalistic. I mean, there is no world left.
Speaker 1: We're never going to have We're never going to have
Speaker 1: the life we had before, So what does it matter now? What?
Speaker 1: It's kind of like saying what future do we have now?
Speaker 1: Anti nuclear war songs didn't really exist in sixty one
Speaker 1: when Bonnie wrote it. Uh. Protest folk music was really
Speaker 1: drawn around the civil rights movement and the Vietnam War thing.
Speaker 1: Wasn't on anybody's radar yet at the time, So Bonnie
Speaker 1: was taking a topic that not many other folk singers
Speaker 1: had had addressed in any way at all. That kind
Speaker 1: of separated her from from everybody else. It is definitely
Speaker 1: a protest song, for sure, without a doubt. But it's
Speaker 1: it's protest. Its protest is on a theme that remains.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it still resonates today. You know why
Speaker 1: why the United States in Iran it, you know, ostensibly
Speaker 1: to end their ability to make nuclear bombs and blow
Speaker 1: everybody on Earth up. So the song has remained timely,
Speaker 1: you know above some above Dyllan songs aren't as timely anymore.
Speaker 1: I think the times they are changing and blowing in
Speaker 1: the wind have stood the test of time, but many
Speaker 1: of the others have not. And you take a song
Speaker 1: like the Buffalo Springfield for what it's worth. You know,
Speaker 1: there's something happening here stapay, what's that sound? That's a
Speaker 1: song that's tied to the nineteen sixties. And it's not
Speaker 1: a song you I mean, if you hear it, it's
Speaker 1: it's intended whether it's a movie or a documentary on radio,
Speaker 1: it's intended to harken back to a period of particularly
Speaker 1: a period of time of protests and anti Vietnam war
Speaker 1: and student protests and riots and that sort of thing.
Speaker 1: So it's hardwired to a period of time. Morning Dew isn't.
Speaker 1: Morning Dew has been able to remain important, significant, relevant
Speaker 1: ever since, and that in many ways is very sad that,
Speaker 1: but the truth is still there that we still live
Speaker 1: in fear of all of this.
Speaker 2: What is it about the song that makes it so
Speaker 2: endlessly reinterpreted?
Speaker 1: Too?
Speaker 2: Because you have versions by the dead Jeff Beck, Nazareth
Speaker 2: and Devo as we mentioned, all found something different in it.
Speaker 2: What is it about the songwriting that makes it so
Speaker 2: endlessly reinterpret it?
Speaker 1: Well, that's the nature of the song in that the
Speaker 1: lyrics appeal. I mean, the lyrics and the theme generally
Speaker 1: have remained. I mean, we can talk about how tim
Speaker 1: Rose changed the one line in it, but the message remains.
Speaker 1: The message resonates, but it's so much so open to
Speaker 1: interpretation because it's a very simple folk song. It's just
Speaker 1: Bonnie on guitar and she's just fingerpicking chords. But the
Speaker 1: message is strong. So the message appeals to artists. But
Speaker 1: the arrangement that she has allows them to be able
Speaker 1: to arrange the song and the music the way they
Speaker 1: see it, the way they want it, the way they
Speaker 1: envision it. And of the almost ninety different cover versions
Speaker 1: of that song, they're so different everyone. I mean, Nazareth,
Speaker 1: I like their version. I also like their German version.
Speaker 1: I don't speak German. That it's you know, to do
Speaker 1: that kind of thing. But when you look at the
Speaker 1: breadth of all these cover versions, the interpretations all change,
Speaker 1: but really only one of them goes back to the original,
Speaker 1: and that Serena Ryder. She went back to the original
Speaker 1: opening lyric take Me for a Walk in the morning do.
Speaker 1: Everybody else And even going back to The Grateful Dead
Speaker 1: has it as walk me out in the Morning do.
Speaker 1: And that goes back to Fred Neil in sixty four,
Speaker 1: and he was one of the first to cover the
Speaker 1: song and he felt that take Me for a Walk
Speaker 1: in the Morning dew was was too wordy and he felt,
Speaker 1: you know, to get you know, kind of the lilts
Speaker 1: and flow of the song, walk Me out in the
Speaker 1: Morning do fit better. And every cover since then, Devo,
Speaker 1: there's a heavy metal version from France somewhere, and all
Speaker 1: these different versions all use that. What that says is
Speaker 1: all these artists heard the song from probably The Grateful Dead,
Speaker 1: possibly Jeff Beck, and probably Tim Rose. They didn't hear
Speaker 1: Bonnie's version. They don't know Bonnie's version, they just know
Speaker 1: the cover versions. I mean, that doesn't take away that
Speaker 1: she wrote the song. She still wrote the song, okay,
Speaker 1: but it shows that The Grateful Dead and I'm gonna
Speaker 1: say Tim Rose, they're the ones that really spread that song,
Speaker 1: even that even that four note introu that that first
Speaker 1: appeared on the tim Rose version. I mean, you hear
Speaker 1: it everywhere. Almost every one of those cover versions that
Speaker 1: you mentioned you were kind of trolling through, they all
Speaker 1: have that that dumbu which body never invented. I interviewed
Speaker 1: David Robinson, who produced it for tim Rose, and he said, oh,
Speaker 1: his mine, I came up with that idea of those
Speaker 1: four notes. Okay, yeah, that's I'm sure Jim Rose would
Speaker 1: say he did it, but that's that's universal.
Speaker 2: There's one I heard of by Lulu, which I thought
Speaker 2: was great and I never heard it before. It's got
Speaker 2: xylophone on there, he's got marimba's it's got a horn
Speaker 2: section or is it xylophone? That I'm hearing no remembers
Speaker 2: the Lulu.
Speaker 1: Okay, it's bizarre, It's really bizarre. And you know what
Speaker 1: a hand in that arrangement was John Paul Jones.
Speaker 2: Oh really is that when he was a studio musician.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he was.
Speaker 2: He arranged Lulo's records. What year would this be, sixty seven?
Speaker 2: It's sixty seven. Wow. Why do you think the Dead
Speaker 2: version has become the definitive one? Is just something about
Speaker 2: Jerry's interpretation.
Speaker 1: Of it, Yeah, I think so. But also the fact
Speaker 1: too that there were Dead fans all over the world, sure,
Speaker 1: you know, everywhere, and they would have picked up on
Speaker 1: that song from the first album. But as you say,
Speaker 1: you got it off of the live album seventy two.
Speaker 1: The Dead recorded that song either live or in a
Speaker 1: studio four times, so it's never gone away. So you
Speaker 1: can have young people picking up on the Dead now
Speaker 1: from some live albums from even the seventies or eighties,
Speaker 1: where they'll hear Morning Do and that's that way. So
Speaker 1: they have and Bonnie very much acknowledges just this too.
Speaker 1: They have allowed the song to continue to be heard
Speaker 1: generation after generation, whereas not Bonnie's version has that Bonnie's
Speaker 1: version hasn't gone as widespread. But the Dead took that
Speaker 1: song and made it, I guess popularized it, made it
Speaker 1: more relevant. And you know, again because of their their
Speaker 1: spread of influence all over.
Speaker 2: Thankful for that.
Speaker 1: No, she's very o. She credits a Grateful Dead absolutely
Speaker 1: for what they did to to bring that song to
Speaker 1: a much wider world and keep it, keep it resonating
Speaker 1: and relevant or absolutely, and she likes that. She went
Speaker 1: to see the Grateful Dead when she was living in Toronto.
Speaker 1: Back in Toronto in around sixty seven or so, they
Speaker 1: came and played, but that night they didn't play Morning Dew,
Speaker 1: but she did Tom Constant Constantine I think his name is.
Speaker 1: He played keyboards. It was a second keyboard player at a
Speaker 1: pig pen in the Grateful Dead and in the mid
Speaker 1: to late sixties, and he played live, did that song
Speaker 1: live with them, you know, a gazillion times. But a
Speaker 1: few years ago we put together I had a Dead
Speaker 1: kind of a tribute band, and Slick Aguilera from Jefferson
Speaker 1: Starship and a few others are all in this band
Speaker 1: and they came and played in I think it was
Speaker 1: called the Other Dead or whatever they called them, and
Speaker 1: they came and played in London at a club and
Speaker 1: Bonnie went and they got her up to sing it, no.
Speaker 2: Rehearsal, It's great, just do it.
Speaker 1: And Okay, there's another guy who I wanted to get
Speaker 1: ahold of, but he's very very sick and I'm not
Speaker 1: sure how well he is now, but he was very
Speaker 1: very sick at the time. You know, you have to
Speaker 1: when you're doing this books, you have to live with
Speaker 1: those kinds of things. Well, I'm not going to get
Speaker 1: to so and so, you know, so let's try somebody else.
Speaker 2: John Innerson is the author of Take Me for a
Speaker 2: Walk in the Morning. Do do you think Bonnie had
Speaker 2: any idea when she finished that song that she had
Speaker 2: created something that would outlive the folk revival itself, become
Speaker 2: part of the rock cannon or was it just another
Speaker 2: song in her repertoire.
Speaker 1: She absolutely had no idea. I mean, she knew, she
Speaker 1: knew it was a good song, she felt, she felt
Speaker 1: strongly about and felt confident about it, But no idea
Speaker 1: that she'ss like, what sixty some odd years later, you
Speaker 1: and I are talking about it, Yeah, that that song
Speaker 1: is still around and guaranteed that sometime in the next
Speaker 1: few years someone else is going to record it and
Speaker 1: they're going to stumble across it, maybe the Devil version
Speaker 1: or maybe even the Lulu version, and that.
Speaker 2: We haven't mentioned the Almonds Gregan and Dwayne. I think
Speaker 2: it was the Almond Joys at the time, if I'm
Speaker 2: not mistaken. That's my brother was introduced to the song
Speaker 2: through that version.
Speaker 1: It's interesting version, and that was that was the recorded
Speaker 1: uh tracks that they recorded before they became the Almond Brothers.
Speaker 2: All Right, it's like on their box set, I think,
Speaker 2: is where you can find it.
Speaker 1: I have just keeps the song, just keeps rolling along.
Speaker 1: She had no idea, and when she thinks about her
Speaker 1: career in perspective, a lot of it is serendipity. A
Speaker 1: lot of it is not. She never really had a
Speaker 1: master plan. She never schemed to do this and do that.
Speaker 1: Things just happened. And with Morning Dew, things just happen. Now,
Speaker 1: if The Grateful Dead we thought was Fred Neil, Fred
Speaker 1: Neil and the Grateful Dead and then tim Rose had
Speaker 1: never covered it, we wouldn't be talking about Morning two.
Speaker 1: You just would have been a song, a song on
Speaker 1: a folk singer's album. Have sitted on her live at
Speaker 1: folks City, guris Folks City in nineteen sixty three. It
Speaker 1: just would have been there and lost there and gone,
Speaker 1: Oh it's a great song, maybe if you happen to
Speaker 1: have the album, but you'd be hard pressed to find
Speaker 1: someone today who does have that album any long.
Speaker 2: The book Down Rock podcast is part of the Boneless
Speaker 2: podcasting Network. If you're a fan of classic rock and
Speaker 2: classic film like I am, go to Boneless dot lovable
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Speaker 2: you want to be Listen with confidence. The tim Rose
Speaker 2: story and let's get to it now, because this is
Speaker 2: where it gets interesting. She never met, never met tim Rose,
Speaker 2: yet he receives co writing credit on one of the
Speaker 2: most famous songs of the year. How walk us through
Speaker 2: exactly what happened? How did that happen that he ended
Speaker 2: up being known as the guy who wrote it?
Speaker 1: Well, she never met him face to face, but she
Speaker 1: did interact from a crowd.
Speaker 2: I was gonna say, confront him, but I don't know.
Speaker 1: Well she did kind of confront him. Yeah, tim Rose
Speaker 1: had been in a folk group with Mama Cass. They
Speaker 1: were called the Big Three. And after Mama Cass floated
Speaker 1: around and then ended up in The Mamas and the Papas.
Speaker 1: Tim Rose put together a group called the Thorns and
Speaker 1: they were a folk group and they were actually touring
Speaker 1: Canada in sixty five when Neil Young saw them. Neil
Speaker 1: Young and his band the Squires, were playing in thunder Bay,
Speaker 1: which at the time was Fort William and Neil met
Speaker 1: Tim Rose then and the Thorns, and he thought that
Speaker 1: they were with the good folk act. He then got
Speaker 1: a solo contract to record an album maybe with Columbia,
Speaker 1: and David Robinson was the things. Rubinson was the guy
Speaker 1: assigned to produce it, and it's Tim that brought the
Speaker 1: song to the recording sessions. As David said, I'd never
Speaker 1: heard this song before Tim brought it in and they
Speaker 1: worked together on the arrangement for it. So David knew
Speaker 1: nothing of the history of it. But when Bonnie wrote
Speaker 1: the song, she knew nothing about song publishing, so she
Speaker 1: didn't establish a copyright on that song. She made the
Speaker 1: mistake of having Broadside Magazine, which was like a mimeographed
Speaker 1: folk music newspaper, you know, handed out in the village
Speaker 1: at folk clubs. She allowed them to print it. The
Speaker 1: music someone transcribed it. She can't read music and the
Speaker 1: lyrics before she copyrighted the song, so she left that
Speaker 1: door open.
Speaker 2: And then she didn't have management at the time, you know, and.
Speaker 1: She knew nothing. She didn't have any financial advice or anything.
Speaker 1: Remember she did traditional folk music, so she didn't know
Speaker 1: anything about the publishing your own songs, and you know.
Speaker 1: Then Fred Neil then recorded it in sixty four. And
Speaker 1: when Fred Neil was going to recorded, Jack Holtsman, who
Speaker 1: owned Electra Records, phoned out Bonnie and said, uh, friend's
Speaker 1: going to play record the song up. Bonnie knew Fred
Speaker 1: from the village, and Jack Holtsman said, friends can record
Speaker 1: the song. Who publishes it? She said, I don't have
Speaker 1: it published with anybody, and so he said, okay, then
Speaker 1: we'll publish it under our old elector's own publishing company
Speaker 1: called Nina Music. And Nina was was Jack Holtzman's wife.
Speaker 1: But at that point it had already been made public
Speaker 1: on broadside.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: So it's obvious that Tim Rose heard the Fred Neil
Speaker 1: version because he sings the walk Me Out in the
Speaker 1: Morning do line not take me for a walk in
Speaker 1: the morning do. And Fred was the first to do that,
Speaker 1: so he heard that version, but he didn't look at
Speaker 1: the credit because Fred Neil credited it to Bonnie Dobson.
Speaker 1: But this whole issue of between sixty one or so
Speaker 1: or sixty two and sixty four, when Fred Neil did it,
Speaker 1: the copyright was nebulous. It wasn't published at all, and
Speaker 1: so tim Rose was smart enough regular to realize, there's
Speaker 1: a loophole here, and I changed a line in this song,
Speaker 1: and I changed a bit of the arrangement, so I'm
Speaker 1: going to claim co credit. And Barney didn't even know
Speaker 1: about that, you know, for several years later when she
Speaker 1: started seeing the song being covered by other artists and
Speaker 1: seeing this other guy's name, someone she didn't even know.
Speaker 1: She had no idea who tim Rose was. And by
Speaker 1: that point he had published it as tim Rose with
Speaker 1: another publishing company. So you've got these two publishing companies
Speaker 1: with this song. But before that song was ever published,
Speaker 1: she had made it public. So she left herself open
Speaker 1: for that, and she certainly admits her naivety cost her
Speaker 1: in the end, but that started the battle of her
Speaker 1: trying to regain control of that song. And as you
Speaker 1: and I know, on the Truth album, Jeff Beck, it
Speaker 1: just said tim Rose. Even the liner notes, I remember
Speaker 1: it's Jeff says, but we know Timmy does this better.
Speaker 1: But we think we do pretty good too. You know,
Speaker 1: there was no bond, and as more and more covers,
Speaker 1: you know, came up, more and more, you'd see tim
Speaker 1: Rose's name, and then you started to see just tim
Speaker 1: Rose and that you know, I would probably venture to
Speaker 1: say that close to half or more of the cover
Speaker 1: versions that we've been talking about credited just to tim Rose.
Speaker 2: Well there's a story behind him. And hey, Joe, I
Speaker 2: mean that's the version Jimmy Hendricks heard and said, hey,
Speaker 2: I want to record that. It's a very similar story,
Speaker 2: isn't it.
Speaker 1: It is? But he got shut down quickly on that,
Speaker 1: and he probably got shut down by publishers of of
Speaker 1: the song.
Speaker 2: And then Roberts wrote that, yeah, yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1: And there was another song too, and I can't remember that,
Speaker 1: something about come to Me Belinda or something like that.
Speaker 1: He also tried to claim credit on that one too,
Speaker 1: So he was he was fast and loose with copyright laws,
Speaker 1: and he knew what he was doing, but he as
Speaker 1: as more and more people covered the song and claimed
Speaker 1: it for him. You know, there was a big ad
Speaker 1: in actually the ad for Lulu's Song in nineteen sixty
Speaker 1: seven and one of the British you know, new Musical
Speaker 1: Express or Melody Maker full page ad that said Tim
Speaker 1: Roses recording Tim Roses Morning Dew. And increasingly, and as
Speaker 1: I said, probably more than half of the artists that
Speaker 1: covered the song over the decades saw it as a
Speaker 1: tim Rose song and saw it credited as a tim
Speaker 1: Row song and credited himself to Tim Rose. So he
Speaker 1: was getting half the royalties on that song because he
Speaker 1: claimed as a songwriter. So it was the fact that
Speaker 1: I mean, because I mean they were getting they were
Speaker 1: Bonnie was still getting royalties, but she wasn't getting her
Speaker 1: full royalties because it's her song. She was giving half
Speaker 1: the royalties to some guy she never met, who did
Speaker 1: not write the song. So it was really a battle
Speaker 1: for a number of years to get that settled, and
Speaker 1: she finally really within the last ten years or so,
Speaker 1: found a lawyer, a copyright lawyer in London who took
Speaker 1: on the case and again at the prompting of Robert
Speaker 1: Plant and God it straightened out that tim Rose's name
Speaker 1: does not appear on it anymore. But tim Rose died
Speaker 1: decades ago, and someone in his family and Bonnie doesn't
Speaker 1: know who, and Barnie's lawyer doesn't know who. Someone in
Speaker 1: the tim Rose estate is still getting money off that song,
Speaker 1: but he's not getting.
Speaker 2: Half right seventy she gets Okay, Yeah, you know, I
Speaker 2: wonder about Tim Rose. I mean, was this something in
Speaker 2: his defense? It's it's a fantastic version that he that
Speaker 2: he yes does right, I mean, was this something like
Speaker 2: nefarious you know? Or can we can we speak in
Speaker 2: defense of tim Rows like I don't know? Was it
Speaker 2: just one of those things like, hey, you know, I
Speaker 2: was just smart enough to know let me take publishing
Speaker 2: credit for it. Or should he have said non, no,
Speaker 2: this isn't my song.
Speaker 1: Well he should have, Yes, he should have done that,
Speaker 1: And was he nefarious in some way and said, ah haha,
Speaker 1: I can do this. Yeah. But but tim Rose apologists
Speaker 1: and I have some of them quoted in the book.
Speaker 1: They follow Tim's line and he says, well, I didn't
Speaker 1: know who published it. I didn't know who wrote it.
Speaker 1: I just saw the song somewhere or heard it and
Speaker 1: I just decided to do it. No, if he did
Speaker 1: this with other songs, especially with Hey Joe, you know once,
Speaker 1: you can say if he did it once, well, okay,
Speaker 1: maybe it's an error. Twice three times, it was calculated
Speaker 1: to do that. Got to the point of defending himself
Speaker 1: all the time when asked about the song. Oh no,
Speaker 1: Bonnie and I are friends and we share the copyrights
Speaker 1: on it.
Speaker 2: There's a version on Spotify, not his original version, but
Speaker 2: one that he played live, and I thought it was interesting.
Speaker 2: In the beginning, he says, this is dedicated to Jerry Garcia.
Speaker 2: I don't know if it was recorded right after Jerry passed,
Speaker 2: but it's just funny, like he's not even acknowledging her
Speaker 2: in that recording. He's dedicating it to Jerry Garcia. Wow.
Speaker 1: That leads to the confrontation that she had with him
Speaker 1: in at the half Moon or something club in Putney
Speaker 1: in London where Big Ads Tim Rose famous for Morningdoe
Speaker 1: playing at this such a club, and she went with
Speaker 1: some of her friends and stood at the back. And
Speaker 1: it's interesting too. I didn't know this until I started
Speaker 1: interviewing some people who were there. They said there was
Speaker 1: a German documentary company there and they had cameras, so
Speaker 1: they were filming Tim's show for whatever, and all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, this lady at the back says, stop playing
Speaker 1: my song. You didn't write it, And the cameras all
Speaker 1: swarm over to this red haired, little spark plug of
Speaker 1: a lady and then tips aga money and he said,
Speaker 1: you wouldn't come up here and sing it with me.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't sing this song with you ever. And the
Speaker 1: cameras are going back and forth, two people having a
Speaker 1: fight in public in a crowd. But you know, she's
Speaker 1: she's stepped and she'd had enough. I guess by that,
Speaker 1: especially too when when by that point Tim was well
Speaker 1: into saying it was his song alone. He bought that
Speaker 1: whole I mean, he swallowed the kool aid on that one.
Speaker 2: Hm. Yeah, good for her, she stood up for herself. Yeah,
Speaker 2: she made the decision to leave behind a successful North
Speaker 2: American career and start over in England. Did you come
Speaker 2: away feeling she was running towards something or a new
Speaker 2: life or away from the music industry.
Speaker 1: Came disillusioned with it, nothing with the music industry at all.
Speaker 1: She met a guy she wanted to marry. Okay, her
Speaker 1: second husband, and he was from England and she met
Speaker 1: him in Canada when he was working in Canada, and
Speaker 1: he went back to England and then she fell in
Speaker 1: love and followed her heart. So it wasn't it wasn't
Speaker 1: a case that I just can't do this anymore, because
Speaker 1: she had just released actually a pretty good album just
Speaker 1: called Morning de Bonnie Dobson, and the producer was Jack Richardson,
Speaker 1: who produced you know, Bob Seeger and Poko and he
Speaker 1: meet his fame with the guess who Bay City Rollers,
Speaker 1: on and on. He was a big producer guy, and
Speaker 1: he always liked Bonnie and he wanted to he wanted
Speaker 1: to make her music a little more contemporary, and so
Speaker 1: he got her away from the traditional folk kind of songs.
Speaker 1: And she had been writing and she had a few
Speaker 1: songs that were decent songs, so he encouraged her to right.
Speaker 1: He brought in songs from from other largely Canadian songwriters,
Speaker 1: and the album got good notices, and she then recorded
Speaker 1: another one called Good Morning Rain, which was her own song,
Speaker 1: literally months before she moved to England. And she kind
Speaker 1: of left left Jack Richardson and RCA because both albums
Speaker 1: were on RCAA kind of hanging because when the album
Speaker 1: came out, she wasn't there to promote her to play
Speaker 1: or do concerts or indiviews or whatever she was she
Speaker 1: was over in England. But Bonnie is a very romantic
Speaker 1: person and she follows her heart and that's the decision
Speaker 1: that she made. My heart is more important than my career.
Speaker 1: She was fortunate to kind of kickstart her career early
Speaker 1: on when she got to England. But yeah, it wasn't
Speaker 1: It wasn't in any way motivated by frustration with the
Speaker 1: music business and all of that, because she really wasn't
Speaker 1: fully aware of and she said she didn't become aware
Speaker 1: of it till she moved to England. Of how much
Speaker 1: Morning Dew had been covered and how much tim Rose
Speaker 1: had been, you know, claiming it and talking it up
Speaker 1: as if it's her song. So that really starts to
Speaker 1: happen when she's in England. But but yeah, again, I
Speaker 1: just can't say it any other way. I think she
Speaker 1: was really following her heart.
Speaker 2: Raised the family, Yeah, that's it.
Speaker 1: She had two kids with this her second husband, and
Speaker 1: then they split up. So she was then from about
Speaker 1: seventy two to seventy three onward, raising the kids herself,
Speaker 1: and she would still be gigging. She'd have to go out,
Speaker 1: you know, in some cases, drive all afternoon, play somewhere,
Speaker 1: and drive all night to be back to make the
Speaker 1: kids breakfast in the morning and get them off to school,
Speaker 1: that sort of thing. The BBC was a big help
Speaker 1: for her too. They brought her in often to make recordings,
Speaker 1: and the BBC paid really well for her to do
Speaker 1: that too, So she just managed to carry on and
Speaker 1: go along. She made more albums and developed her songwriting.
Speaker 1: And that's one of the things I'm pleased that I'm
Speaker 1: pleased to myself, but I'm glad I did, was to
Speaker 1: include examples of her songwriting in the book, because I
Speaker 1: suspect there's a lot of people who don't know her
Speaker 1: other than maybe morning do. And she became a very good,
Speaker 1: very good songwriter, and she wrote from experience, She wrote
Speaker 1: from the heart, just make up a song. She had
Speaker 1: to write from experience of things that happened in her life.
Speaker 1: And I wish, and I'd still my wish. I hope
Speaker 1: it happens. But I would love to have seen a
Speaker 1: compilation CD put together of her songs, of her material
Speaker 1: because it's it's really evolved and become fabulous, and you
Speaker 1: get little bits and pieces of it on different albums,
Speaker 1: some some vinyl sms not on CD. That sort of thing.
Speaker 1: Be nice to have put something together that that kind
Speaker 1: of came out around the same time as the book.
Speaker 1: Maybe it might happen, you know, in the new year.
Speaker 1: But I would love to see that happen because she
Speaker 1: deserves to have this material hurt, because she's she's more
Speaker 1: than morning do.
Speaker 2: Thanks so much for checking out the book down Rock podcast.
Speaker 2: If you've just found the podcast, welcome. If you've been listening,
Speaker 2: thank you so much for your support, and make sure
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Speaker 2: at Booked on Rock. Thanks again for listening. Now back
Speaker 2: to the show. Days of Reckoning is another that's a
Speaker 2: great song from ninety six. Now that's she returned to
Speaker 2: the business on her own terms at that point and
Speaker 2: writes and records Days of Reckoning, which is like a
Speaker 2: companion piece to Morning Do. Right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, she worked with Freedom freedoman with Techi who was
Speaker 1: a German musician and he had a studio in Germany.
Speaker 1: They met me in London and he backed her up
Speaker 1: for a while, but she went over and recorded there,
Speaker 1: and yeah, it's a brilliant song, and I think she's
Speaker 1: kind of come to realize how brilliant that song is.
Speaker 1: It's one of my favorites. Good Morning Rain, I've since
Speaker 1: learned from another interview with that I did has been
Speaker 1: downloaded something like two hundred thousand times. She had no
Speaker 1: idea about, you know, Spotify and that kind of music streaming,
Speaker 1: you know, I mean, we know we know that Spotify
Speaker 1: plays you know, a point zero zero eighty four cents
Speaker 1: for every download, but she was just completely unaware of that,
Speaker 1: especially a song like Good Morning Rain wasn't a hit,
Speaker 1: wasn't a single, but obviously it's connected with people who've
Speaker 1: discovered it and spread the word. So again, these serendipitous
Speaker 1: things that happened in her life and who would have.
Speaker 2: Thought good morning rained two million streams.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and an eighty five year old woman, you know,
Speaker 1: experiencing this, this career renaissance, certainly in the last few years.
Speaker 1: I mean, who knows how long it will go on.
Speaker 1: She still sings like a songbird. She sings every song
Speaker 1: in the same key. But that beautiful, soaring soprano voice
Speaker 1: that's still there. It's not like she stopped singing. She
Speaker 1: continues to sing always.
Speaker 2: Hey, how about how about a Robert Plant Bonnie Dobson
Speaker 2: album right like he did with Alison Crouse.
Speaker 1: Oh, I think that he's better off for alison longevity.
Speaker 1: Bonnie is known as rootsy as Robert and Alison listen,
Speaker 1: I mean I wrote Geene Clark's biography and gene Clark's
Speaker 1: two sons, one of which has since passed away. They
Speaker 1: were absolutely thrilled when on that Raising Sand album, which
Speaker 1: was Allison and Robert, they did two gene Clark songs
Speaker 1: and they got to meet at a show. They got
Speaker 1: backstage to be able to meet him, and Robert Plant
Speaker 1: was thrilled to meet gene Clark's sons.
Speaker 2: That's awesome and body considers now the seventy five percent.
Speaker 2: That's her pinchon and after she's gone, the money goes
Speaker 2: to her daughter.
Speaker 1: Yep.
Speaker 2: And the book ends with not her past, but the
Speaker 2: creation of a brand new album. Tell us about that.
Speaker 2: Where Bonnie is at today, eighty five, still going strong, Yeah.
Speaker 1: She is, And she's been doing some gigs lately, back
Speaker 1: with the Hanging Stars. They're kind of a ald country,
Speaker 1: rootsy Americana kind of band. They've been compared to The
Speaker 1: Grateful Dead, they've been compared to the Birds and again serendipitous.
Speaker 1: She had written some songs and she wanted to get
Speaker 1: them recorded with with a band, and she a friend,
Speaker 1: a friend, Ski Williams, took her to see the Hayy
Speaker 1: Stars playing at the Betsy Trotter, which is a fabulous pub.
Speaker 1: I've been there to see music in London and wonderful.
Speaker 1: We're actually going to do a book event there.
Speaker 2: Barney's going to perform.
Speaker 1: And she really liked them and she got to know them,
Speaker 1: and so she did. She she hired them to rehearse
Speaker 1: and to go in the studio. She paid all the
Speaker 1: studio sessions and costs and pay them a salary because
Speaker 1: she wanted these songs recorded not for any not for
Speaker 1: any other purpose but her own. But as it evolved,
Speaker 1: the the connections, the chemistry between them and these guys,
Speaker 1: you know, I mean they're in they're in their early thirties,
Speaker 1: she's in her eighties, but the musical chemistry just just
Speaker 1: was so incredible together that they both realized there's an
Speaker 1: album here, and so that became, you know, the Dreams album,
Speaker 1: which you know, came out two years ago and as
Speaker 1: I said, got great notices everywhere, and it's it gathered
Speaker 1: together some some of the songs she'd written previously, like
Speaker 1: Rainy Windows and Winter's Going. Winter's Going with Jarvis Cocker's
Speaker 1: favorite song, and it's Winter's Going that caused him to
Speaker 1: look up Bonnie to play at this show he was curating,
Speaker 1: called the Lost Ladies of Folk music to come and
Speaker 1: perform for that. So you never know where these songs
Speaker 1: are and how they're they're they're touching people. But Winter's
Speaker 1: Going is a very difficult song for her in that
Speaker 1: it's about the aftermath of her abortion. She never talked
Speaker 1: about the abortion. Even her son, who since passed away,
Speaker 1: and her daughter never knew about it at all until
Speaker 1: she opened up about it. When she was doing the
Speaker 1: book with me, doing interviews and and stuff. So some
Speaker 1: of these songs, some some new songs that she'd written.
Speaker 1: It got a chance to put them together and put
Speaker 1: an album out and it deserved better represent better distribution
Speaker 1: than it got because it's a very very good album.
Speaker 1: So the few thousand people who bought it, you know,
Speaker 1: they know what a treasure it is. And here's you know,
Speaker 1: she may record again with the Hanging Stars. Who knows
Speaker 1: she's been performing live with them again. She's got a
Speaker 1: couple of them who are backing her on some of
Speaker 1: these book events that we're doing in London, including at
Speaker 1: the Betsy Trotter.
Speaker 2: So who else what's going to happen? And one last
Speaker 2: question before I asked that that there's a quote that
Speaker 2: I want to read from Bonnie. She said it was
Speaker 2: never about the money for me. I just wanted recognition
Speaker 2: as the sole writer of that song. So do you
Speaker 2: think that history now has finally corrected the record on
Speaker 2: Bonnie's authorship of Morning Do or is there still work
Speaker 2: to be done to ensure that she receives that recognition
Speaker 2: that she deserves.
Speaker 1: Well, I think she's now legally established that, yes, But
Speaker 1: as for getting the word out, I think the book
Speaker 1: will help because the book is going to be you know,
Speaker 1: distributed worldwide, so it's gonna help with that. But you know,
Speaker 1: all we can do is hope that that that every
Speaker 1: in everybody's minds it's changed. And certainly anybody today who
Speaker 1: wants to go and cover Morning de will see that
Speaker 1: it's just Bonnie Dobson's name on there. So yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: as as I said earlier, the song's going to live
Speaker 1: for it's going to outlive you and I. There's somebody
Speaker 1: thirty years from now who's going to record that song,
Speaker 1: but they will record it and credited to Bonnie Dobson.
Speaker 2: Yes, and the book is a huge help to that
Speaker 2: and artists who are going to perform it live. Just
Speaker 2: make sure you mentioned that it was written by Bonnie Dobson.
Speaker 1: Right Fiery Lady in red hair at the back yelling end.
Speaker 2: Might there find the bookdown Rock website at bookdown Rock
Speaker 2: dot com. There you can find all the back episodes
Speaker 2: of the show, the latest episode in and audio links
Speaker 2: to all of the platforms where you can listen to
Speaker 2: the podcast. Plus all the social media platforms were on
Speaker 2: Blue Sky, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and x. Also check out
Speaker 2: the Booked on Rock blog. Find your local independent bookstore.
Speaker 2: Find out all the latest hot rockbook releases. And before
Speaker 2: you go, check out the booked on Rock online store.
Speaker 2: Pick up some booked on Rock merch. It's all at
Speaker 2: booked on Rock dot com. The book's out September tenth, right, okay,
Speaker 2: but people can preorder it now, take me for a
Speaker 2: walk in the morning. Do September ten release date, but
Speaker 2: you can pre order now through Amazon. You can also
Speaker 2: go to jobble onpress dot com. There's a signed copy
Speaker 2: available from rough Trade as well. Is that still?
Speaker 1: Oh? Well, well, I'm going to England at the start
Speaker 1: of September. Bonnie and I will be will be signing
Speaker 1: tons of books okay or for distribution but also for
Speaker 1: sale to the events.
Speaker 2: And Roughtrade dot com people can go to yep.
Speaker 1: Yes, obviously won't have the books until September the tenth.
Speaker 1: By then I'll already be there and we'll signed tons
Speaker 1: of books, all right?
Speaker 2: And John, where can people find you and also your
Speaker 2: other books? Is Amazon? The best place? Do you have
Speaker 2: a website? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Amazon is there and they have I mean some of
Speaker 1: my books are ound of print, because it's been like
Speaker 1: thirty years. But what amazes me is the Gene Clark
Speaker 1: book is still in print. My Desperado is the Roots
Speaker 1: of Country Rock book still in print. My Buffalo Springfield
Speaker 1: books still in print. And these books go back like
Speaker 1: thirty years. I have a Facebook site where I talk
Speaker 1: about music history every day. It's called John Anderson Remembers, Okay,
Speaker 1: and it's open anybody can come.
Speaker 2: But also on Amazon, is your Neil Young book still there?
Speaker 2: You have a Neil Young book?
Speaker 1: Yes, okay, it's it's called Neil Young Don't be Denied
Speaker 1: the Canadian Years, and it's all about his time in Winnipeg.
Speaker 1: I mean, you've got to start here and then in
Speaker 1: thunder Bay and in Toronto, and then when it kind
Speaker 1: of ends when he heads off to California. But it's
Speaker 1: I remember saying to Neil, I said, you know, now,
Speaker 1: how come there's never been anything written about your early years,
Speaker 1: you know, in Winnipeg. And he said, because no one's
Speaker 1: ever asked me. He said, well, I'm asking. And he
Speaker 1: invited me down to his ranch and we spent some
Speaker 1: great deal of time just sitting around, and I had
Speaker 1: him just in stitches, remembering some of these stories and
Speaker 1: things about him. You know, it's funny. No one ever
Speaker 1: thought he would make it. I mean, yeah, you talk
Speaker 1: to people that he's Oh I knew he was going
Speaker 1: to be big.
Speaker 2: No, you didn't.
Speaker 1: No one ever thought he was going to make He
Speaker 1: had a weird voice, thin and really kind of a voice.
Speaker 1: He was kind of an awkward looking guy. But he
Speaker 1: stuck to it. I mean, he really followed that dream.
Speaker 1: And he said to me, you know, I had to
Speaker 1: leave a lot of friends behind because I was so
Speaker 1: focused on music. That's the only thing that mattered, you know.
Speaker 1: And if you weren't supporting of what I'm doing, or
Speaker 1: if you didn't want to do what I want to do,
Speaker 1: well I'd leave you behind. And that really is what
Speaker 1: his career is all about. Since playing in his first
Speaker 1: Band's in Winnipeg in nineteen sixty one, Neil has always
Speaker 1: been the boss. Yes, it's his way or the highway.
Speaker 1: And you know, when he's been in like Christby Stills,
Speaker 1: the Ash, he's in, he's out, he's in, he's out,
Speaker 1: Buffalo Springfield, he quit three times because he wanted to
Speaker 1: be the boss. I also wrote the biography of the
Speaker 1: Buffalo Springfield too, and I wrote it with Richie Fray,
Speaker 1: who was you know, he was kind of the in
Speaker 1: the middle between Stills and young people.
Speaker 2: Go to Amazon dot com. I'll put a link to
Speaker 2: your Amazon page so people can check out all of
Speaker 2: the books that you got there. John Inerson, thank you
Speaker 2: so much, man. This is awesome to have you on.
Speaker 2: I have a feeling I'm going to have you back
Speaker 2: on again. You've got quite a few books here. I'd
Speaker 2: love to talk about.
Speaker 1: Eric. This was a treat because it's always lovely to
Speaker 1: talk to someone who knows what they're talking about.
Speaker 2: And loves loves the topic. Because you were saying you
Speaker 2: weren't sure if this was something that you know, I'd
Speaker 2: be interested. I'm like, are you kidding me? I love this?
Speaker 2: This is this is right down my alley.
Speaker 1: Man, I've got you here. This this this book here.
Speaker 1: I know if it's showing it backwards. And this book
Speaker 1: came out here. It's called From Barnaby Wild to Dased
Speaker 1: and Confused Rock Music Revolution of nineteen sixty eight. The
Speaker 1: premise of the book is why did rock change in
Speaker 1: sixty eight to a harder rock sound? And that harder
Speaker 1: rock sound would become the basis of what today we
Speaker 1: call classic rock, and how did that happen from psychedelic
Speaker 1: music before it, and who are the driving forces of
Speaker 1: creating this hard rock sound that we know today's classic rock.
Speaker 1: That's that's I've been still there.
Speaker 2: Cool, Thanks so much, John, my pleasure, take care.
Speaker 1: That's it. It's in the books.