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Speaker 1: Oh my godness, it's Frank Being Frank, where the only
Speaker 1: way to be is Frank. Hello everyone, and welcome to
Speaker 1: Being Frank. We're the only way to be is Frank.
Speaker 1: I'm your host, Frank Leborono, and I'd like to thank
Speaker 1: you for joining us on what we like to call
Speaker 1: the Intelligent Conversation Podcast, where no conversations out of bounds
Speaker 1: at all points of view are welcome. As you know,
Speaker 1: we go live to tape, we record live to tape,
Speaker 1: and it's our first show of twenty twenty five. It's
Speaker 1: the new year. I hope everybody had a wonderful, happy
Speaker 1: and safe new year. It is the third of January,
Speaker 1: and we got a fabulous program for you coming up
Speaker 1: by virtually all measures. The new film A Complete Unknown
Speaker 1: has been both a critical and commercial smash hit. The
Speaker 1: so called biopic portrays the nineteen sixty one arrival of
Speaker 1: a young Bob Dylan on the emerging folk scene in
Speaker 1: the cradle of where it All happened, Greenwich Village. The
Speaker 1: film culminates with Dylan's legendary and incendiary performance at the
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty five Newport Folk Festival is directed by James
Speaker 1: Mangold and stars among an outstanding cast Timothy Chalomet as
Speaker 1: Dylan and Edward Norton as one of his mentors, Peter Seeger.
Speaker 1: Both actors' performances are being considered oscar worthy. If there
Speaker 1: has been any legitimate criticism at all, it comes from
Speaker 1: the fact that the film takes creative liberties with certain
Speaker 1: characters and events, as well as omitting other important ones.
Speaker 1: But people must keep in mind a complete and known
Speaker 1: is a dramatic film, not a documentary. Accounting for time
Speaker 1: and dramatic effect, this is bound to happen. However, the
Speaker 1: film can still force a debate as to what really
Speaker 1: happened and perhaps why, and who better than to pose
Speaker 1: those questions to than a woman who was there from
Speaker 1: the very beginning and wrote the book on the time
Speaker 1: and place where it all happened. Literally in nineteen sixty one,
Speaker 1: she became Dylan's first manager, and despite her not being
Speaker 1: featured in the film, along with her husband, the folk
Speaker 1: singer Dave van Ron, played a significant role in Dylan's career.
Speaker 1: Her book is My Greenwich Village, Dave, Bob and Me,
Speaker 1: Please welcome back to being Frank the author of that book,
Speaker 1: Terry Thal Terry, thank you for taking the time.
Speaker 2: Thank you, it's all such fun to be here.
Speaker 1: Thank you. I really appreciate it. I know you're very
Speaker 1: busy with the release of this very very successful movie,
Speaker 1: and I know you've seen it now at this point
Speaker 1: and twice. So let's start broadly and then we'll get
Speaker 1: a little bit more specific. What were your thoughts on
Speaker 1: the movie? First, and I guess easiest. Did you like
Speaker 1: it and what did you like about it?
Speaker 2: Well, to my surprise, I liked the movie. And it
Speaker 2: is to my surprise because I thought I would not
Speaker 2: like it at all, to think literally, not metaphorically. And
Speaker 2: I knew it wasn't an attempt to be an accurate biography.
Speaker 2: But it's a biopic which dramatizes somebody's life rather than
Speaker 2: tells us a story of that life. But I don't
Speaker 2: usually react lots of that kind of thing. One of
Speaker 2: the people I saw with, a woman named Lauren Miller,
Speaker 2: who's a writer and editor who lives in Los Angeles,
Speaker 2: pointed out that the movie uses the structure of the arc,
Speaker 2: which has a start that poses an issue takes it
Speaker 2: on an adventure and ends with a resolution. So I
Speaker 2: will get to that and how the various elements of
Speaker 2: the arc or the arcs affected me in a few minutes.
Speaker 2: But as I said, to my surprise, I liked it.
Speaker 2: It sets pop up as a rather sympathetic person immediately
Speaker 2: in its first ten minutes, because it takes him to
Speaker 2: visit his hero, Woody Guthrie, who is a labor hero
Speaker 2: folk singer songwriter who is dying over a long period
Speaker 2: of time of Huntington Huntington's disease, which is a dreadful, dreadful.
Speaker 1: Wasting, wasting disease. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I had a friend who died of it. It's
Speaker 2: like awful. At the hospital, Bob also meets Pete Seeger,
Speaker 2: who is the hero of the folk musical world, and
Speaker 2: Peter is struck by the young man's intensity and his
Speaker 2: interests in folk music, and he's sort of a top spot.
Speaker 2: And this is one of the major arcs of the movie.
Speaker 2: Will Bob remain within the folk music community and it's
Speaker 2: limited musical and commercial outreach, But they grabb you in
Speaker 2: the first ten minutes. I mean, he walks in and
Speaker 2: he meets Woody, and he meets Pete and Peter's impressed
Speaker 2: with him, and of course Bob is awestruck by meeting
Speaker 2: Woody who can barely speak. But what he listens to
Speaker 2: Bob he has consist same one song Bob does modestly,
Speaker 2: maybe the last modest thing he did, but he does
Speaker 2: it honestly, and you're hooked. There you go.
Speaker 1: Then, obviously he continues over the course of the next
Speaker 1: four years as he develops as an artist, a person.
Speaker 1: And he was young. He was only nineteen, I believe
Speaker 1: when he came so really kid, when you think about
Speaker 1: it in the final analysis, really nineteen was a bit older,
Speaker 1: a little bit older, but job as.
Speaker 2: A year younger than me. And in sixty I was
Speaker 2: born in thirty nine, So in sixty of course stuff.
Speaker 1: Sorry, I don't do the mathods.
Speaker 2: I can't do arithmetics.
Speaker 1: We did, we get the relevance. It had no better
Speaker 1: to talk to than someone who actually, yeah, well, let's
Speaker 1: get back to it Dad. So, and we've had discussions
Speaker 1: leading up to today and everything, and one of the
Speaker 1: things is what did that Let's start first, of course,
Speaker 1: what did they get right? And then it we'll talk
Speaker 1: about what they got wrong. But first you mentioned why
Speaker 1: you liked it what within the film and again not
Speaker 1: being a documentary, but overall in essence, what did they
Speaker 1: get right?
Speaker 2: What did they get right? Yes, it's not the trajectory
Speaker 2: of what happened right. Bob came as a Woody Guthrie
Speaker 2: folk music officionado, old timey folk music, music that had
Speaker 2: been passed down in the mountains, in the hills, whatever,
Speaker 2: stuff that had been written by labor leader, by labor people.
Speaker 2: I mean there was you know, folk music. There's a
Speaker 2: whole mix of things. And uh, that's what he came.
Speaker 2: That's what he ostensibly and I think in reality at
Speaker 2: that time incidentally came to be part of He became
Speaker 2: part of that world. He stayed within that world, he
Speaker 2: grew to become a leader in that world, and eventually
Speaker 2: he moved into another one. And there are a couple
Speaker 2: of other arcs in that movie. One of them is
Speaker 2: pretty much correct. It was how and why did he
Speaker 2: move out of it? What got him? What got him
Speaker 2: to leave? What pulled him out of it? What? How
Speaker 2: did he How did why did he get why did
Speaker 2: he leave it? Was it a struggle to get out
Speaker 2: of it? Where did he go? How did he? How
Speaker 2: did he do it? That part is over the overall
Speaker 2: part of that is accurate. So I mean that's you know,
Speaker 2: that's I mean that that's the overall, basic, fundamental, straight
Speaker 2: line Bob doing story, and that piece of it is
Speaker 2: very good. The other piece of it that's very very
Speaker 2: good is the music.
Speaker 1: Yes, I enjoyed it.
Speaker 2: I think I didn't think, you know, I read. I
Speaker 2: have probably read sixty reviews of the movie.
Speaker 1: At least I know.
Speaker 2: My friends on Facebook. I'd say ninety percent of them
Speaker 2: are in the focus work and.
Speaker 1: They're sending you all the articles up. Sure.
Speaker 2: Yeah, everybody's posted reviews and I see their views there.
Speaker 2: It's a common thing. A lot of people know a
Speaker 2: lot more than I do, incidentally about you know, the
Speaker 2: story of what happened later. But the music, everybody said
Speaker 2: the music's very good, And I thought the music is
Speaker 2: very good, Timothy Fallon, it did a wonderful job learning,
Speaker 2: you know, learning all this. The woman who plays Joan
Speaker 2: Bias is wonderful.
Speaker 1: They're singing it and they're not dubbed. That's actually their performances.
Speaker 1: From my understanding is it's actually them performing. And often
Speaker 1: from my angle, the director, if I might interject here
Speaker 1: that they did both a studio version so they could
Speaker 1: get a more higher quality sound, but you prefer to
Speaker 1: actually use their live performances while they were actually filming,
Speaker 1: because they captured that energy and the realism of it.
Speaker 1: So that, yeah, that was an important part.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so those pieces of it, fundamentally, I think were.
Speaker 1: We're correct now, so let's flip that coin. You know,
Speaker 1: they got some things wrong, even within the creative allowance
Speaker 1: of as I said, it's not a documentary, but still
Speaker 1: within that there were certain certain aspects of it that
Speaker 1: you feel were wrong in a way that could have
Speaker 1: easily been corrected, and you thought, we're really not accurate
Speaker 1: to the point of concern.
Speaker 2: Well, the things that bothered me, I mean, you know,
Speaker 2: it's one thing to say, oh I read about so
Speaker 2: and so, and he was different from the way he
Speaker 2: was characterized, or things happened differently. I've read books and
Speaker 2: things happen differently. I'm talking about my friends. I'm talking
Speaker 2: about my first husband, and while we broke up after
Speaker 2: eleven years together, we said very good friends for the
Speaker 2: until he died.
Speaker 1: Let's day Van Ronk.
Speaker 2: Let's just to qualify I also managed, Yes, I'm talking
Speaker 2: about people I know and people I knew and my life,
Speaker 2: I mean, I was part of I was part of
Speaker 2: that world, So there were things about it that bother me.
Speaker 2: I'm talking about Susie, Susie, Bob's first girlfriend, who was
Speaker 2: one of my closest friends until she died.
Speaker 1: By Hell Fanning, I believe in the film does a
Speaker 1: fabulous job as well too.
Speaker 2: Yes, he does a very very good dog uh incorrectly
Speaker 2: playing but following the you know the route that she.
Speaker 1: Was told she was given, right, I hear, yep.
Speaker 2: Yep, playing somebody. So some of those things bothered me
Speaker 2: very much, some of them.
Speaker 1: Let's get to a little detail there, Terry, if I
Speaker 1: might as Susie Weatler, we're talking about his girlfriend, and again,
Speaker 1: even though it was well played, you felt the characterization
Speaker 1: was not fair, that she was much more of a
Speaker 1: person than that kind of this dull eyed, sad person
Speaker 1: who hung on every move that Dylan made. That was
Speaker 1: not accurate in your eyes.
Speaker 2: Right, let me back up and start with Dave, because
Speaker 2: my criticism there is Shortervid David Mine met Balgain two
Speaker 2: days above sitting New York. We became very good friends.
Speaker 2: He hung out in our house, he slept on our couch.
Speaker 2: We like him interminably on Marxism, as I write about
Speaker 2: my book. We played records for him. Dave introduced him
Speaker 2: to certain poetry. We spent a lot of time together.
Speaker 2: We played nicol poker, Henny Anti excuse me. Bob was
Speaker 2: very cheap or very poor or both together almost every day.
Speaker 2: You know, we spent a lot of time together. We
Speaker 2: were good friends. When he met Susie, we all became
Speaker 2: good friends. And Dave was among the many people who
Speaker 2: mentored who mentored Bob, and I think he was I
Speaker 2: think he could legitimately say he was probably one of
Speaker 2: the most two or three most influenzal And he was
Speaker 2: a kind of leading musician in the village. He didn't
Speaker 2: become famous, but he was a leading musician in the village.
Speaker 2: I became Bob's manager and had certain influence on him.
Speaker 2: But letting, you know, leaving me as Eifman, just talking
Speaker 2: about about Dave. The whoever made the movie chose to
Speaker 2: have a certain limited number of people portrayed in the
Speaker 2: movie for whatever reason. I mean, they couldn't have everybody
Speaker 2: who was in his world selected. They you know, they
Speaker 2: selected fairly well known people to be in the movie,
Speaker 2: they did not select the Dave, except that they have
Speaker 2: one little scene with David. Bob Hits Town, Hits New York.
Speaker 2: He walks into a coffee house in the village and
Speaker 2: some guy walks up to him and he says one
Speaker 2: of them Bobs does something about where can you find Woody,
Speaker 2: and this guy who was obviously Dave, tells him that
Speaker 2: Woody's in gray Stone, which is at a hospital in
Speaker 2: New Jersey, and he could go there to me, and
Speaker 2: that's it. You niver see Bobby Universitee Dave.
Speaker 1: Again, and he's never really even identified as Dave and wrong,
Speaker 1: it's just credits at the end to find out who
Speaker 1: that guy is.
Speaker 2: The first time I saw the movie, it went right
Speaker 2: by me. I didn't I I had no idea that
Speaker 2: that was David. People had told me that Dave did that,
Speaker 2: but I didn't even notice, you know, it just sort
Speaker 2: of came and went. I find that kind of insulting
Speaker 2: to me because of the way the movie runs. I
Speaker 2: find putting David at that point in that way saying Hi, Bob,
Speaker 2: welcome to Woody. Go through Land. Bob comes to Woody,
Speaker 2: gous three land, He comes to the village. He comes
Speaker 2: to folk music, Bob says, hight here is we're gonna
Speaker 2: hear your God. And Bob goes and he meets his God,
Speaker 2: and eventually he works his way out of that scene
Speaker 2: and into another one and leaves it, leaving all the
Speaker 2: people in it, including Dave, who's never seen again behind.
Speaker 2: They do not show Dave showing Bob anything being shown
Speaker 2: anything bye Bob, having any kind of interaction with Bob.
Speaker 2: It's Hi Bob, There's Woody over and out and it's like, okay,
Speaker 2: Van Bronk welcomes Dylan to folk music World. Eventually Dylan
Speaker 2: leaves Folk Music World, walks out on Dylan, or walks
Speaker 2: out on Van Ronk. Goodbye Van Ronk, You're left behind.
Speaker 2: I think it was bloody insulting. I don't know if
Speaker 2: it was meant that way, maybe not, but it was.
Speaker 2: That's my take on it.
Speaker 1: Oh No, And I know you want to cover a
Speaker 1: little bit of the relationship with the two women.
Speaker 2: The relationship to the women. One of the big arts
Speaker 2: in the movie is the so called triangle. The so
Speaker 2: called triangle Bob Susie Joan Buyers, that's a made up
Speaker 2: triangle that really wasn't there. Bob and Susie met shortly
Speaker 2: after Bob came to the village. They were together for
Speaker 2: several years. He met Joan maybe toward the end of
Speaker 2: his relationship with Susie, but it was not a triangle.
Speaker 2: Susie was seventeen when she met Bob. She turned eighteen
Speaker 2: a few months later. She lived with her mother, who's
Speaker 2: been a member of the Communist Party, and her stepfather,
Speaker 2: who liked my parents, and like my parents, they were
Speaker 2: not very thrilled about their daughter falling in love with
Speaker 2: a ruffy, would be folks singer. They saw a very
Speaker 2: iffy financial future in that, and Bob and Susie started
Speaker 2: to live together in sixty two. One of the things
Speaker 2: the movie shows is a trip to Italy. Susie going
Speaker 2: on a trip to Italy. It's shown as a twelfth
Speaker 2: week school trip. It wasn't twelve weeks. It was several months.
Speaker 2: I forget how many six may be. And it wasn't
Speaker 2: a school trip. It was Susie's mother offering Susie a bribe.
Speaker 2: I want to get you away from this guy, and
Speaker 2: this is the way I'm going to do it. Here
Speaker 2: is an opportunity to go to art school. Because Susie
Speaker 2: was an artist. We will send you to art school
Speaker 2: in Italy, which is like kind of top notch. And
Speaker 2: in the back of in the back of the whole
Speaker 2: thing was Susie's mother and her stepfather hoping that Susie
Speaker 2: would never come back to Bob. Come back to the
Speaker 2: United States, yes, but not to Bob. They wanted it
Speaker 2: to become a permanent separation. Susie went nuts, Should I go,
Speaker 2: Should I not go? Should I go? Should I not go?
Speaker 2: I know, we had long talks about it. I kept saying,
Speaker 2: you know, maybe he won't come back, maybe he will
Speaker 2: not wait for you. It's it's iffy. And Bob was
Speaker 2: pissed because he wanted you to say don't go, which
Speaker 2: I couldn't do. I mean, you know, I couldn't. So
Speaker 2: that was you know, that was one whole mischaracterization in
Speaker 2: the movie. However, during that time, Bob was not seeing Joan,
Speaker 2: He wasn't seeing anybody. Incidentally, I don't believe because we
Speaker 2: saw a lot of him during that time. Was no
Speaker 2: other woman. N and Bias did not come dashing down
Speaker 2: from Cambridge to hop into bed with Bob Dylan when
Speaker 2: his putative girlfriend was away Susie. The Susie character is
Speaker 2: portrayed as a soppy young lady with nothing on her
Speaker 2: brain but Bob Dylan. She It is a typical, typical
Speaker 2: portrayal of a teenage girl by men portrayed by men.
Speaker 2: It just like any Hollywood movie, no different. Susie was
Speaker 2: active in core when she was in Bob. With Bob,
Speaker 2: I think her concern with civil rights affected his songwriting,
Speaker 2: and I think it led to some of his more
Speaker 2: politically oriented songs. Susie introduced him to author Rimbau, who
Speaker 2: was an early symbolist poet who used odd rhymes and
Speaker 2: apparently disorganized structure to create poetry. She introduced him to
Speaker 2: bertol Brett songwriting. She herself created art. I show a
Speaker 2: photograph of a small piece of book art that she
Speaker 2: made in nineteen ninety three in my book Bob My
Speaker 2: Grantwich Village. She wasn't yet making book art when she
Speaker 2: was with Bob, but she was making art, and she
Speaker 2: was using found objects to make interesting jewelry. She had
Speaker 2: a life. She wasn't soppy. She didn't stand around and
Speaker 2: cry and mourn when Bob was busy. And the triangle
Speaker 2: between her and Bob and Joan didn't exist. It was
Speaker 2: created to be part of that arc of tension that
Speaker 2: I talk about. Joan was a Cambridge folk singer, a
Speaker 2: Boston folk singer. She wasn't in New York very much
Speaker 2: at all. She and Bob not having a romance when
Speaker 2: he and Susie were together. And it's insulting to Joan
Speaker 2: as well as Susie to suggest that Joan came down
Speaker 2: and bounced into bed with Bob whenever Susie was away.
Speaker 2: Should I stop or can I go on? This is
Speaker 2: highlighted in a scene that both is good and that
Speaker 2: bothers me for the most part, and I went back.
Speaker 2: The reason I went to see the movie a second
Speaker 2: time was to see if I was correct about the
Speaker 2: way I remember this, and I was. The movie, for
Speaker 2: the most part, doesn't show very much representing the huge
Speaker 2: political conflict that was going on at that time, and
Speaker 2: it was a conflict, especially especially among young people in
Speaker 2: the United States at that time, and it was a
Speaker 2: conflict that really became a major force in catapulting book
Speaker 2: to fame. It affected his songwriting. I mean, Bob eventually
Speaker 2: stopped writing political stuff, but he never stopped writing socially
Speaker 2: conscious stuff. To day, he writes socially conscious stuff if
Speaker 2: you read it, if you look at his stuff, and
Speaker 2: back then he was his songs were even more explicit.
Speaker 2: The nuclear bomb, the civil rights struggle, the war of
Speaker 2: the Vietnam these simply aren't really in the movie except
Speaker 2: in one scene, but these are among the forces that
Speaker 2: brought people to the village. One scene is devoted to this,
Speaker 2: and while it's really very good to me because I
Speaker 2: was there, it's clearly in their show and Tell. It's
Speaker 2: sort of like, oh, yeah, we're going to give you
Speaker 2: a bit of background on what the music was all about,
Speaker 2: and it's the scene. It's the scenes about the Cuban
Speaker 2: Middle Missile crisis, which incidentally were very well done, so
Speaker 2: you know, there is a good part about them. And
Speaker 2: then to my perspective, it's that they were showing toll
Speaker 2: and there was they were used to create something about
Speaker 2: Bob and Susie and Joan that I think was not
Speaker 2: well done. Those scenes clearly show the fear that everybody had.
Speaker 2: People frantically trying to reach drillers, people trying to hail
Speaker 2: cabs and not able to get them, people calling family members,
Speaker 2: just in case they wouldn't be there tomorrow. People. I mean,
Speaker 2: I had an analysis. I was a left winger, as
Speaker 2: you know, and my Marxist analysis told me that all
Speaker 2: of this nothing was going to bed, was going to happen.
Speaker 2: I knew that the whole thing was going to be solved.
Speaker 2: Still in all, I picked up the phone that night
Speaker 2: and I called my parents, just in case. Millions of
Speaker 2: people are doing that kind of thing. So in that
Speaker 2: and in the movie, Bob is working at the gas
Speaker 2: light and a small terrified group of people are riveted
Speaker 2: to him. Meanwhile, with Susie away, Joan, who is as
Speaker 2: scared as anybody else, acts a suitcase, rushes to the village,
Speaker 2: can't get a taxi cab, walks to the gas flight
Speaker 2: from wherever, and she and Bob go to his and
Speaker 2: Susie's apartment with a tumble into bed. I got to
Speaker 2: tell you something, It was well done. But Dave was
Speaker 2: working at the gas light that night. I don't know
Speaker 2: where the hell Bob was, but he sure as hell
Speaker 2: wasn't in the gaslight because David was working there. And
Speaker 2: the scene in the gas light of a small group
Speaker 2: of people riveted to Bob is exactly what it looked like.
Speaker 2: A small group of people rivet it to David. Bob
Speaker 2: weren't there because I said, I have no idea where
Speaker 2: he was in someplace Bias wasn't there. I'm sure she
Speaker 2: was in Cambridge. I'm sure she was not in Dylan,
Speaker 2: in Dylan in Susie's bed. I don't know, but I
Speaker 2: would put my money on it. It was, you know,
Speaker 2: I mean it was. It's an interesting thing to do.
Speaker 2: And nobody but me and the people who Dave and
Speaker 2: I took to Sam Wos, which was I'll go to
Speaker 2: play in Chinatown after he did his set, and who
Speaker 2: came back to our apartment none of us would, nobody
Speaker 2: else would know. But that's that's the way it was.
Speaker 2: And I have always remembered that night. I don't even
Speaker 2: remember who came back to my apartment.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well that's that's. Thank you so much for sharing
Speaker 1: it with us, Terry. I want to go to your
Speaker 1: book for a moment and read something. It's about your first,
Speaker 1: uh not direct encounter, but your first exposure if you will,
Speaker 1: to Dylan when when your your husband at the time,
Speaker 1: Dave Van Ronk saw him for the first time.
Speaker 2: Am I taking too long to answer, not at all.
Speaker 1: This is about you people here, but you have to
Speaker 1: say Terry, not me, So please feel free to continue.
Speaker 1: I think it's fascinating, and I believe our listeners will
Speaker 1: as well. But you start chapter nine and it's titled
Speaker 1: Dylan Friend and Client, which he became certainly both a
Speaker 1: friend and a client. But if I want to, if
Speaker 1: I might, I want to read a small clip and
Speaker 1: then get your.
Speaker 2: Thoughts on I don't have.
Speaker 1: One night in nineteen sixty when Dave was out without me,
Speaker 1: he came home and said, I just heard this kid
Speaker 1: who's a friggin genius. We've got to hear him. Within
Speaker 1: a few days, I made a point of going to
Speaker 1: a basket house where I was sure Bob Dylan would
Speaker 1: play a few songs for no pay, just to be heard.
Speaker 1: He played, and I agreed with Dave. Bob was neither
Speaker 1: a great guitarist nor a great singer. His voice was
Speaker 1: rough and had a distinctive, disconcerting way of emphasizing odd syllables.
Speaker 1: He stumbled about on stage with and one leg twitched.
Speaker 1: Dave and I thought he had brilliantly absorbed the way
Speaker 1: Charlie Chaplin had moved and that his music was effective.
Speaker 1: That was before Bob started to write songs. At that
Speaker 1: early time, he mostly emulated Woody Guthrie. When you finally
Speaker 1: met him, did his personality conform to his performing genius?
Speaker 1: When you met him, did you see that there was
Speaker 1: something there that extra? I mean, some people talk about
Speaker 1: maybe so they call it star quality or an aura.
Speaker 1: Did you did you feel that not only when he
Speaker 1: was performing, but but in person? Can can you say
Speaker 1: something like that.
Speaker 2: In person? In personal? I don't know. Bob was not
Speaker 2: incredibly articulate, but it was you know, the whole Tillom
Speaker 2: thing was kind of strange. And since I wrote the book,
Speaker 2: I've been forced to think about this because I talk
Speaker 2: about it. And it was sort of interesting because Bob
Speaker 2: came to New York, he was not He came to
Speaker 2: a world in which a music ability, musical ability was prized,
Speaker 2: and he was not the best musician in the world.
Speaker 2: But within weeks that guy was the most talked about
Speaker 2: musician in the village. I never quite put my finger
Speaker 2: on why.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the next logical why, I don't know?
Speaker 2: This is it?
Speaker 1: You know, it's people you know, like now, you know,
Speaker 1: I love his songs, but his voice, and it's he's
Speaker 1: not universally certainly like not as a musician anyway, maybe
Speaker 1: as a poet. And there's something later on I want
Speaker 1: to read to you where he always kind of saw
Speaker 1: himself more as a poet than a musician. But that's yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, well, I mean later on we thought of
Speaker 2: him more as a writer, writer than you know.
Speaker 1: Then that's a good.
Speaker 2: Although he worked very hard at becoming a good musician
Speaker 2: and he did, uhh. But in the you know, the
Speaker 2: in that beginning, there was something charming about him. He
Speaker 2: was God, if I used the work cute.
Speaker 1: Was there innocence? Would that be fair? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, thank you? Yeah yeah yeah, I don't get
Speaker 2: it in retrospect, is that innocent? I mean, you know,
Speaker 2: I mean you think of this person as being, on
Speaker 2: the one hand innocent and on the other hand as
Speaker 2: planning what he was going to do to become famous,
Speaker 2: not so much rich. It wasn't that. I don't think
Speaker 2: he was really not interested in rich. He was interested
Speaker 2: in famous and the two combined. But everyone in the
Speaker 2: village felt that there was something special about this guy.
Speaker 2: When I went looking for photographs for my book, there
Speaker 2: are not a ton of photographs with Dave and me
Speaker 2: or of me, and there are some people who aren't
Speaker 2: of us. And I went online and I found photographs
Speaker 2: of Bob crawling out the walls. I mean, there were
Speaker 2: photographs of Bob and Alley's two days after he got there.
Speaker 2: Bob in the basement, the sub basement of the cafe
Speaker 2: was you know, in Ratty invested sellers and god knows
Speaker 2: where in people's bedrooms, and you know, I don't know
Speaker 2: where he was the most photographed he was. I think
Speaker 2: literally he was the most photographed polk singer in Granite
Speaker 2: Trilogy at that time. So yes, people people spotted it.
Speaker 2: What did they spot about it? I don't know. I
Speaker 2: don't know. I know that within a fairly short time,
Speaker 2: things that I realized, and I didn't realize then that
Speaker 2: I realized them. I didn't. I wasn't aware of it
Speaker 2: until a long time later. Was that this was somebody
Speaker 2: who absorbed stuff like a sponge. And a lot of
Speaker 2: people have said that. I mean, I'm certainly needed the
Speaker 2: first note the list, and the other piece of it
Speaker 2: is that he could tuck information away in a very
Speaker 2: interesting way. He could remember, he could learn something and
Speaker 2: he could remember part of it to use later, he
Speaker 2: could throw part of it away totally discarded because it
Speaker 2: was never going to be useful to him, And then
Speaker 2: he could use a piece of it that morning and
Speaker 2: throw it away that evening because he had used it
Speaker 2: and he didn't need it anymore. That's a really strange ability.
Speaker 1: You know. And I have all these questions, You're answering
Speaker 1: them without even sim terry. So it's terrific, you know, seriously,
Speaker 1: And as I go down my list here, what did
Speaker 1: you know when I saw the film, he almost comes
Speaker 1: across I know this is the best word for it,
Speaker 1: but almost impish, if you will, in the beginning. Is
Speaker 1: that accurate? That's what he appeared to me. Was he
Speaker 1: really kind of like that?
Speaker 2: Yes? Absolutely? On stage he was on stage, he was
Speaker 2: I mean, this guy who stumbled around and Charlie Chaplin,
Speaker 2: who he was emulating, didn't quite realize it at that moment,
Speaker 2: but you know, this guy who's tripping all over himself,
Speaker 2: who's adopting his cap h this was city Lights?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, you know what is it then about? And
Speaker 1: you you started to mention it and hinted at it,
Speaker 1: what is it about his personality, you know what? And
Speaker 1: you also you know sometimes his songs are political, sometimes not,
Speaker 1: but they're only always emotional. Uh, he connects to a
Speaker 1: raw emotion. What was it about his personality or style
Speaker 1: that allowed him where you know, superficially you didn't necessarily
Speaker 1: see it, but internally in his music it was expressed
Speaker 1: so beautifully. What was it about that connection? Is there
Speaker 1: anything that you could see there within his personality that
Speaker 1: allowed him to to to tap into that emotional reservoir
Speaker 1: within him?
Speaker 2: I don't know, I really, honestly, I don't know. I couldn't.
Speaker 2: I couldn't identify.
Speaker 1: It really, even even from knowing again, because to me,
Speaker 1: that's what struck me. He in some ways like he's fun,
Speaker 1: but he's he's so ordinary. I don't know, if another
Speaker 1: word from the way he dressed his his floppy clothing,
Speaker 1: et cetera, I think kind of wasn't.
Speaker 2: It wasn't uti ordinary. Nobody else did that, well, nobody
Speaker 2: else in our world did that at that time, but.
Speaker 1: Just a almost like the little tramp, like he was
Speaker 1: cultivating as an image. But I guess as Chaplin did,
Speaker 1: there's a certain genius within that innocence and sim city
Speaker 1: did you always see that in Dylan? Was that? Was
Speaker 1: that cultivated or was that natural? I guess that's what
Speaker 1: I'm I'm aiming.
Speaker 2: I think it was cultivated. I think it was cultivated.
Speaker 2: Interesting I do I do? You know that goes along
Speaker 2: with I mean, one of the things that you have
Speaker 2: in the movie is well, I was constantly telling people
Speaker 2: that he he spent summers in carnivals. Yes, he told
Speaker 2: everybody that he had worked in carnivals. But no, he
Speaker 2: didn't say that he had spent every summer in carnivals.
Speaker 2: We thought he had worked maybe maybe as a kid
Speaker 2: in a carnival once he did talk about he obviously
Speaker 2: had a thing about carnivals. I mean, he obviously loved them.
Speaker 2: What would he have loved about them? Well, you know, again,
Speaker 2: I didn't think of it then, but I'm a lot
Speaker 2: older now, and carnivals people and carnivals are shape shifters.
Speaker 2: Maybe they didn't want to be. Maybe they're doing it
Speaker 2: because they have to, some of them, but that's what
Speaker 2: they are. And that's you know, I mean, as I said,
Speaker 2: it runs. You know, it's an interesting it's an interesting
Speaker 2: theme throughout throughout that movie. Although I got to tell
Speaker 2: you this nonsense about Susie talking to him years after
Speaker 2: they met and saying, I don't know you. Everybody, within
Speaker 2: within six months or a year, I know Dave, and
Speaker 2: I knew where who he was and where he came
Speaker 2: from and stuff like that. Within six months, within a year,
Speaker 2: I think everybody knew. And yes, his parents were at
Speaker 2: certainly his first Cornegie Hall concent. It wasn't that much
Speaker 2: of a secret.
Speaker 1: Well, I think that leads me to my next question too.
Speaker 1: You know, and his real name is Robert Zimmerman, as
Speaker 1: most people know, or so with that in mind, is
Speaker 1: is Bob Dylan a creation? I mean? Is that? I mean,
Speaker 1: it's certainly part of him, but it's it's also something
Speaker 1: that he made of himself. Isn't it fair to say
Speaker 1: that he created? He created? If you will, He's not
Speaker 1: only is Bob Dylan, he created Bob Dylan. I don't
Speaker 1: know if that makes sense to you.
Speaker 2: Huh uh, I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: What what I'm trying to say is, you know, internally
Speaker 1: where one thing, but also but what the image sometimes
Speaker 1: that we project can be. It is just a projection,
Speaker 1: what you know. I guess I'm stumbling over it. But uh,
Speaker 1: how how much of Bob Dylan is how can I
Speaker 1: put it one person? As you said, he through the
Speaker 1: course of his career a shape shifter, So is he
Speaker 1: constantly and you can even hear it in his music
Speaker 1: in a sense, he's almost continually reinventing Bob Dylan. That
Speaker 1: Bob Robert Zimmerman is almost constantly reinventing Bob Dylan, as
Speaker 1: he did, as you see even hinted at in the film.
Speaker 2: I think, you know, I guess as a ys to know.
Speaker 2: I don't remember. I haven't seen him since herely seventies,
Speaker 2: so I don't know what he's like. I know people
Speaker 2: who know him, I know people who work with him,
Speaker 2: and they say he's very quiet. He's fairly inclusive in
Speaker 2: you know, in sessions. He doesn't socialize an enormous amount.
Speaker 2: He doesn't give a lot of direction to his bands.
Speaker 2: He'll come in and he'll expect people to follow him.
Speaker 2: I have read that he did come off into a
Speaker 2: reading of this movie and then signed off on the
Speaker 2: whole thing. So two to that extent, I mean, is
Speaker 2: that somebody who is changing or who is aloof or
Speaker 2: or I don't know, I really don't know.
Speaker 1: Well, you know what if I can again from your book.
Speaker 1: I want to read a couple of little things from
Speaker 1: your book that kind of describe him as a person, and.
Speaker 2: We can go from a long time ago, remember.
Speaker 1: Yes, But but I think it still has validity through
Speaker 1: the film and from what I've read heard, and here's
Speaker 1: from the book. I don't want to lecture any anybody,
Speaker 1: he told me once. I'm not like you. I don't
Speaker 1: want to tell anybody what to do. I want to
Speaker 1: tell my truth, sounding a little like Reverend Gary Davis
Speaker 1: saying he didn't write a song. It was revealed to me.
Speaker 1: I thought that it was fine for his music. I
Speaker 1: wasn't trying to convince him to write or sing political songs.
Speaker 1: I was trying to bring him, not his music, into
Speaker 1: left wing politics. This was not going to happen. Bob
Speaker 1: was not about to join anything or become a messed
Speaker 1: with any group. He was neither interested in not capable
Speaker 1: of doing so. And then one more, one more section
Speaker 1: here he said several times that he perceived himself more
Speaker 1: as a lyricist or a poet than as a songwriter.
Speaker 1: He started with a poem or proposed song. I'm not
Speaker 1: in the old I'm not in the old music anymore.
Speaker 1: Bob commented once after he had started to write songs,
Speaker 1: I have to write what I see, and if it's
Speaker 1: not back there, it's what I know. Now? Would that
Speaker 1: be the essential Bob Dylan? Does that really kind of
Speaker 1: sum up what he's about as an artist?
Speaker 2: I get I guess so. But you know, isn't that
Speaker 2: kind of true of anybody who's an artist who isn't
Speaker 2: doing what he's commercially he or she is commercially told
Speaker 2: to do. I'm doing what I see at this time.
Speaker 2: People change and there art changes, and it doesn't necessarily
Speaker 2: remain static and what they what they are going through.
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, you've seen people change from Christians
Speaker 2: to Buddhists to micro macro bios people, and at each
Speaker 2: point along the way there are reflects whatever they have become.
Speaker 2: And I guess it's truef I mean, why wouldn't that
Speaker 2: be truful? You know, I think it would be.
Speaker 1: Well, I guess the point that I'm trying to get
Speaker 1: at is what I took from the movie and from
Speaker 1: what I know of Dylan and his music too. There's
Speaker 1: this kind of a duality love hate relationship. And you
Speaker 1: mentioned a little bit before. For example, with fame, he
Speaker 1: kind of desperately wanted fame and it certainly at least
Speaker 1: hinted at in the movie. Then when he got it,
Speaker 1: he hated it. He hated the he wanted the attention.
Speaker 1: You know, you mentioned the screaming girls, and he wanted that,
Speaker 1: and then at one point he can't get far enough
Speaker 1: away from it, to the point where he's almost rude
Speaker 1: about it. So it's this of nature that always and
Speaker 1: I guess maybe that's deliberate. It keeps you interested because
Speaker 1: it keeps him interesting. He has this love hate relationship
Speaker 1: with his music, his career, and almost with himself. Do
Speaker 1: what you did? You feel like I said, he wanted
Speaker 1: to be famous. Then he was famous and they didn't
Speaker 1: like him.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, you know. I mean, look at this guy.
Speaker 2: This guy is he's what a year younger than me,
Speaker 2: So he's eighty four years old. He's still touring. I mean,
Speaker 2: just the physical strain of doing that kind of thing.
Speaker 2: Why are you still doing that? He could be making records?
Speaker 2: Who is he touring for?
Speaker 1: Interesting?
Speaker 2: Is who is this? Who is this all about? Is
Speaker 2: it about him? Is it for himself? Is it for
Speaker 2: an audience? And aging and aged audience. Incidentally, I mean,
Speaker 2: he's not getting thirty ten year olds.
Speaker 1: Do you think do you think the movie will change?
Speaker 1: That was a question I was gonna have late, But
Speaker 1: since we're talking about it now, why don't we go forward?
Speaker 1: Do you think the film will bring him a new audience?
Speaker 1: People become interested in the older Bob Dylan and therefore
Speaker 1: the new Bob Dylan.
Speaker 2: I don't know, and that's a question I have. I mean,
Speaker 2: one of my questions is who is this movie made for?
Speaker 2: I went twice. I went twice. I'm in the suburbs.
Speaker 2: I'm not in a big city anymore. The audience was
Speaker 2: middle aged, middle aged to older. Yes, quite literally, not one,
Speaker 2: not one young person there. Who is you know, it's
Speaker 2: who is the who is the mayvie? Look at the story?
Speaker 2: Look at the story of the movie tells uh, look
Speaker 2: at those various arts and those influences. Why who do they?
Speaker 2: Who do the makers of the movie expect understand the
Speaker 2: Civil rights movement and the nt Vietnam War movement? Why
Speaker 2: wasn't more background provided about what the village is and
Speaker 2: what was going on in the United States at that time?
Speaker 2: They assume people know who knows older people. When I
Speaker 2: wrote my book, everything that I mentioned, I went and explained.
Speaker 2: My publisher took it out my public it was just
Speaker 2: too long. I mentioned McCarthyism. I wrote two pages about mccarthuism.
Speaker 2: I figured to abody, you know, the new people, young
Speaker 2: people wouldn't know what it was all about. It got
Speaker 2: deleted because it made the whole thing, made the book
Speaker 2: much too long, much too long, and kind of turgid.
Speaker 2: But and maybe that kind of stuff would have made
Speaker 2: the movie kind of turgid. But why is the thing
Speaker 2: in there about the civil rights movement? Why is there
Speaker 2: nothing in there about the warm Vietnam? You have, you
Speaker 2: have the CuW Missile Cristis. You don't know anything about
Speaker 2: the warm viety.
Speaker 1: Maybe they felt that was enough to say, you know,
Speaker 1: he had a certain social conscious, and then he kind
Speaker 1: of moved on. I guess, I don't know.
Speaker 2: I don't know. But but the early stuff, the early songs,
Speaker 2: the longsome death of Harry Harry, Pattie Carroll, and you know,
Speaker 2: some other stuff, and itself that was all civil rights stuff,
Speaker 2: and puff not there, not at all.
Speaker 1: And it was such a such a key part of
Speaker 1: the of the whole scene the.
Speaker 2: Anti war stuff not there at all. Nobody, nobody, not
Speaker 2: one person in that movie and you've seen the movie.
Speaker 2: Not only person in that movie objected to the war,
Speaker 2: not one scene the.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and at that point it was starting to really
Speaker 1: rage in the country too, And you know, certainly did
Speaker 1: you could hear Dylan as anthems played a lot of
Speaker 1: those routes.
Speaker 2: They showed him. They showed him and jol at the
Speaker 2: Morton Washington right sixteenth. That was it. It was a
Speaker 2: big deal. They didn't show it because it was the
Speaker 2: civil or maybe they did. Maybe it was their way
Speaker 2: of showing the civil rights thing. But that wasn't a
Speaker 2: portrayal of the civil rights thing. It was a portrayal
Speaker 2: of their little romance, you know, non existent romance.
Speaker 1: But you know, Terry and I wouldn't necessarily associate Bob
Speaker 1: Dylan with with humor or humorous, but you make it
Speaker 1: clear in the books he did have a sense of humor. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and in that impish sort of way. And one of
Speaker 1: the things he had called people by nicknames. He liked
Speaker 1: to use nicknames. And you have an interesting story. If
Speaker 1: you wouldn't, it's in your book, so help you don't
Speaker 1: mind about how you got how you got your nickname
Speaker 1: from Bob Dylan, about how you used to dress and
Speaker 1: your your your baggy pants. If you would, could you
Speaker 1: relate that story to the nickname that he had for you.
Speaker 2: I walked around the pants and a bra most of
Speaker 2: the time. I was not trying to look sexy. Apparently
Speaker 2: I did. And I mean it was sort of funny
Speaker 2: because I was not buying my own underpants at that time.
Speaker 2: My mother was still buying them for me, and she
Speaker 2: was buying the size that I wore when I lived
Speaker 2: at home in Brooklyn, and I was like several sizes skinnier.
Speaker 2: And Bob talked about you, talking about my droopy doors.
Speaker 1: Roopy draws. Yes, and he called your droopy Yes, that's
Speaker 1: that story. I think that's pretty funny. Bob Dylan accord around, Hey,
Speaker 1: droopy draws.
Speaker 2: So you were you.
Speaker 1: And and you know it's funny.
Speaker 2: I'm sure he still is.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And again it's not something it comes out I
Speaker 1: think a little in the film, but most of the
Speaker 1: interviews he's just, you know, he's taciturn. He doesn't like
Speaker 1: the publicity. He's difficult with the press. So you know,
Speaker 1: the only image the public image that most people had
Speaker 1: seen of Dylan, certainly until this movie was one of
Speaker 1: you know, he can be difficult, he's you know, he's
Speaker 1: a he's an artist, and he's sacrificing everything of his art,
Speaker 1: and he's always so serious. At least that's the impression
Speaker 1: I always had of Dylan until I read your book
Speaker 1: and saw the film, which really kind of made him
Speaker 1: more human.
Speaker 2: Well, I've seen I've seen interviews. I've seen interviews, and
Speaker 2: I think some in some of them, if you look
Speaker 2: at what he is doing, he is being very, very funny.
Speaker 2: He is being sardonic. Okay, I mean a lot of them,
Speaker 2: a lot of them. He's just putting the press on
Speaker 2: and the people who listen.
Speaker 1: So he got me, so of course he got me too.
Speaker 1: But that's why it's you know, you you were there, Terry,
Speaker 1: you saw it, you know it. It gives us such
Speaker 1: an interesting perspective. You know, the film can hint at it,
Speaker 1: but you can, you know, you fill in a lot
Speaker 1: of the missing blanks there. It's really really.
Speaker 2: Let me give you one of the scene that bothered me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, of course, do I have time, you do.
Speaker 2: There's a scene in which I don't know how the
Speaker 2: producers did this, but they got Muddy. Muddy Borders was
Speaker 2: a superb blues musician, Chicago blues musician, and he had
Speaker 2: a band and he was incredible, and they got his son,
Speaker 2: whose name is Mud. Morganfield has a band. I saw
Speaker 2: him a few years ago and he's really good. And
Speaker 2: in the movie he plays the part of an old
Speaker 2: drunken blue singer who is interviewed on a radio show
Speaker 2: by Pete Seeger, the god of old folk music and
Speaker 2: who had a PBS show for children. Radio television might
Speaker 2: have been television. It might have been it was a
Speaker 2: television show. Yeah, And I don't know why Morganenfeld agreed
Speaker 2: to do this, But there's a scene in which Dylan
Speaker 2: is supposed to be on the show. He doesn't. He's
Speaker 2: not going to make it. So Pete has this old
Speaker 2: blues musician who I guess was rediscovered recently, played by
Speaker 2: Morganfeld appearing on the show. And morganfeldt plays this guy
Speaker 2: who is sitting with a pint of booze.
Speaker 1: Drinking and stipping it.
Speaker 2: Away and talking, you know, and drunkenly and blah blah blah,
Speaker 2: and Dylan shows up. It turns out that he can
Speaker 2: make it, and he shows up and he slides into
Speaker 2: his seat, and the Blue guy hands him the bottle
Speaker 2: and Bob takes a swig and proceeds to take the
Speaker 2: guitar from Morganfeld and they play together and Bob plays
Speaker 2: well he does. He plays the boones very well with
Speaker 2: the guy again. Talk about insulting. Why on earth do
Speaker 2: they choose to show an elderly black blue singer sitting
Speaker 2: and swigging blue sitting and swigging pints of booze on
Speaker 2: a television show. Who else would they show doing that?
Speaker 2: I mean, I know Hurd and Gary Davis and Skip James.
Speaker 2: They came and they sat on stage, and they went
Speaker 2: on television shows, and they went on radio shows. They
Speaker 2: were gentlemen, they were like anybody else. They were performers.
Speaker 2: They came on and they played. It was so weird.
Speaker 2: It was just such a strange, insulting thing to do.
Speaker 2: I don't get it. I don't they'll play that agreed
Speaker 2: to play that role. Incidentally, But like, there were some
Speaker 2: things in the movie that were just wrong mm and
Speaker 2: this was wrong.
Speaker 1: In one of them. Terry got to take a quick break.
Speaker 1: When we come back, I want to talk a little
Speaker 1: bit about the book. And also you have an auction
Speaker 1: coming up. We'll be pretty exciting with a with a
Speaker 1: very special tape that you made of Dylan many years ago,
Speaker 1: and we want to we want to talk about that.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Okay, so we'll be coming right back. Our
Speaker 1: very special guest is is Terry Thal who wrote the
Speaker 1: book My Greenwich Village, Dave, Bob and Me about her
Speaker 1: time with Dave Van Ronk and Bob Dylan in the village.
Speaker 1: And we're discussing the new movie Uh Complete Unknown. So
Speaker 1: much more to come right here on Being Frank. I'm
Speaker 1: your host, Frank Lebona. Please don't go anywhere yet. This
Speaker 1: is great, got a little bit more to go. We'll
Speaker 1: be right back. Don't go anywhere yet. Hudson Riverradio dot com.
Speaker 2: This is Hudson River Radio dot com.
Speaker 3: Hudson River Radio dot com. Hudson River Radio dot com.
Speaker 4: This is Hudson River Radio dot Com.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to Being Frank, the Intelligent Conversation Podcast. Thanks
Speaker 1: for sticking with us. I'm your host, Frank Lebruno and
Speaker 1: our engineers the mailman mister Neil Richter. Our very special
Speaker 1: guest is the author of the book My Greenwich Village Dave,
Speaker 1: Bob and Me by Terry Thal about her time living
Speaker 1: in Greenwich Village and with David Runk, the great folk singer,
Speaker 1: and of course Bob Dylan, and she was her first manager.
Speaker 1: We've been talking about the film Complete Unknown, the good,
Speaker 1: the bad, and the indifferent, and we're bringing to the
Speaker 1: end of our coming to the end of our program,
Speaker 1: Terry and we'll talk about the end of the film,
Speaker 1: which was the kind of classic, I don't know any
Speaker 1: other way to put it, controversial appearance by Bob Dylan
Speaker 1: at the nineteen sixty five Newport Folk Festival. What did
Speaker 1: they get right? It was very pivotal scene because it
Speaker 1: launches kind of launches Dylan from as we mentioned, his
Speaker 1: transitions from strictly kind of a folk guy to a
Speaker 1: more diversified rock and roller, plus et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 1: But he didn't do it without some growing pains, and
Speaker 1: that includes the nineteen sixty five Newport Folk Festival. You
Speaker 1: were there, Yeah, David and.
Speaker 2: I were there at Newport. We were sitting in the
Speaker 2: audience sort of sort of in the front. They got
Speaker 2: it pretty right. And the book was based on Elijah
Speaker 2: Wall's book, on which focuses around that event, is a
Speaker 2: very good book, incidentally, focuses around that event, and substantively
Speaker 2: that's what happened.
Speaker 1: Was it really that that chaotic?
Speaker 2: It was? It was. I don't think it was quite
Speaker 2: that chaotic, but it was chaotic. It was people were
Speaker 2: people were not. I don't think people were as upset
Speaker 2: as the movie shows. I mean, you know, the movie
Speaker 2: did dramatize it, I'd say fairly heavily, But.
Speaker 1: Did Dylan did care? You know, you get you get
Speaker 1: the feeling that you know, well, this is what it is,
Speaker 1: this is where we're going, and this is who I am,
Speaker 1: and you can take it or leave it, can come
Speaker 1: with me or not. Is that accurate?
Speaker 2: This is where he was going? And I think that
Speaker 2: the whole you know, this whole arc of the movie
Speaker 2: leading up to Bob. What was Bob going to do there?
Speaker 2: You know, I am not sure frankly, whether it was
Speaker 2: showing that Bob was on his way to being a
Speaker 2: genius poet or a rock and roll musician. It kind
Speaker 2: of seems to emphasize that he was on his way
Speaker 2: to becoming a rock and roll musician. And I know
Speaker 2: those people. I knew Newarth, Bobby Newarth, I knew a
Speaker 2: lot of those rock musicians, and I knew Butterfield, Paul Butterfield.
Speaker 2: I knew Mike Bloomfield, the guitarist he wanted, he really
Speaker 2: wanted to play for him. And I liked Mike. We
Speaker 2: were friends. I thought he was I think he was wonderful.
Speaker 2: So and at that time, I'm not quite sure that
Speaker 2: Bob himself knew whether he wanted to go beyond becoming
Speaker 2: a rock musician. What did he want then, I don't know,
Speaker 2: but he wanted to move forward. He wanted to move on.
Speaker 2: He wanted out of the acoustic background and limitations of
Speaker 2: folk music, and the rock world was very exciting then.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: So that's where that's where he was going.
Speaker 1: File thoughts on the film. What should people take from
Speaker 1: the film? Terry?
Speaker 2: Uh, that there was a there was a a conflict
Speaker 2: between the folk, the old folk, a lot of the
Speaker 2: old folk music world, and the people who UH wanted
Speaker 2: to move on with the burgeoning, developing, burgeoning new musical
Speaker 2: trends that were happening, particularly the rock groups. UH. And
Speaker 2: I think it's especially interested in noting that within a
Speaker 2: year or it's who a lot of the people who
Speaker 2: who had been acoustic folk musicians had bands, They had
Speaker 2: rock rooks, they had developed rock groups, and they were
Speaker 2: very happy, very happy playing playing on rock groups. And meanwhile, you,
Speaker 2: partly because of Bob who was a leader in this,
Speaker 2: and partly because of Phils and some other people who
Speaker 2: were not portrayed in this movie sing a Songwriter, one
Speaker 2: of the things that had been going on, and it
Speaker 2: wasn't shown in the movie, was that the old music,
Speaker 2: traditional music, music that was handed you know, passed down verbally,
Speaker 2: uh was dying out and to a large extent, was
Speaker 2: being replaced in that world, in that Greenwich village world,
Speaker 2: in the Boston world, by seeing the songwriters, people who
Speaker 2: were writing their own people who are writing their own songs.
Speaker 2: I mean Tom Paxton had been writing his own song
Speaker 2: since he came to New York also in nineteen sixty one,
Speaker 2: and nobody criticized him for it. Ever, he was a
Speaker 2: wonderful songwriter. Still, Tom just retired incidentally a few weeks ago,
Speaker 2: and as a dear friend, and so this is one
Speaker 2: of the takes that the music was changing, The music
Speaker 2: was changing tremendously.
Speaker 1: Well, what would you say, what would you say, is
Speaker 1: Dylan's legacy at this point?
Speaker 2: I don't answer that question. I can't. I really can't
Speaker 2: answer that question. I can't.
Speaker 1: Well, I know answer could be an answer not he's
Speaker 1: still going, He's still still going.
Speaker 2: I can't answer that. I can't answer that question.
Speaker 1: Well, you have something exciting that you wanted to talk about,
Speaker 1: an auction of a very special tape. Tell us a
Speaker 1: little bit about that, Terry.
Speaker 2: Well, it is about Dylan in nineteen sixty one. For
Speaker 2: nineteen sixty one, when I was managing Bob, he cut
Speaker 2: a tape for me in the gaslight. It was an
Speaker 2: audition tape. I needed something to play for out of
Speaker 2: town clubs to get them to maybe be interested in
Speaker 2: hiring him because they'd never heard him. And I had
Speaker 2: some little cassettes made of the tape, which I took
Speaker 2: with me to Boston and to Philadelphia into other places.
Speaker 2: Most of us turned me down and said we don't
Speaker 2: want to hear him. But I did get him a
Speaker 2: few gigs, and I put when he left my management
Speaker 2: for that of Albert Grossman, who is shown in the
Speaker 2: movie and very prominently in the movie. I put the
Speaker 2: tape away and I found it about a year year
Speaker 2: and a half ago, and I took it to a
Speaker 2: studio had I played it and it is gorgeous. The
Speaker 2: sound is magnificent. I only own the tape, the physical tape.
Speaker 2: The songs are owned by Dylan and the Dylan people,
Speaker 2: whoever has the copyrights on them. But the tape itself
Speaker 2: is just clear and clean as as could be. And
Speaker 2: I am putting it up for auction. It'll probably go
Speaker 2: up for auction in February, in the February or March,
Speaker 2: tented only in February, So.
Speaker 1: Which walks house is going to handle it?
Speaker 2: Terry are our auction house unless something changes attentively, That's
Speaker 2: that's the plan.
Speaker 1: And what will bidding storm that? Do you? Do? You
Speaker 1: have any idea what they might start the bidding at
Speaker 1: for the tape? You don't know.
Speaker 2: I will post. I will post on my Facebook site
Speaker 2: and on as many Dylan related sites as I can
Speaker 2: get my hands on.
Speaker 1: Notice of now's the time to strike, that's for sure.
Speaker 1: With the popularity of this film and Terry the book
Speaker 1: my British village, Dave, Bob and me, how can people
Speaker 1: get a copy of the.
Speaker 2: Book unless you passionately hate Amazon? I suggest going online
Speaker 2: and getting it on a lot of bookstores read books here.
Speaker 1: I believe in Nayak has they did anyway, Well, I'll
Speaker 1: have to check with them to make sure it's still
Speaker 1: in stock. I have my copy. It's signed too by
Speaker 1: the author. Terry though, how about how about that?
Speaker 2: What fun? I still do book signings as possible, Terry.
Speaker 1: I I really want to thank you for spending us time,
Speaker 1: and I still have another dozen questions, but I will
Speaker 1: leave some of the reserves so I can invite you
Speaker 1: to come back again.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for having me. It is so great.
Speaker 2: You're just such a wonderful person to have conversations.
Speaker 1: With, Terry. I really appreciate that, and you know, because
Speaker 1: it's interesting. You're interesting and fascinating, and I believe our
Speaker 1: listeners will feel the same way.
Speaker 2: And I really appreciate you're interesting. I always think, oh,
Speaker 2: I don't know what I'm going to talk about, and
Speaker 2: then I babble.
Speaker 1: You certainly matched, Terry. You're always welcome here on being frank.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much.
Speaker 2: Thank you, And I want to thank Neil, who makes
Speaker 2: me sound decent.
Speaker 1: Yes, we got to be nice to him for another
Speaker 1: couple of minutes. Because he keeps us on the air
Speaker 1: after we go. It's a no holds hard any way, Terry,
Speaker 1: I really want to thank you once again. Of course
Speaker 1: you want to us offer special thanks to our listeners.
Speaker 1: They take time to give us a voice in their lives.
Speaker 1: We know how important that is. Remember offer a fresh
Speaker 1: topic just about every week. Catch us wherever and whenever
Speaker 1: you get your favorite podcasts. Check us out on the
Speaker 1: Hudson River Radio Facebook page. Like us, leave us a comment,
Speaker 1: and we also ask you to share being Frank with others.
Speaker 1: As always, I like to leave you with two little nuggets,
Speaker 1: as I called them, one a quote and then some
Speaker 1: great closing music. The quote comes from Why Not Bob
Speaker 1: Dylan himself, where he said I consider myself a poet
Speaker 1: first and a musician second. I live like a poet,
Speaker 1: and I'll die like a poet. I hope that's no time.
Speaker 1: I hope that's no time. But yes, I did a
Speaker 1: little research and I did find that, and we got
Speaker 1: some great closing music from one of my favorite bands,
Speaker 1: Fit in the show, and they're going to be forming
Speaker 1: at one of your favorite places in Piermont. Terry. The
Speaker 1: turning point if you're like that great. If you're listening
Speaker 1: before Saturday the fifth, we're taping here on the third.
Speaker 1: Go down and see Finn and Shark. Finn and the Sharks.
Speaker 1: They feature the Rouse Brothers of the eight pm January fourth,
Speaker 1: Saturday at the legendary turning Point in Piermont. This is
Speaker 1: Voice in My Dreams by Finn and the Sharks. I'm
Speaker 1: your host, frankle Bono. This has been being Frank, and
Speaker 1: we hope to see you the next time. Last around,
Speaker 1: I can sleep up on the leave things too. I wait,
Speaker 1: won't As.
Speaker 3: You came to Jean too.
Speaker 4: Mech had something something to say. I thought I heard her,
Speaker 4: why you man?
Speaker 1: Jus Well, I heard her, why you mad?
Speaker 3: Jesus will Lap I heard her, by you.
Speaker 1: Mad dreams, crazy.
Speaker 4: Swimming apple up. The next morning, I put myself a cold.
Speaker 1: I have this crazy feeling better.
Speaker 4: Never shooting woke you up.
Speaker 2: A bother.
Speaker 1: I told me that just when I see a small
Speaker 1: mans hous miles us.
Speaker 4: What bill these words that you scrolled a throne out
Speaker 4: hurd he by my get out hurd, he by my
Speaker 4: You know I not?
Speaker 2: I heard her why you.
Speaker 1: May Sometimes the tree.
Speaker 4: Tell you, mysol by, That's what happened. Happened to me
Speaker 4: when I look into her, not every laugh before.
Speaker 1: I want to sleep, A reads to heaven.
Speaker 4: FU make it, make it, Jean.
Speaker 2: Ione.
Speaker 4: I heard him why imrgins?
Speaker 1: Where Ione?
Speaker 2: I heard her?
Speaker 4: By my jeans, where I'm not, I heard him.
Speaker 2: Fe f you man.
Speaker 1: This is Hudson River Radio dot com.