Revisiting BBC's 1983 Folk Music Series Episode with Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger

Hip Capitalist Multi-Millionaire Musician Dylan's Albert Grossman Connection Revisted

One reason a 21st-century hip capitalist multi-millionaire musician named Bob Dylan apparently was able to personally enrich himself and his individual family during the Vietnam War Era of U.S. history was that a hip capitalist businessman named Albert Grossman was Dylan's manager during most of the 1960s.

Hip Capitalist Businessman-Manager Albert Grossman and Dylan in 1960s

 As Elijah Wald observed in his 2015 book Dylan Goes Electric!--Newport, Seeger, Dylan and the Night That Split the Sixties:

"Grossman's talents as a promoter were more than equaled by his backroom financial savvy. He seems to have become interested in Dylan during the spring of 1962, and by most reports it was `Blowin' in the Wind' that caught his attention...

"...Folk agents tended to be fans first...which...preserved separation from the commercial mainstream. Grossman was another beast entirely: he had started one of the first folk night clubs, Chicago's Gate of Horn...He was...a...rapacious businessman who enjoyed distinguishing himself...with...displays of wealth and power...In 1962 most people on the folk scene were only tangentially aware of Grossman, but over the next few years he would become widely regarded as the snake in the garden.

"Bob Neuwirth, who was one of Dylan's closest companions in the mid-1960s, has argued that Grossman `invented' Dylan..: `Bob Dylan could not get arrested before Albert came along!...Albert made it possible to have a $50 [equal to around $415 in 2018 dollars]-a week allowance to have enough money to pay the rent.' Dylan had an album on a major label...before Grossman got involved, but the record sold badly, and paying jobs were few and far between..."