60 Years Since Newport 1965: Scaduto's `The Dylan Tapes'' Revisited (10)

 

Sixty years ago a singer-songwriter/musician (who, in later years, wrote and recorded a pro-IDF song, "Neighborhood Bully", in the 1980s and, in the early 21st-century, entered into a business agreement with a firm, Victoria's Secret, which the BDS campaign has called for a boycott of), Bob Dylan, was booed by the audience at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival.

And in 2022 the University of Minnesota Press published a book, titled The Dylan Tapes: Friends, Players, and Lovers Talking Early Bob Dylan, which Stephanie Trudeau edited, that contained some of the transcribed texts of interviews that writer-journalist Anthony Scaduto did, while doing research for his early 1970s biography of Dylan.

According to the text of his interview with Anthony Scaduto in the late 1960s, John Hammond Sr. recalled, additionally, the following biographical information about Dylan's pre-Newport Folk Festival 1965 life:

"...It was my son who originally told me that Bobby [Dylan]'s name was Zimmerman, because John was doing a gig out in Minneapolis. He said, `Dad, did you know that Bob's real name is Zimmerman, Bob Zimmerman, and that he went to the University of Minnesota?' And I said no, I didn't.

"Before he was signed...

"He didn't want to be the son of a--of a middle-class hardware dealer in Hibbing, Minnesota. Right?

"And of course, the...really bad thing that Bob [Dylan] and Albert Grossman did that I'll never forgive them for, they tried to get Billy James fired here for the Newsweek piece. And that was miserable, because Billy did more for Bob [Dylan] than anybody you can conceive of.

"...Newsweek wanted to do a cover piece on Bob Dylan, and Grossman wouldn't allow Bob Dylan to be interviewed.

"So...he did his own research then. And found out this whole story on the telephone. They asked a neighbor if they ever heard Bob sing before, and the neighbor said, `Don't you remember? We heard him at his bar mitzvah.'

"Herbert Saul, the music editor at Newsweek, who's a great guy. One of the best journalists in the business.

"...This was done to Grossman. This was done purposely to Grossman.

"...The other thing I always held against Bob [Dylan] was the treatment of Joan [Baez] in that Don't Look Back picture. I think that was a disgrace, because it was Joan who made Bob in England.

"And you know--he cut her right off. I thought that was unforgivable..."

And according to the text of her interview with Anthony Scaduto in the late 1960s, Joan Baez then told Anthony Scaduto:

"...I didn't really like `Highway [61]' until 3 years after it was written. I was mad at it. You know I was furious.

"I thought it was a bunch of crap...I felt as though he was inching away from being committed. He was...He did leave a lot of us in the lurch..."

As the following excerpt from the text of Anthony Scaduto's interview conversation exchange with Dylan, prior to Scaduto's biography of Dylan being published in the early 1970s, contained in The Dylan Tapes: Friends, Players, and Lovers Talking Early Bob Dylan book which U. of MN Press published in 2022, indicated, Scaduto apparently allowed Dylan, himself, to exercise some control over the text included in Scaduto's early 1970s biographical book about Dylan:

SCADUTO: "Okay. Your notes about my book...At this stage I'm trying to see how I can sum you up. Basically, the problem is that everybody around town, all the cats in the Movement, are running around calling you a capitalistic pig who's ripping off the youth culture and say you should be giving your millions...It's pretty much of a campus attitude, among at least among people who are still involved in SDS and, you know the rest of that revolutionary kind of `nonsense'...You know, it's obvious that...these people...now feel you deserted them...This is what they feel about you now...

"The thing is, I want to make it clear that I cannot in any way take Sara and the children out of the book. I have cut it to a minimum...

DYLAN: "Well, I'm known to retaliate, you know.

SCADUTO: "I know you are. But first of all, you can't scare me.

DYLAN: "I'm playing in the big league and I'm sorry, you know...

SCADITO: "...Talking in terms of retaliation, that's being a little...okay, retaliate, man. No, seriously, I must mention Sara and the children. We can kick it around, we can talk it around, and if you've got ideas...

DYLAN:"...I'll tell you if I don't approve of it or not.

SCADUTO: "Okay.

DYLAN: "And if I don't approve of it, I'm past playing games too.

SCADUTO: "Okay.

DYLAN: "But I'm serious about it. And I'm just not going to stand for it anymore.

SCADUTO: "I don't know why you're getting tough.

DYLAN: "I'm just not going to stand for it. That's all.

SCADUTO: Yeah. But I don't really think there's anything you can do. Really.

DYLAN: Are you kidding?

SCADUTO: "I've taken a large step by letting you see the book in advance...And by sitting down with you and saying, sure, I'll knock out Rosemary McCarthy, if you object to that, to what that chick told me, I'm knocking it out...

DYLAN: "Well, that sounds pretty fair. Now this last part here about my wife and my children. I would like to see what you're going to write...

SCADUTO: "You've seen what I've written so far. You have it there...Okay, I'll show it to you when I write it.

DYLAN: "Okay."

60 Years Since Newport 1965: Scaduto's `The Dylan Tapes' Revisited (9)

Sixty years ago a singer-songwriter/musician (who, in later years, wrote and recorded a pro-IDF song, "Neighborhood Bully", in the 1980s and, in the early 21st-century, entered into a business agreement with a firm, Victoria's Secret, which the BDS campaign has called for a boycott of), Bob Dylan, was booed by the audience at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival.

And in 2022 the University of Minnesota Press published a book, titled The Dylan Tapes: Friends, Players, and Lovers Talking Early Bob Dylan, which Stephanie Trudeau edited, that contained some of the transcribed texts of interviews that writer-journalist Anthony Scaduto did, while doing research for his early 1970s biography of Dylan.

According to the text of his interview with Anthony Scaduto in the late 1960s, John Hammond Sr. also recalled the following biographical information about Dylan's pre-Newport Folk Festival 1965 life:

"Bobby [Dylan] had just written `Blowin' in the Wind,' and Peter, Paul and Mary had heard [it]...

"...And so, when Artie Mogull at Witmark heard `Blowin' in the Wind,' he said, `Bobby, I want to sign you right away.' Bobby said, `...I just signed a contract with Duchess Music.'...But Artie Mogull, said `Well, here, Bobby, here's a thousand [equal to around $10,000 in U.S. dollars in 2025]. Why don't you go over and see if you can buy back your contract?'

"...So Bobby went over to Leeds, and...Hy Grill was running the office...

"...Artie insisted Hy took the $1,000 [equal to around $10,000 in U.S. dollars in 2025]...

"Bobby got his contract back and signed with Warner Bros....

"...We completed the second album, and this album started to take off, thanks to `Blowin in the Wind,' and thanks to the...work Peter, Paul and Mary had done with (the song). In fact, we put a special sticker on the second album saying `Featuring Blowin' in the Wind.'...

"I had made one goof...in the signing of Dylan. There's usually an automatic escalation clause on the contract. You know, you start at 4 percent, then you go right to  percent...When the contract came through...there was no escalation clause...

"So, by the time Bob [Dylan]'s contract was finished with Columbia, which was 5 years later--'66--there was a 1 percent thing which amounted to hundreds of thousands of dollars [equal to millions of U.S. dollars in 2025], which was being held in escrow...

"...You know, the big initial boost to Bob Dylan in this company was Johnny Cash [who entertained U.S. military troops stationed in Asia, on at least 2 USO tours in 1960s]...He was behind him every which way, and they all knew it. He made it known to Clive [Davis]..."

 

60 Years Since Newport 1965: Scaduto's `The Dylan Tapes' Revisited (8)

 Sixty years ago a singer-songwriter/musician (who, in later years, wrote and recorded a pro-IDF song, "Neighborhood Bully", in the 1980s and, in the early 21st-century, entered into a business agreement with a firm, Victoria's Secret, which the BDS campaign has called for a boycott of), Bob Dylan, was booed by the audience at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival.

And in 2022 the University of Minnesota Press published a book, titled The Dylan Tapes: Friends, Players, and Lovers Talking Early Bob Dylan, which Stephanie Trudeau edited, that contained some of the transcribed texts of interviews that writer-journalist Anthony Scaduto did, while doing research for his early 1970s biography of Dylan.

According to the text of his interview with Anthony Scaduto in the late 1960s, John Hammond Sr. recalled the following biographical information about Dylan's pre-Newport Folk Festival 1965 life:

"...The executive vice-president of our company [CBS's Columbia Records] was furious because I had not signed Joan Baez...Joan had come up, you see, and [Albert] Grossman was representing her. But just before I was with Columbia, I was with Vanguard Records...So Joan came up--and I was at Newport, you know, when Joan was there...Albert [Grossman] was asking a large advance for Joan. I said, `...Albert,...I'll give you a $1,500 [equal to around $16,000 in 2025 U.S. dollars] advance and, of course, top royalties.'

"Vanguard, I understand offered a $3,000 [equal to around $32,000 in 2025 U.S. dollars]. So, she signed with Vanguard. Now this is not for--just turn the machine off for a second.

"...Bob [Dylan]'s first album came out...And so, we had a wonderful publicity guy at that time called Billy James. And Billy and Bob [Dylan] really became very tight. And Billy got Bob [Dylan] full-page spreads in Seventeen and all the Leed publications and made a real character out of Bob [Dylan]. Columbia did a good job in promotions.

"But the first album was a dud...

"...So then, we were working on the second album...Then Bobby came into the office one day and he said, `John, do you know Albert Grossman?'

"I said, `Sure, I know Albert Grossman...' And he said, `Well, Albert has got a deal for me to go over to England and do a pilot for BBC.' And he said, `There's a lot of loot involved'--It was 2,000 bucks [equal to around $21,000 in 2025 U.S. dollars], which I could show you, because I've been lending Bob [Dylan] money...You know $75 [equal to around $800 in 2025 U.S. dollars], $100 [equal to around $1,000 in 2025 U.S. dollars]--things like that, when he needed it. I also got him a publishing deal. Leeds. He didn't have a publisher, and so [to] Lou Levy, I said `Lou, I got a real talented guy here.'...He said, `Send him over, I'll give him a $500 [equal to $5,300 in 2025 U.S. dollars] advance.' So, Bob [Dylan] signed with Duchess Music [an imprint of Leeds].

"He [Dylan] said `What do you think of Albert Grossman?' And I said, `Well, I can work with Albert...If you want to sign with Albert... go ahead.'

"...Turn the tape machine off..."

60 Years Since Newport 1965: Scaduto's `The Dylan Tapes' Revisited (7)

 

Sixty years ago a singer-songwriter/musician (who, in later years, wrote and recorded a pro-IDF song, "Neighborhood Bully", in the 1980s and, in the early 21st-century, entered into a business agreement with a firm, Victoria's Secret, which the BDS campaign has called for a boycott of), Bob Dylan, was booed by the audience at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival.

And in 2022 the University of Minnesota Press published a book, titled The Dylan Tapes: Friends, Players, and Lovers Talking Early Bob Dylan, which Stephanie Trudeau edited, that contained some of the transcribed texts of interviews that writer-journalist Anthony Scaduto did, while doing research for his early 1970s biography of Dylan.

According to the text of her interview with Anthony Scaduto in the late 1960s, Carolyn Hester recalled the following biographical information about Dylan's pre-Newport Folk Festival 1965 life:

"...He [Dylan] had Grossman as manager and he had the distribution of Columbia Records behind him..."

And according to the text of his interview with Anthony Scaduto in the late 1960s, Barry Kornfeld recalled the following biographical information about Dylan's 1960's life:

"...Through the `Don't Look Back' period...success...really...fucked him up a lot and he's insulated himself a lot and surrounded himself with the sycophants who told him that his every fart was `art'.

"...I found that, the singing, as far as singing, I absolutely cannot listen to that whole period. That whining style that he developed I found to be so annoying, really like a fingernail on glass...

"I found a lot of it to be word salads..."

In addition, according to the text of his interview with Anthony Scaduto in the late 1960s, Izzy Young also recalled the following about Dylan's pre-Newport Folk Festival 1965 life:

"...He [Dylan] was very competitive. He really didn't look at anybody else. And he would just sort of wait his turn, you know, to sing and sing and then go out.

"Yeah, back at the store [Folklore Center]. Everyone would be playing.

"Bob Dylan was performing--all the time.

"...In `61 he was very competitive about the other singers...

"...He knew how to use people. And when the point came not to use them anymore, he dropped them. And he always was making like it was never for him to say, for other people to say it. He was associated with the Beatles. He never said he was associated with the Beatles..."

60 Years Since Newport 1965: Scaduto's `The Dylan Tapes' Revisited (6)

 Sixty years ago a singer-songwriter/musician (who, in later years, wrote and recorded a pro-IDF song, "Neighborhood Bully", in the 1980s and, in the early 21st-century, entered into a business agreement with a firm, Victoria's Secret, which the BDS campaign has called for a boycott of), Bob Dylan, was booed by the audience at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival.

And in 2022 the University of Minnesota Press published a book, titled The Dylan Tapes: Friends, Players, and Lovers Talking Early Bob Dylan, which Stephanie Trudeau edited, that contained some of the transcribed texts of interviews that writer-journalist Anthony Scaduto did, while doing research for his early 1970s biography of Dylan.

According to the text of his interview with Anthony Scaduto in the late 1960s, Izzy Young also recalled the following additional biographical information about Dylan's pre-Newport Folk Festival 1965 life:

"...It was around this time that the blacklist letter about Pete Seeger [in which a group of early 1960s folk music scene musicians protested against Seeger being blacklisted from ABC's Hootenanny television show in the early 1960s]--I was the secretary of that group, and we had a big meeting...And everybody signed. Except Bob Dylan.

"He said, `It doesn't mean anything...'...

"...He was there. He was there. He was at the big meeting [of folksingers] at the Village Gate.

"...He didn't sign. That I can say definitely. Then the second point, where he was supposed to record `Talking John Birch Society Blues' [but allegedly was never allowed to include this on a pre-1965 vinyl album].

"...That song...did go on the album. And...I have the original downstairs.

"First you do the shit, then you can do what you really want to do when you get more famous. And then--so that's the album and then the attack on the Civil Liberties Union. But that came later.

"And still people accepted him as a revolutionary, as the person changing things. Well, because in my mind now I see the pattern...There's no such thing as a person not knowing when he sells out...There's no such thing as a person consciously changing, unconsciously changing...

"...This is how it works...The artist has to start from a point. Eventually they accept you...But the instant you make it into the mass thing, then you have to say goodbye to the starting group, no matter what it is. And that's what the sellout is, really.

"...Making $1,000,000 is what's killing everybody, what's making the wars necessary, that sense of competition with the whole world. And then they're saying life is beautiful, which it is to them...

"Dylan didn't start it, but it really comes after him, like in Woodstock. On one side they're getting, grabbing, grubbing all the money. On the other side they're the `sensitive artists'. Now with Dylan what I found is--to this day the kids will not accept the fact that he's a sellout. I do not understand this..."

60 Years Since Newport 1965: Scaduto's `The Dylan Tapes' Revisited (5)

 

Sixty years ago a singer-songwriter/musician (who, in later years, wrote and recorded a pro-IDF song, "Neighborhood Bully", in the 1980s and, in the early 21st-century, entered into a business agreement with a firm, Victoria's Secret, which the BDS campaign has called for a boycott of), Bob Dylan, was booed by the audience at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival.

And in 2022 the University of Minnesota Press published a book, titled The Dylan Tapes: Friends, Players, and Lovers Talking Early Bob Dylan, which Stephanie Trudeau edited, that contained some of the transcribed texts of interviews that writer-journalist Anthony Scaduto did, while doing research for his early 1970s biography of Dylan.

According to the text of his interview with Anthony Scaduto in the late 1960s, Izzy Young recalled the following biographical information about Dylan's pre-Newport Folk Festival 1965 life:

"Now with Dylan, what's happened, the kids refuse to believe that Dylan was a cop-out, and what Dylan really is...I spoke to 500 kids at Rutgers. They booed me when I explained how the movie Don't Look Back is a cop-out. The only person that he's attacked so far in America is the...Civil Liberties Union. That's the only thing he's been angry about...

"...The latest cop-out of Bob Dylan is accepting a doctorate from Princeton...

"...When he wrote `Positively 4th Street,' at least 500 people in a few months asked me if I was the one in the song.

"...It's unfair, and I'll explain why. I'm living in the Village 20 years...I'm one of the representatives of the Village because I've been here.

"But he comes in and uses my resources and everyone else's resources in the Village, and you know, the bars and the clubs, and then he leaves. He gets bitter, he writes the bitter song...You never heard me say what a son of a bitch Dylan was...He's the one that's complaining. He's the one that left. And it's really his problem...

"...Bob Dylan is in exactly the same position now that Carl Sandburg was...In other words, Carl Sandburg's poetry was in the protest magazines of the time, the '20s. You know, `I Am the People, the Mob'...And then when he died, he didn't know anything about Vietnam...

"...In fact, without Grossman I don't think Bob Dylan would exist.

"The sellout is completely engineered by Al Grossman..."

60 Years Since Newport 1965: Scaduto's `The Dylan Tapes' Revisited (4)

Sixty years ago a singer-songwriter/musician (who, in later years, wrote and recorded a pro-IDF song, "Neighborhood Bully", in the 1980s and, in the early 21st-century, entered into a business agreement with a firm, Victoria's Secret, which the BDS campaign has called for a boycott of), Bob Dylan, was booed by the audience at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival.

And in 2022 the University of Minnesota Press published a book, titled The Dylan Tapes: Friends, Players, and Lovers Talking Early Bob Dylan, which Stephanie Trudeau edited, that contained some of the transcribed texts of interviews that writer-journalist Anthony Scaduto did, while doing research for his early 1970s biography of Dylan.

According to the text of an interview with Anthony Scaduto in the late 1960s, Carla Rotolo recalled Dylan's pre-Newport Folk Festival 1965 life in NYC and also recalled her initial response to the lyrics Dylan wrote to a song, titled "Ballad in Plain D", that Dylan recorded on his early 1960s "Another Side of Bob Dylan" album, which CBS's Columbia Records then marketed and distributed:

"The song [`Ballad in Plain D'], such an absolute screech. I was going to sue the pants off him [Dylan]. I decided--my lawyer said, don't even bother. Because `parasite', the `parasite' is someone who feeds off somebody. And I was the only person who was working at that time...Bobby [Dylan] of course, he makes me the `parasite' when I was working...It wasn't a nice thing to do, particularly when it was all made up out of whole cloth...

"...I think a good part of his guilt was he couldn't be real. I know it was. And he couldn't sort things out himself at that point, because of where his career was going. Just couldn't get himself out of himself...

"...Dylan needed victims, you know what I mean?...When he was a kid, he wasn't being that mean. As he got older, he started getting very nasty. But when he was first in the city, he was a very sweet kid Just not too articulate...He got tighter and tighter and nastier and nastier...He decided he would pick out your weakness and then suddenly grab it and use it on you. Which is what he did with everybody. Find their vulnerable spot and that was it...

"...I remember him saying once about his `Masters of War' song, for example, saying `it's just a whole big put-on, a whole crock of shit. That's what they wanted'...And I got the feeling...he wasn't befuddled and a confused little kid that he came on as...He was using that befuddled act as a weapon, because it worked..."

 

60 Years Since Newport 1965: Scaduto's `The Dylan Tapes' Revisited (3)

 

Sixty years ago a singer-songwriter/musician (who, in later years, wrote and recorded a pro-IDF song, "Neighborhood Bully", in the 1980s and, in the early 21st-century, entered into a business agreement with a firm, Victoria's Secret, which the BDS campaign has called for a boycott of), Bob Dylan, was booed by the audience at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival.

And in 2022 the University of Minnesota Press published a book, titled The Dylan Tapes: Friends, Players, and Lovers Talking Early Bob Dylan, which Stephanie Trudeau edited, that contained some of the transcribed texts of interviews that writer-journalist Anthony Scaduto did, while doing research for his early 1970s biography of Dylan.

According to the text of an interview with Anthony Scaduto in the late 1960s, Sid Gleason recalled how, between 1959 and March 1961, Woody Guthrie came to spend part of each weekend at her house in New Jersey; and how it was apparently in her house, not at Greystone Hospital, where Dylan first met Woody Guthrie and also apparently listened to many rare Woody Guthrie tapes, during Dylan's early pre-Newport Folk Festival 1965 life:

"`Bound for Glory' [radio program]...announced that Woody [Guthrie] was out at Greystone Hospital and asked people to write him...I rode out to Greystone...to see Woody....

"...We went out to visit him at the hospital. They allowed us to take him out...He was very alert, except for the fact that he just had trouble expressing [himself] because of the speech problem...The doctor told [her husband] Bob [Gleason] yes, that we could come out and get him and bring him to our home. [But] he had to be back in the hospital by 10"30 or 11:00 p.m.. The next weekend we got him...

"And I started answering his mail then...It was Mother's Day `59...

"...He [Dylan] never made a visit to the [Greystone] hospital. You see, our place was halfway out. They could come out from New York very easy...

"...I couldn't begin to tell you how many times Bobby was at the house and how many times he stayed...

"The story Bobby told us is, many times--I mean many, many times...He told us he had been in a number of foster homes, that he did have parents but he'd been in foster homes all over.

"...He would come out and he'd spend hours going through the tapes [of Woody Guthrie]. Spent hours, literally, for days..."

60 Years Since Newport 1965: Scaduto's `The Dylan Tapes' Revisited (2)

 

Sixty years ago a singer-songwriter/musician (who, in later years, wrote and recorded a pro-IDF song, "Neighborhood Bully", in the 1980s and, in the early 21st-century, entered into a business agreement with a firm, Victoria's Secret, which the BDS has called for a boycott of), Bob Dylan, was booed by the audience at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival.

And in 2022 the University of Minnesota Press published a book, titled The Dylan Tapes: Friends, Players, and Lovers Talking Early Bob Dylan, which Stephanie Trudeau edited, that contained some of the transcribed texts of interviews that writer-journalist Anthony Scaduto did, while doing research for his early 1970s biography of Dylan.

According to the text of his interview with Anthony Scaduto in the late 1960s, Dave Van Ronk recalled the following biographical information about Dylan's pre-Newport Folk Festival 1965 life:

"You could say Dylan was always vicious from time to time. This was no lollipop singer, you know. The only trouble about his viciousness, until he became famous, he couldn't get away with it...

"I remember sessions at the Kettle of Fish, where Dylan was especially obnoxious to Ochs...

"The big thing to keep in mind is that Bobby wanted to be a superstar. When he discovered the reality of being a superstar, he freaked out..."

And according to the text of her interview with Anthony Scaduto in the late 1960s, Terri Thal also recalled the following biographical information about Dylan's pre-Newport Folk Festival 1965 life:

"...Dylan's two-night stand at Caffe' Gena was not an overwhelming success.

"...The Club 47 in Cambridge refused to hire him...The owner of the Second Fret in Philadelphia...told me, `Why should I hire a Jack Elliott imitation when I can get Jack Elliott for nothing?' Elliott had just filled in at Second Fret for no pay for a benefit.

"I spoke to an executive at Vanguard Records who said he wasn't interested in Dylan..." 

60 Years Since Newport 1965: Scaduto's `The Dylan Tapes' Revisited (1)

 

Sixty years ago a singer-songwriter/musician (who, in later years, wrote and recorded a pro-IDF song, "Neighborhood Bully", in the 1980s and, in the early 21st-century, entered into a business agreement with a firm, Victoria's Secret, which the BDS has called for a boycott of), Bob Dylan, was booed by the audience at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival.

And in 2022 the University of Minnesota Press published a book, titled The Dylan Tapes: Friends, Players, and Lovers Talking Early Bob Dylan, which Stephanie Trudeau edited, that contained some of the transcribed texts of interviews that writer-journalist Anthony Scaduto did, while doing research for his early 1970s biography of Dylan.

According to the text of her interview with Anthony Scaduto in the late 1960s, Gretel Hoffman recalled the following biographical information about Dylan's pre-Newport Folk Festival 1965 life::

"David Whitaker, my ex-husband, is a phenomenal reader...Bob had not really heard about Woody Guthrie, except as a name that sort of everybody knew--that there was a folk singer named Woody Guthrie. He didn't know much more. And David gave him Guthrie's book to read, the autobiography...

"When I first met Bobby, he claimed he was an Okie...The whole initial set of stories when I first met him was that he was an Okie, that he was an orphan, and that he'd been on the road for years as a piano player. This big thing was that he was a piano player and just starting to play the guitar. That he lived in California.

"...I suppose I learned about Zimmerman within a few weeks of the time that I met him.

"What he said was that Dylan was his mother's name...

"...It was very interesting to watch Bob build the myth, the legend of himself. And he did it, I think, very consciously and very deliberately. Because I can remember having a conversation with him...after he had come back to New York with success...

"...We had a conversation about this character that he was creating. And this was a very explicit story about creating such a character...

"...He said he was building a character that would sell...

"...He had a terrible need to be the center of attention or a star, back in Minneapolis, at the Scholar, or at a party...I just remembered a party where Bobby was playing...He realized people weren't listening closely to him and...he threw down the guitar and really stomped off in great anger..."

What Led to the COLLAPSE of Greenwich VIllage’s Freewheelin’ Folk Scene...

Broadside Magazine's 1964 Critique of Dylan Revisited

In a 1964 issue of the now-defunct Broadside magazine, U.S. folk music critic Paul Wolfe provided U.S. topical and protest folk music fans with the following interesting historical take on the early days of Bob Dylan's post-1964 artistic direction:

"The Newport Folk Festival of 1964 formed an important milestone in the resurgence of topical music. It brought many of the younger performers into first contact with large segments of the folk music world; it proved that topical music, when delivered with artistry and sincerity, can be heartily appreciated by a wide and diverse audience; it outlined many of the goals toward which the various writers must strive.

"But the Festival’s most significant achievement was specific and twofold: it marked the emergence of Phil Ochs as the most important voice in the movement, simultaneous with the renunciation of topical music by its major prophet, Bob Dylan. It was the latter event that proved most surprising.

"Dylan’s `defection' into higher forms of art was predicted. His preference for free-verse, uninhibited poetry over topical songs has been apparent for quite a while; his dissatisfaction with concert tours and adulating fans is also no secret. But his new songs, as performed at Newport, surprised everyone, leaving the majority of the audience annoyed, some even disgusted, and, in general, scratching its collective head in disbelief. The art that had, in the past, produced towering works of power and importance, had, seemingly, degenerated into confusion and innocuousness. `Your new songs seem to be all inner-directed, inner-probing, and self-conscious,' wrote Irwin Silber, editor of SING OUT!, in an open letter to Dylan. `You seem to be relating to a handful of cronies behind the scenes rather than to the rest of us out front.'

"And this disappointment in his new songs was heightened by their juxtaposition, on the stage of Newport, with the eloquent musical force of Phil Ochs. While Dylan was telling his perennial, anonymous girl friend, `All I really wanna do is, baby, be friends with you,' Ochs was informing the leaders of the government, `I ain’t marchin’ anymore!' While Dylan sang `It Ain’t Me, Babe,' and, in the guise of rejecting a persistent female, told his thousands of worshipers to look elsewhere for someone to walk on water, Ochs took the time to denounce the labor unions for their betrayal of the civil rights movement; in `Links On The Chain'—Ochs’ supreme artistic achievement—and perhaps the most important topical song of the year—he calls upon the `ranks of labor' to ponder their own `struggles of before' and tell, ironically, which side they now are on in the Negro struggle for equality.

"There, the difference between the two performers became manifest; meaning vs. innocuousness, sincerity vs. utter disregard for the tastes of the audience, idealistic principle vs. self-conscious egotism. And even in his attempts at seriousness Dylan was bewildering. `Hey, Mr. Tambourine Man,' while underlain by a beautiful poetic idea, must be termed a failure; somehow, a forced monotony of rhymes seemed much more effective in `Only A Pawn In Their Game.' And in his other song, `Chimes of Freedom,' the bewilderment is raised to the highest degree. In this incredible jumble of confused, obscure images piled atop one another, Dylan traces the pursuit for higher forms of freedom, spanning a human lifetime, encompassing all of human life. This probing journey through anguish begins `far between sundown’s finish and midnight’s broken toe' and ends, some eight grueling minutes later, with the chimes of freedom flashing `for every hung-up person in the whole wide universe.' The fallacy inherent in the concept of chimes flashing is annoyingly obvious. It is also obvious that Dylan was too enmeshed in his own ego and seeming adoration of words (no matter how meaningless his combinations of these words renders them) to consider the absurdity of treating a subject of such scope in a song. As Irwin Silber said, the Dylan we once knew, the author of `With God On Our Side' and `Hattie Carroll,' `never wasted our precious time.' `Chimes of Freedom' brings to mind once again the fable of the Emperor’s new clothes; and a short story entitled `Face In The Crowd' by Budd Schulberg (it was made into a noted movie). The protagonist of that story is a hillbilly singer who, through publicity, slick management and an overpowering ego, rises to such heights of stardom and popularity he thinks he can get away with anything on the public. The tragedy is that he cannot, and, in the end, is ruined.

"Does Bob himself give a concrete reason for the emergence of the `new' Dylan? One might be found in the song `My Back Pages' in his latest album Another Side of Bob Dylan. It is an intensely honest, revealing self-portrait, indeed a brutal denunciation of the `old' Dylan. It characterizes the latter as a deceived, impotent `musketeer' whose main stimuli to action were confusion and immaturity, rather than a fiery poetic spirit reacting to the injustice he saw all around him. Thus a seeming disillusionment with both himself and the ideals he fought for looms as a factor.

"Other forces shaping his new posture include his own artistic drives and capabilities (which are indeed considerable) running headlong into the limitations of the musical form. As Phil Ochs said in the 1964 Newport brochure: `I think he’s slowly drifting away from song-writing because he feels limited by the form. More and more of his work will probably come out in poetry and free verse, and I would not be surprised if he stopped singing altogether, considering the over-adulation of his fans and the lack of understanding of audiences that identify with him.' Indeed there are reports not only that he is working on a book of his own poetry but that he plans to start up a poetry magazine (further Dylan artistic endeavors include a motion picture, which Dylan has written, is directing, and stars in himself). These varied artistic projects imply his abandonment of topical song writing; an artist must express himself through the most effective mediums at his command. But they do not explain his new songs; nor, if he is discontented with singing, why he continues to give concerts; or why he is still cutting records. Contradictions have followed Bob Dylan from the time his folk-singing career began. Now, seemingly at the end of it, they have yet to be dissipated.

"The paths of Bob Dylan bear extreme relevance to the course of today’s topical songwriting. For instance, take Phil Ochs. His career is still evolving and expanding, but considering what has happened to Bob, an inevitable question arises concerning Phil: will he follow in the footsteps of his predecessor? Will Phil too eventually be disillusioned, or in some way become discontented, with his personal messages of protest, and abandon them? Only time—of course—can tell. But an analysis of the facts renders this unlikely. The difference between Ochs and Dylan, both as artists and personalities, are striking. Ochs is much more deeply committed to the broadside tradition. To news and politically-oriented songs, most of which are focused on specific events and do not range into the wide scope of human events and variegated problems that characterize so many of Dylan’s most famous works. In addition, Dylan has undergone repeated metamorphosis as a performer; each of his four albums differs radically from the others. This has not been so with Ochs, whose second L-P (by Elektra) plainly will be a continuation of the work foundationed by his first (Ochs’ 2nd L-P is scheduled for release in January 1965). Quite to the contrary, Phil’s basic melody and lyric patterns have remained constant from the very beginning; indeed many of his first songs, notably `William Worthy' and his talking analysis of Cuba and Viet Nam, occupy important positions in his current repertoire. Thus, the constant change of character and outlook, the reluctance to stay in one `bag' of song-writing for an extended period of time, that have engendered Dylan’s renunciation of topical music, are not evidenced in Ochs. Nevertheless, the influences of Dylan have found their way into several of Ochs’ new songs. In `In The Heat Of The Summer' and `The Hills of West Virginia,' Ochs has attempted to subtlety and poetry where before he used power and irony. Thus, those two songs differ artistically from all his previous ones; indeed in the first song, dealing with the recent riots in various Negro ghettos, he goes so far as to abandon rhyme scheme altogether. It is a novel artistic experiment; but, unfortunately, this first attempt at poetry-in-song is unsuccessful. `In The Heat Of The Summer' emerges as little more than an exercise. But in `The Hills Of West Virginia,' some reflections during an automobile trip, Phil’s simple, unpretentious, easy-flowing imagery, encased in what could be his most beautiful melody, weave a sharp and colorful tapestry of observation. It is certainly one of his best songs and proves Ochs doesn’t have to protest to be good. It also proves that one can absorb the good influences of Dylan without being affected by the non-artistic sides of the latter’s enigmatic career.


"Many talented people today are writing topical songs. But, to me, Phil Ochs stands virtually alone in his field; very few writers are very close to him in quality and productivity. This is a happy fact for topical music. However, the cash registers are ringing in his ears more and more; legions of adulating fans and his identity as a `celebrity' grow larger as time goes by. Thus, one final question must be posed in connection with the path of Phil Ochs, hence the path of topical music. Can he overcome the pressures, the lures, the rewards and the egotism attached to being a celebrity? Can he maintain a sincerity of principle despite material prosperity? It is evident that he will continue writing protest songs; the question now is whether he will continue meaning them. For Phil Ochs, on whom the future of topical music rides, `these are the days of decision.'” 
--Paul Wolfe
(Broadside magazine--issue 53/1964) 

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..."