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Bob Dylan (Part 1): How Does It Feel to Be Booed, Heckled, Hated, and Attacked? · DISGRACELAND

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Disgraceland as a production of Double Elvis. The stories about
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Bob Dylan are insane. He was booed at the nineteen
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: sixty five Newport Folk Festival, but not for the reason
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: you've been led to believe. He traded in his status
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: as a folk music Jesus to become a rock and
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: rolled judas, alienating thousands of fans with ear splitting, confrontational music.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: Many of those fans heckled him. One even tried to
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: attack him on stage with a knife. He was in
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: a motorcycle accident that, depending on which paper you read
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: left to me, either disfigured, paralyzed, or dead. This happened
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: at a time when he was making great music, music
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: that scandalized one genre while simultaneously revolutionizing another. Unlike that loop,
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: I played a few at the time of the show
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: that wasn't great music. That was a preset loop for
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: my melotron called Ticker Tape Toe Tapper MK two. I
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: played you that loop because I can't afford the rights
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: to Hanky Panky by Tommy James and the Shondells. And
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: why would I play you that specific slice of horn
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: dog Voyeur cheese? Could I afford it? Because that was
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: the number one song in America on July twenty ninth,
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: nineteen sixty six, and that was the day Bob Dylan
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: crashed his triumph on the back roads of Woodstock, New York,
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: an accident the change not just him but music forever.
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: On this episode, food Hated, Tackled, attacked, disgruntled fans, a
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: rock and roll Judas and Bob Dylan. I'm Jake Brennan.
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: And this is Disgraceland.
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: April nineteen sixty five, London, Twenty three year old Bob
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: Dylan stepped off the plane at Heathrow Airport, fully aware
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: that something was ending. He was over it. Greenwich Village,
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: McDougall Street, Dave Van Rock, The Clancy Brothers. Four years
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: in the New York City folk trenches was four years
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: too long. Three decades later, he'd explained himself in a
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: song that earned him his one and only Academy award.
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: He used to care, but things have.
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: Changed right now, though in nineteen sixty five, he couldn't
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: set it any better than he'd did on the final
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: track of the album he'd released one month prior.
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: It's All Over Now, Baby Blue.
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: Bringing it all back Home may have been his fifth
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: studio album overall, but it was his first to feature
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: electric instrumentation, if only on side one. As soon as
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: that record hit the shelves, the writing was on the
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: wall that not everyone was willing to read it. Bob
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: Dylan stood there, one foot in the old and one
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: foot in the new. Imagine yourself in his shoes. You're
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: here in England to perform that the songs everyone wants
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: you to play aren't the songs you're interested in anymore.
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: Those songs are stuck in time, and you're an artist
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: for all time, because if it's not for all time,
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: it's not worth doing. Hey that's a pretty good line.
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: You stash it away in your mind to day out later.
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: Right now, you're busy thinking about all the new songs
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: you're writing. There's a typewriter in your room here at
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: the Savoy Hotel, and you put it to good use.
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: Soon the pages are as full of words as the
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: ash trays full of half smoked cigarettes. But da Kennebecker's
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: handheld sixteen milimated camera is rolling non stop, documenting every keystroke.
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: It's suffocating and you got to get out, get some air.
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: So you hit the town, which means you hit the
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: media circuit, which means journalists. They ask you questions like
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: how do you write your songs? Why do you wear
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: your hair long? What do you do with all your money?
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: The last one's easy, beer skins and rabbit first, what
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: else do you do with money? You're attracted to smart
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: ass comebacks like that one, just like you're attracted to data.
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: Gillespian a reception in your honor. The appropriate thing to
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: do is check out her die job. But her forty
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: four inch bus proves undeniable. She's got tits like mountains,
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: and this makes you start to laugh, which pissus stained
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: Gillespie off to no end. Says, she's got a starter
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: pistol in her room and she's not afraid to use it.
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: Maryanne Faithful isn't laughing though, not even at your jokes,
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: probably because Joe and Bias is standing right there and
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: she's the butt of most of them. The Beatles have
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: jokes for days, but back in your hotel room, they
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: just want to reminisce about that time you get them
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: all stoned for the first time. But all you really
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: want to do is talk to John alone. John is
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: far more interesting than Alan Price, who you ask why
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: the animals as he's playing the piano in the dressing room,
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: and it's an innocent question, but it gets under his
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: skin and he slams the piano that down on the keys.
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: This he's not fucking talking about it, man, just like
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: you're not talking about Donovan, even though everyone here wants
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: to know what you think of him. So you do
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: what comes natural. You mess with anyone who asks Donovan,
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: is that some kind of British food? You say this
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: because you got to maintain your cool. Cool as in
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: hip Bobby is the one punching the hip cards. That's
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: Bobby Newarth.
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: What would you call them? Exactly? Your Concieri? Or is
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: that Al Cooper? It doesn't matter.
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: All that matters is that Bobby has that style, that
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: same one that uses from you each time you step
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: out of the bathroom wired on amphetamy. He's so fucked
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: up the words don't come out right. But who are
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: you kidding? Everyone's fucked up here. The wine is spiked
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: with LSD for Christ's six. That shit sends you to
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: the hospital and leaves you wondering. The trip trip, as
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: in the acid Trip, hasn't dragging your ass from Sheffield
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: to Liverpool to Manchester. Well, how does it feel? It
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: feels like this twenty pages of vomit at least out.
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: You'll tell the press later when the song comes out,
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: even though the words have been coldalessened inside your head
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: for weeks and months. You're the conduit, the vessel flesh
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: and bone through which words flow. You don't really know
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: how happens. It just does, man, which is how you
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: find yourself at a piano writing a song about that
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: time you dress so fine through the bums of Diamond
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: you're prime, and you catch playing back home with the
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: State's jet lag more pills in red wine. You make
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: your way in the Columbia studio at the New York City,
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: you leave your sunglasses on. You got to do that
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: at Bobby Neworth to revoke your hip card, and you
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: get a bunch of other casts laid down that song
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: that you were working on earlier before you know it,
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: Like a rolling Stone is Everywhere your biggest hit to date.
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: At least five days before, you played Newport Folk Festival
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: for the third straight year Newport with the Diehards. Pretend
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: to be offended that you're not playing with Joan again.
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: This year that you're playing this Like a Rolling Stone
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: bullshit with the Butterfield Blues Band. But the focus of
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: all people should know that the times man, they are
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: a changing. Plus, the real reason they're upset at Newport
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: is because whoever's running the soundboard can't mix for shit,
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: and you sound awful. You heard that ray. The long
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: standing myth about Bob Dylan's appearance at the nineteen sixty
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: five Newport Folk Festival, a performance in which he went
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: electric and thus offended his coffee drinking, turtle neck wearing bass,
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: is simply not true. First of all, Dylan had already
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: gone electric. His album Bringing It All Back Home, which
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: as I said earlier, featured one entire side with electric instrumentation,
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: was released four months prior. His latest single, the Very
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: Loud and Very Long Like a Rolling Stone, was currently
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: all over the charts. Bob Dylan was not booed at
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: Newport because he surprised everyone with a stratocaster instead of
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: an acoustic guitar. That's just bullshit rock and roll mythology.
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: Bob Dylan was booed because the sound system was not
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: equipped to handle electric instruments. All the crowd could hear
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: was noise.
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: Now.
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: Where Dylan really did get booed for the new music
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: he was playing was shortly after Newport, when he made
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: one of the single greatest hiring decisions in music history.
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: Levon and the Hawks were four Canadians, Robbie Robertson, Rick Danko,
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: Richard Manuel, and Garth Hudson, along with Arkansas native Levon
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: on drums. Before long they'd be reborn as the band
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: That's capital T, capital B, but at this moment they
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: were best known as the guys who played the club
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: circuit with that crazy motherfucker Ronnie Hawkins. Little did they
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: know that Bob Dylan was even crazier. Playing with Dylan
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: was like flying blind. Dylan didn't tell the voice shit
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: not how to play, not where to play, not what
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: to play. They had no clue because Dylan had no clue.
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: How could he. His only experience up till then was
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: strumming an autitude acoustic guitar. Dylan and the Hawks made
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: it up as they went along. In front of audience
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: is expecting to see Focusing or Bob Dylan. Instead, they
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: got their fucking wigs blown back by Dylan's contemptuous sneer
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: and Robbie Robertson switched Blee telecaster every night. The schedule
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: was grueling, so pills made it easier. Pills helped Dylan
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: forget how much he missed Sarah, the girl he'd been
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: seeing behind the back of Joe Bias, just like he
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: wants saw Joan behind the back of Susie. But he
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: was pretty sure Sarah was it the one pregnant with
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: his baby, and he really did love her. Unlike the
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: audiences on this tour. They used to love Bob Dylan.
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: Now they weren't sure anymore. Some didn't hold back their hatred,
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: hatred that Dylan learned to weaponize.
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: He wore it like a badge. This was Dylan's idea
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: to protest music. Now, this right here.
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: He told the Hawks to turn it up, way up,
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: and take all that hostility that the crowd was giving
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: them and throw it right back in their faces. The
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: guy is happily obliged all but Levan. Levan was struggling.
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: He couldn't find the pocket and the music. He couldn't
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: understand Dylan's weird fucking songs, and he'd never been brooded
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: so much in his.
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: Damn life, and he wanted out.
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: Maybe it was the thick skin Dylan that built up
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: from the thankless months on the road. Maybe it was
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: the pills. Either way, he watched one of the greatest
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: drummers in the world walk away from him, and he thought, well,
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: fuck it, Levon, what are you going to do? Go
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: back to Arkansas and do what settle down. Bob Dylan,
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: for one, was not settling down. Well technically he was,
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: but not in the sense that it meant that he
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: was giving up. In November of nineteen sixty five, he
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: took a day off from his whirlwind schedule and tied
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: the knot with Sarah Lowndes at a Long Island Registry office,
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: some three hours away from Woodstock, New York, where he
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: had recently bought his first house. Less than two months later,
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: their first son was born, his wife, his family, his
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: house out in the country. This life was now calling
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: to him. But first Bob Dylan had to go back
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: to England and spread the news. Things had changed, and
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: this time he was bringing reinforcements. This time he was
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: bringing his band.
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: Bob Dylan's manager, Albert Grossman, told the drummer to lose
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: the Nazi helmet.
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: Mickey Jones the guy sitting in for Levon Helm on
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: the European leg of Dylan's World Tour thought the helmet
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: was funny. He couldn't believe he could just walk into
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: a store here in London and buy one. But his
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: warped sense of humor didn't matter in this situation. When
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: Albert Grossman told you to do something, you did it.
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: Don't let the genteel gentleman's hat he was wearing fool you.
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: They called Grossman the bear, and for good reason. He
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: was either the teddy kind or the grizzly kind, depending
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: on who you were and what you represented. Right now,
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: Mickey Jones represented a potential prstnafoo, not to mention the
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: wrong kind of subversion of Dylan's hip image. Grossman was
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: doing his job, not that said job didn't entail a
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: certain amount of provocation. Grossman was every bit of an agitator,
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: is his biggest client, Bob Dylan. It was Grossman's idea
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: to hang that giant American flag as a backdrop behind
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: the band at that show in Paris that really got
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: the French trialed up, annoyed them as much as Dylan
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: himself did. Tuning his guitar on stage for like twenty
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: fucking minutes. Now, that was the right kind of subversion.
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: Dylan puncturing a hole in the first set of each
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: evening show, the acoustic set, the kind of thing he
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: used to do and didn't want to do anymore. Now,
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: the second set, the electric set, That was an attack,
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: a total sonic attack, a truth attack is Dylan called
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: some of the songs he was writing now, songs like
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: Ballad of the Thin Man and Positively Fourth Street steady
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: hinded screeds about people who had a lot of nerve
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: to say he was their friend. He was certainly not
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: their friend, and neither was the music ear shattering music
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: he was making With the Hawks. Those guys had Dylan's
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: back every night at every show, shows that became increasingly
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: contentious as the tour rolled on. The Hawks had Dylan's
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: back just like Albert Grossman did. And Grossman didn't put
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: on airs like the Beales manager Brian Epstein, nor did
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: he parade Dylan around like a monkey in a cage
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: as the Colonel did with Elvis. Though eventually Dylan would
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: sue Grossman over money honey, but I digress. At the time,
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: Grossman was Dylan's eyes and ears, the moat and drawbridge
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: surrounding his impenetrable fortress of cool, and Grossman was the
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: only guy who wanted next to you. When the shit
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: hit the fan, April nineteen sixty six, Melbourne. Just days earlier,
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: the warring camps of Dylan fans nearly came to blows
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: in the audience. Now, Bob Dylan and the boys were
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: simultaneously relishing in that memory and also trying to put
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: it behind them.
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: Don't look back and all that.
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: A big party helped a party with a huge chunk
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: of hashish at the center, which they were now picking
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: apart to light up and smoke.
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: The hash supply was spread out across a few hotel rooms.
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: So was the party.
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: Not just the band and crew, locals, women, One woman
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: in particularly that Dylan's tour manager had brought back after
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: the show the daughter of Melbourne's chief of police, and
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: that little fact was important, as was the presence of
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: all that hash, both things suddenly more important than anything else.
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: When the banging started on Dylan's hotel room door, Bob,
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: someone was.
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: Yelling, Bob, the cobs are here. They want to search
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: your room. Shit the drugs. That chick the police chef's daughter.
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: How old was she fuck?
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: Albert Grossman wasted no time, problem solver that he was.
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: He grabbed the big chunk of hashi. She placed it
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: on top of his head, underneath that gentleman's hat that
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: made him look less grisly teddy. The cops came bursting in.
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: Dylan put on that straight face, the one he put
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: on for reporters when he gave them absurd answers to
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: their dumb questions. The police never suspected that the rock
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: stars respectable manager was hiding a huge pile of drugs
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: under his lid. They were lucky, one less thing to
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: worry about. Grossmand knew that Dylan had plenty of other
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: shit to worry about, just like everyone was now worrying
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: about Bob. His weight was down, his color was sickly,
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: refusing to eat anything besides honey, lemon and tea, taking
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: more and more of those pills. Not Dexies or Bennies
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: like everyone else, but some bespoke variety pills that were
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: half uppers, half downers. According to Robbie Robertson, those pills
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: kept Dylan wired but mellowed out a constitutional balancing act
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: necessary when you're up on stage for the Hawks, practically
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: daring the audience to revolt, turning songs like One Too
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: Many Mornings from a restrained folk anthem into a barn
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: burning hell raiser, Mickey Jones hammering his drum kit into oblivion,
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: Rick Danko's hound Dog harmony so forceful the music revealed
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: half of every crowd to be sleeper agents, awakened by
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: the noise, so offended that they couldn't stop from heckling.
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: One girl even rushed the stage, approaching with anger and speed,
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: a knife clutched tight in her fist. She was on
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: the level, now, headed straightforward Dylan, ready to sink the
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: blade deep into him or whoever she thought this was
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: a trader and impostor Judas himself. A girl naturally was
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: stopped by security before she did any damage. And Judas,
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: of course, is the most infamous heckle of Bob Dylan's career.
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: Judas is what someone in the crowd called Dylan during
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: a show at the Manchester Free Hall on May seventeenth,
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: nineteen sixty six, not at the Royal Albert Hall, which
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: was what was mistakenly written on the box containing the
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: tapes of that night's performance, tapes which quickly became one
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: of the most bootlegged rock shows for decades. Not just
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: because Dylan yelled I don't believe you, You're a liar
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: at his heckler, and also not just because Dylan then
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: turned around to face the Hawks, instructing them to play
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: it fucking loud, but because the rendition of like a
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: rolling stone that immediately follows all this sounds like a
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: hammer of the fucking God's explosive, destructive, maximum rock and roll.
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: Dylan didn't shy away from the controversy. He created it,
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: and then he ran headfirst into it, despite being underweight, underfed,
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: and overdrugged. Unlike his pal Johnny Cash, who burst into
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: Dylan's hotel room looking for a place to hide. Johnny
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: was drunk and stoned and paranoid too that at any moment,
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: June Carter was going to appear and make him a
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: tone for his sins sins of the bottle, bottles of liquor,
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: and bottles of dexagery. Long before Johnny had Dylan on
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: his TV variety show, and before Dylan returned the favor
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: by having Johnny guest on his record Johnny Cash hid
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: out in the closet of Bob Dylan's hotel room, feeling
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: about a half past dead, hoping he wouldn't get all
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: the way there once his woman got her hands on him.
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: Dylan related to that about a half past dead feeling
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: just days later. It hit him after the final show
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: of the tour, this one actually at the Royal Albert Hall.
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: His body, the adrenaline, the pills, his cool, they had
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: gotten him this far, but now that it was all over,
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: his system shut down. He went full catatonic. Back at
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: the hotel room, Grossman couldn't get him to talk. Robbie
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: drew him a bat. There was a knock at the
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: hotel room door. It was the Fab four, ready to
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: get all dizzy. Miss Lizzie. Dylan was already there wherever
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: there was. He dropped into a hot bath by his
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: manager and his guitar player, where he slowly sank down,
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: his ears plunging below the waterline, silencing the outside world.
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: The Scow's accents now giggling.
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: For the next room.
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: The Hecklers judas the Hawks. He made his point, He
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: spread the word, he played.
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: It fucking loud, and now it was time to be quiet.
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: We'll be right back after this word word word.
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: Stepping off the merry ground of confrontational world tour and
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: into a house nestled in quiet Woodstock, New York felt
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: like stepping through the gates of Eden. Woodstock was a
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: welcome reprieve from.
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: Life on the road.
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: It was where Bob Dylan went when he returned from
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: Europe to be with his wife Sarah, their newborn son, Jesse,
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: Sarah's four year old daughter Maria, whom Dylan was in
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: the process of adopting. In two docks, Buster and Hamlet.
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: There are eleven room parts and crafts house built around
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: the turn of the sentry, sat in the hills above town.
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: The locals called it Hi Loha.
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: But though rest and relaxation was on the docket for
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: the summer of sixty six, Bob Dylan couldn't help but
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: think about what was coming down the pike. It didn't
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: help that Albert Grossman lived up the road and was
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: putting the finishing touches on an impending sixty four day
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: tour of the States. Dylan was also finding it hard
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: to wean himself from the lifestyle he'd been living the
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: last four months. By all accounts, he was still popping pills,
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: and by his own personal recollection, he was staying up
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: for three days straight at a time because even though
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: he wanted to chill, he had shit to do.
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: First.
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: He had edit all the footage Da Pennebaker had shopped
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: during the first tour of England, the acoustic tour. The
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: ABC was planning to air the completed documentary. He was
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: breathing down his neck.
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: For a final cut.
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: He was also behind on approving the galleys for Ranch,
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: his first book of prose poetry. Finally, most important of all,
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: Dylan was frantically putting the finishing touches on Blonde on Blonde,
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: his seventh studio album, which, much to Columbia Records is Dismay,
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: had already been delayed numerous times over from the start.
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: Blonde on Blonde was a grind sessions that started with
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: the Hawks in New York. The previous fall quickly came
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: to a halt when Dylan couldn't get the sound he
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: was looking for it. His producer, Bob Johnston, suggested he
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: try Nashville, where the session players were as serious as
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: a goddamn heart attack. Dylan gave it a shot, but
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: he did it his way, which meant that bona fide
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: Nashville cats like Charlie McCoy and Pig Robbins stood around
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: Columbia recording studios for hours with the dicks in their
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: hands while Dylan wrote and rewrote on the payroll and
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: on hold. Nashville didn't operate this way, not then and
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: not now. Charlie McCoy and Pig Robins had never seen
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: anything like it. Waiting for ten hours at a time
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: on the clock, mind you, before Bob Dylan summoned them
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: all back into the studio ready to cut a seven
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: or eleven minute song. It wasn't just unorthodox to these guys.
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: It was complete insanity, and in its own way, Blonde
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: on Blonde did sound insane. As Dylan's frequent collaborator Al
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: Cooper famously put it, nobody has ever captured the sound
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: of three Am better than that album. Nobody, not even Sinatra,
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: gets it as good. And nobody was writing songs like
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: these at the time, Songs like Sad Eyed Lady of
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: the Lowlands, so dense, so impenetrable, yet so beautifully downcast,
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: and so long that it took up an entire side
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: of the record on its own, which is part.
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: Of the reason why.
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: When it was released on June twentieth, nineteen sixty six,
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: Blonde on Blonde was a two record set. The sound
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: of three Am was now on turntables and radios all
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: over the world. It was also Bob Dylan's permanent state
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: of mind, or so it seemed anyway. Years later, Dylan
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: described that state of mind and that sound as that thin,
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: wild mercury sound, metallic and bright gold. But as far
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: back as nineteen sixty six, he'd already defined it, if
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: only in his head, thin wild, mercury, metallic and gold.
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: It rattled inside his head as he remained awake all
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: through the day, and then all through the night, and
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: then the next day and the next night. Pennebaker's movie
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: Fridge in the galleys of his book, hanging like albatrosses
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: around his neck, work pills stress, the lifestyle he should
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: have left behind in Europe, the lifestyle he wanted to
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: leave behind so he could focus on his family. But
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: it clung to him. It refused to let go. Thin, wild,
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: metallic and bright gold. July twenty ninth, nineteen sixty six,
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: Bob and Sarah Dylan at Albert Grossman's house, Blonde on
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: Blonde barely cracking the top one hund on its album
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: chart debut. At least, that's what Grossman was going on about.
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: Dylan didn't want to think about it, about any of it.
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: He just wanted to go home. Dylan on his Triumph
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: motorcycle and Sarah following behind him in their forward station wagon.
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: He wanted to hear his Triumph engine, to feel the
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: wind blow through his thick, curly hair, that same feeling
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: he'd had in the bath to the back in the
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: hotel room in London, blot everything else out outside. He
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: climbed on the Triumph's seat. His hands and feet moved instinctively,
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: carburetor clutch kickstarting. The Triumph, felched mightily and came to life,
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: rumbling beneath him, that thin, wild mercury sound easily blown
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: out of his head by a deep guttural idol. He
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: hit the gas and he took off down Street vill Road,
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: Sarah following close behind. He took a ride onto Glasgow Turnpike.
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: Sarah did too. The sun was bright, so bright, like
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: he was driving straight into it. He thought about what
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: someone had told him years ago, maybe his mother, maybe not.
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: Don't look directly into the sun or you'll go blind.
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: He knew this, Everyone knew this, but still they couldn't
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: help it. He looked directly at the sun and suddenly
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: everything was bright white. He panicked, the Triumph swerved, he
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: hit the brake, the real lea locked up. The bikes gitted, rubber,
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: burning up the pavement, and now the bike was out
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: of his control, spinning, screeching, and Bob Dylan was tossed
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: into the middle of the road like a raghole. Dylan's
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: upcoming tour was immediately canceled. News of his motorcycle accident
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: trickled to the press. Time magazine reported that he had
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: not been wearing a helmet and as a result, had
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: suffered severe face and back cuts. The Daily News, on
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: the other hand, said that Dylan was so severely disfigured
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: that it was possible he'd never perform again. Others stories
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: followed he was getting plastic surgery, he was paralyzed. Albert
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: Grossman offered up very little information, not even to Dylan's parents,
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: who were in the dark for weeks following the incident,
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: and then Bob Dylan's father got a phone call, not
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: from Albert Grossman and not from his son. The call
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: was from a reporter asking if the family had details
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: on the funeral arrangement. Much to his father's shock, it
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: seemed that Bob Dylan was dead. In nineteen sixty six,
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: news traveled very slowly. This is difficult to imagine now,
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: given the twenty four to seven newsfeed dooms growing that
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: is central to our culture. Years ago, it could take weeks,
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: even months for news to be delivered. You got it
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: in a newspaper or on the evening news on television.
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: Most of the time, however, news came to you from
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: someone else, person to person, and just like now in
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: twenty twenty four, back in nineteen sixty six, people were
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: often misinformed. Thus many people were left guessing about what
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: really happened. The day Bob Dylan crashed his motorcycle and
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: promptly disappeared from the public eye for months, reporters drove
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: up to Woodstock searching for Dylan's home. One reporter did
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: manage to find his way at a high Loha, only
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: to meet Sarah Dylan on the doorstep, who told him
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: to get lost or she called the cops. It wasn't
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: until May of nineteen sixty seven, almost one year after
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: the accident, that someone finally got through. This journalist was
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: luckier than the last guy who approached Dylan's house. He
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: was welcome not by Sarah's stern warning, but by Bob
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: Dylan himself was not dead after all. Though it seemed
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: he had changed, He looked different, he sounded different, and
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: though he claimed to still be a conduit, a vessel
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: flesh and bone through which words flowed, he was refusing
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: to write down the songs collecting in his head, not until,
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: as Dylan said, some people come forth and make up
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: for some of the things that have happened. That comment
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: was cryptic and strange, as strange as some of the
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: things now happening in total secrecy. Jam sessions in the
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: basement of a big pink house that Rick Danka was
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: renting in Woodstock, jam sessions that Dylan was taking part
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: in regularly with the Hawks, even leave on Helm now
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: back in the fold. The details surrounding the music they
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: were making were as sketchy as the details about Dylan's accident,
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: but the official story was this, Bob Dylan suffered serious
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: injuries and took time off to recover, but the facts
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: we are aware of now seemed to suggest something else.
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: Facts like these. Police were called to the scene of
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: the accident, no report was filed, no investigation, no lawsuits.
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: Albert Grossman's wife's recollection of that day is that after
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: Dylan and Sarah left her house, Dylan on his triumph
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: and Sarah following in the station wagon, they quickly returned,
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: both of them now in the car, Dylan collapsed on
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: the Grossman's porch in pain, yes, but not hurt enough
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: to actually go to the hospital. Instead, he was taken
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: an hour southeast to the private home of doctor Ed Thaylor,
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: who watched over Dylan for approximately ten days. Taylor's wife
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: later said that Dylan never showed any actual signs of injury.
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: Journalist al Aronoit saw Dylan wearing a neck brace, but
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: said it looked like a prop. Al Cooper said, if
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: he'd had a serious accident, I would have known.
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: More at the time.
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: Hence the reason Dylan's family and other close friends were
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: not contacted.
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: Because Bob Dylan was not in a serious accident.
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: Did he get momentarily blinded by the sun and fall
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: off his bike? Probably did it hurt, sure, but did
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: it require at least a year to recover from hell? No,
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: This dramatic life and death story surrounding the motorcycle accident,
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: all the mystery and intrigue was purposely designed for one reason,
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: to buy Bob Dylan some time time to kick his
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: addiction to pills, time to recover from his grueling tour.
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: It gave him a convenient excuse to further DeLay's book
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: in the Pennebaker documentary, not to mention making another record,
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: which Columbia Records had already been on his ass about.
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: Most of all, however, retreating from the spotlight kicking pills
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: it offered him incredible clarity on his life and career,
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: which brings us back to that cryptic thing he said
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: to a journalist in May of nineteen sixty seven that
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: he wasn't making new music until some people come forth
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: and make up for some of the things that have happened.
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: Something was happening here, and Bob Dylan, unlike mister Jones,
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: knew exactly what it was. Businessman drinking your wine, plowmen
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: digging your earth, your own manager, the moat and drawbridge
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: surrounding your fortress of cool taking way more money from
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: you than he deserved. Dylan was receiving one hundred percent
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: of his songwriting royalties, but he realized the money he
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: was making from publishing, and in the world of popular music,
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: publishing is where the real money is at.
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: That money was.
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: Being split fifty to fifty with Albert Grossman. To Albert Grossman,
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: it was just business. Bob Dylan, on the other hand,
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: was shocked by his own navete. Only now did he
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: understand nestled in the songs of his next studio album,
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: John Wesley Harding, or details about the riff beginning to
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: separate Dylan from his Grizzly Bear manager. The sound of
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: John Wesley Harding was scaled back from Dylan's last three albums, and,
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: just like the transformation of how he looked, his voice
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: sounded different. Despite that, John Wesley Harding was well received
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: when it was released in December of nineteen sixty seven.
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: Jimmy Hendricks, for one, loved it so much so that
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: his band The Experience, immediately got to work on recording
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: their own version of one of the album's standout tracks.
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: Not even a year later, Jimmy Hendricks's cover of All
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: Along the Watchtower transformed Dylan's original into a sprawling, psychedelic
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: rock masterpiece. Once Dylan heard Jimmy's version, that was it.
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: He never played it the way he originally wrote it
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: ever again, he only played it Jimmy's.
• 32:34
  Speaker 3: Way because things had changed. Bob Dylan had changed, and
• 32:40
  Speaker 3: he who is not busy changing, Well, he's a disgrace.
• 32:45
  Speaker 3: I'm Jake Brennan, and this this Disgraceland.
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: Disgraceland was created by Yours Truly and is produced in
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: partnership with Double Elvis. Credits for this episode can be
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: found on the show notes page at disgracelampod dot com.
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: If you're listening as a Disgraceland All Access member, thank
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: you for supporting the show.
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: We really appreciate it.
• 33:27
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• 33:29
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• 33:34
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• 33:38
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• 33:58
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• 33:59
  Speaker 2: Slash at this great from pad Rock and ROLLA He's
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: a bad, bad man. H