Interview with Dan Brown (+)

[00:00:00] Speaker A: This show is a part of the FM podcast network, the home of great music podcasts. Visit [email protected] you are listening to the Dylan Tons podcast. Everyone, this is Jim Salvucci from the Dylan Tonts and you are listening to what is it about Bob Dylan? Today I'm talking with Dan Brown. You may know Dan Brown as the author of the bestseller the DaVinci Code, but you've got the Wrong Guy. This Dan Brown was born in Tarrytown, New York, and after a stint in the United States Air Force, he moved to New City, New York, entering into a career in the restaurant industry. For the last 15 years, he's been the owner of the Warehouse restaurant in Newburgh, New York, which is right around the corner for me and one of my favorite haunts. His lifelong passion for music has resulted in the warehouse being a hub for young local musicians to perform as well as network. The decor is also reflective of the passionate musical journey he has taken. And if you come here, and I strongly advise you, do you see vinyl records all over the ceiling? And though he is a fan of many bands and performers, Bob Dylan stands above the crowd not only as a songwriter, but most important, as a storyteller. I should also add that the warehouse serves a drink called blood on the tracks, which features heaven's door whiskey. [00:01:23] Speaker B: Hey, Dan, great to talk to you, Jim. It's a real privilege and an honor to be here. I rarely ever get a chance to talk to academics unless they're going over my substandard SAT scores. But this is very exciting for me because I like to. I've been a fan of Dylan and I've since early on. Let me ask you a question. [00:01:40] Speaker A: What is it about Bob Dylan? [00:01:41] Speaker B: What is it about Bob Dylan? He's a poet for the modern age. He is a storyteller, as you said, and I think he's primarily a storyteller. He has lyrics about a timeline of history for many of us, whether it be the sixties, the fifties, the sixties, and beyond, who rolls up his sleeves for us, exposing to us just enough about himself but to win our appetites, yet mysterious enough to remain an enigma. That's what Bob Dylan is, and that is what is it about him. And after being in the military, at one point, I was a crypto analyst, which is a curse because you analyze things too deeply every so often. But after coming back from the military and starting to listen to Dylan in the late seventies again, and this is also a listing of things that he did in the sixties, I started, like, looking into his lyrics and watching him carefully, listening to him carefully, and you start going, wow. You're not trying to recreate his journey or try to change what he does, but you really have you. He has this power of being able to, like, hook you with just one line. And it brings everything together. And he is very topical, whether it be the recent past or what's going on at the present moment. And he has become a spokesman for a generation. And hopefully this is going on and on for future generations. And that's why he is a. That's why he is really a subject of collegiate study at this point. It could be viewed as a. He is a modern composer and a modern. Not really a prophet, not in the religious sense, but he is a prophet for the music world. And he has been admired over the years by many. Has he hit a home run every time? No, nobody does. But overall, he's got a pretty darn good batting average. [00:03:21] Speaker A: I like the baseball analogy, which is always appropriate to Dylan, since he's such a big baseball fan. So you said he's a spokesperson for generation, but he's always resisted that title. [00:03:32] Speaker B: Yes. That's how he was misconstrued. That's how he was. Misconst how he was. He's perceived by the ever loving press and people that try to read between his lines. Just read his lines and absorb them. People read between lines. I think one of the discussions we had when we first talked about this was the 1965 press conference in San Francisco, hour long. And that. That is a press conference that is just. That is such a barometer of the times. You're sitting in a room with journalists at that time. Some are still wearing the black tie and traditional journalists. And then you have the fellows that are, okay, they're getting a little hip. They're wearing maybe the corduroy jacket and the penny loafers and the white chinos. And then wearing a pair of glasses that look really good on. On Buddy Holly, but you look silly when you're wearing them. And you see the reference to crosswords of questions being asked. And Dylan's just sitting there, just answering these questions, and they're digging in and digging in. What is the meaning of this? And what is the meaning of that? And to watch it. That's a historical chestnut that this was the attitude of the time, of things were changing. Not to quote Dylan, everything I say, but times are changing to watch this cross this sea of journalists from different approaches and how they're viewing. The younger ones, of course, are trying to find what is the meaning, what are of you trying to say? And Dylan says he's very aloof about it and he's just answering the questions. He's 24. He got, if anybody remembers when they were 24. You're being playful with everything too. And he has that certain sense about him being playful with people, but also just getting to the point. I think one of the things in that 65 press conference is somebody's asking, why is he wearing a triumph motorcycle? What is his significance now? For many years I was out of the perception. Maybe it sounds good for the Hollywood script, but I thought he had said years ago, I had to revisit this. That it was the only thing I had cleaned to wear in the morning. Which, who knows, it may have been, but it's just a shirt. At one point he drops a cigarette in his lap and they're wondering, what are you doing? What are you. I dropped a cigarette in my lap. I want to burn. So to watch it. That's a good intro of Bob Dylan. The Persona, the enigma that you could watch in 1 hour and go, wow, this guy's kind of interesting. Let's. Let's look into him. [00:05:48] Speaker A: So tell me your Bob Dylan origin story. How did you first encounter him? [00:05:51] Speaker B: I grew up in a house. My mother played music a lot and we. She was a big Connie Francis fan. Elvis as well. She had records playing. And of course I grew up in a room. My grandparents were listening to things like Kate Kaiser and all kinds of big band music and so forth like this. But when I was in school, and I was very small at the time. And you're talking like grade school, like first grade, second grade. The big thing at that time was folk songs you could play at in school. And I remember listening to things like Peter Paul and Mary doing like Puff the Magic Dragon, which was a great sing songy type thing. And the melody and so forth and so on. And then one day I was on the radio and the song blowing and the wind comes on. Now, I was not that deep at that point, but I think in his thoughts about Dylan. But it was the simplicity of it. The way he sang, sing song or sing spoke, whatever it was. There was something intriguing about him. Which started a path for me with myself and many friends that we would listen to Dylan. And I would like to add Bob Dylan's greatest hits, which was a single album that came out that really. That's a good. Just like the press conference. Bob Dylan's greatest hits is a perfect. My first Dylan, or it's got all the meat on there. There's very little fat and that's blown in the wind. I can't remember the songs at this point, anything that's out there. But we listen that over and over. We play that on eight track showing our age and in a car. So we would listen to it ain't me, babe. Or it could be rainy day woman, twelve and 35. It just. It's just a great Bob Dylan album. And once again, if anyone wants an intro to Dylan, that is the album that really should. That could be your starting point. And you say, where does it go from here? We followed his career trajectory through when he was going to appear in Pat Garrett and Billy the kids by Sam Peckinpah. He was playing Billy the kid's sidekick. We want to see Dylan. We like Sam Peckinpah. We like Chris Christova. We listen to his music. But Dylan's on the spring and we just watched that and this and I just followed his career throughout the seventies and eighties. Through his different adventures and. But he's never stopped being Bob Dylan. And, you know, does it his way. [00:08:07] Speaker A: Yeah, I like the way you put that. He's never stopped being Bob Dylan. [00:08:09] Speaker B: Never stopped rolling Bob. [00:08:10] Speaker A: Strange. [00:08:10] Speaker B: Nope. Even with the makeup on Rolling Thunder. When I think I have a kind of obscure theory about that. But there's a reason why. But there's also an obscure theory I have in my head about that. [00:08:19] Speaker A: I would love to hear it. [00:08:20] Speaker B: My obscure theory is that when, you know, everyone recalls. He went on the rolling Thunder tour in 75. And it was a time very tumultuous in his life. I think it was. His marriage was breaking up. He decided to do the Rolling Thunder tour. And he's dressed in whiteface. And some of the rationale behind it was that he wanted his rolling thunder revue to be a kind of a sideshow, a circus. And he brought a number of people along with him and so on. But I think with Bob Dylan, because of all of the things he did about social injustice to people, I believe it was his take on I'm wearing whiteface. How you like that? To white America. And I. A lot of people didn't like it, and I don't think they looked at it that way. They said, what's he trying to prove? But then again, this came at a time where the marriage was breaking up, or almost over. He went on tour, and then he went into Christianity. So this is a time of great. Let me strip myself down, not reinvent himself, but let me see if I can work my way through this in any way possible. Yeah. [00:09:23] Speaker A: Interesting level. You say he stripped himself down, but. [00:09:25] Speaker B: His bands grew larger. Right. [00:09:27] Speaker A: You know, he had the japanese Australia massive band, which he used in street legal as well. And then some of that remained during the christian touring. But you're right, I think in many ways he's trying to get at his core. Dillon's been excoriated by some for abandoning his sort of protest social justice stance in the sixties. But during rolling thunder, he was doing hurricane. He's reviving some of that. What are your thoughts about that, even to the present day that as far. [00:09:57] Speaker B: As looking at what did with hurricane and so just social justice in general. Yeah. His social justice thing began when he did a Whitmark demo, was when he did, I think it was Emmett Till, about Emmett Till, which is a very stripped down, haunting thing, really. Never went beyond, if I may be mistaken, beyond a demo. It never was re recorded. And then the lonesome death of Hattie Carroll. And to a secondary extent, Hollis Brown. But I think Hollis Brown, which is actually originated from a scottish folk song. I don't think there really was a Hollis Brown, but he created and what that is reflecting. He's channeling the dust bowl. Woody Guthrie on that one. That manifests to kill his family, himself and his family because they can't feed them. So once again, social injustice. He took something and ran with it. Hurricane Carter, same thing. He also had put a song called Ira Hayes. The ballad of Ira Hayes, which was not his song, strangely enough. It was written by a folk singer in New York. At the time. He was an american Indian named Peter La Farge. Who had entered into the Greenwich Village scene. He had developed quite a film, quite a following in the village. He in turn also, apparently, when Dylan was introduced at a particular concert in New York City. I think Bob Dylan played a Peter Lampard song, but not Ira Hayes. And the Ira Hayes story was his. Johnny Cash made a single of it. And it's Johnny Cash. Johnny Cash had a great deal of causes and a great musician. But I guess it made a lot of sink and it became somewhat of a hit for him. Dylan does it. It's nothing that was put on an album until they put this album called Dylan in 1973, which was a contractual agreement album. He held one more album before he jumped to Asylum Records. And they just hodgepodge this stuff into Mister bojangles. Some interesting tunes. And here's the ballad of Ira Hayes. And he made it his own in a reverse sense. He wrote all on the Watchtower. Jimi Hendrix made that his own. His interpretation and his, I just listened to it this morning to get re acclimated myself with it. Yeah. His delivery is like a sermon. And during getting back to the Rolling Thunder tour, when Martin Scorsese had put that recent documentary out about the Rolling Thunder review, with all of this footage, Dylan is on a reservation with indian drummers. Yeah. And he's playing that song with them. And I think it was more of a way of him playing it with him. He wanted to make sure he did the right thing. But here was this offshoot, there's off track that no one listened to. And by the way, that album, Dylan with that kind of like Murano glass cover of him, this silhouette, it was one of our favorites. Yeah. We did not know at that time it was a castaway by the studio. And then he came onto asylum and he came back with a vengeance. And that's so much with, that was Horace, as far as that's concerned. [00:12:47] Speaker A: Right. Yeah. One of my first encounters with the Dylan album was Dylan. [00:12:52] Speaker B: Mm hmm. [00:12:52] Speaker A: And I always joke around, said, it's a surprise. I stayed with Dylan after that because. [00:12:56] Speaker B: There'S some clunkers, but there's a couple there that are okay. Because he gives him his own. He gives him his own twist. Yeah. But I thought the ballad of Ira Hayes in particular, then we did a Joni Mitchell song there. But there's some about ballad of Ira Hayes. It's just this very melancholy. Again, we also were fans of the Billy Jack, too. Was this all at home with us? [00:13:16] Speaker A: And if you don't know what Billy Jack is, you might want to look that up. It's an interesting movie. [00:13:20] Speaker B: Very period series of movies, actually. [00:13:22] Speaker A: Series of movies, that's right. It became a series. So you've seen Dylan live? [00:13:27] Speaker B: Seen Dylan live. I saw Dylan first. I saw him live first on the Tom petty tour, actually, in 86. I saw him down there and they made a nice, they made a great little ab with themselves on this. And that's the thing about Dylan, he respected other musicians. He works well with other musicians when he's with them. Does he bet them, does he think about it before he gets involved? Does he develop a relationship with them before he does it? But everybody that I've seen him play with or wherever, even his backing bands, he tends to have a relationship with him. Now it might be strictly a business relationship, but hey, when you get lighting in the bottle, let's use it. Let's do it. And I saw it then I saw him, I came around the show. I saw him in the 1990s, and living up here in Newburgh, you're within 40 miles from Bethel woods in the Woodstock. And he's appeared there a number of times, and I've seen him probably the most in the last five, six years. So it's been about four or five times I've seen him over the years. Okay. Sorry I missed the dead tour. I thought it was interesting, but I never heard great things about it. But I don't know, actually, it was. [00:14:25] Speaker A: Supposed to be here at bootleg is pretty extraordinary. The album, Dylan and the dead is not a good representation. [00:14:30] Speaker B: That's. Yeah, that's what went on. Speaking of the boots, when I was growing up, the Whitmark demos, the. Or the other, the gaslight tapes, these were things you could not find. And when you were able to listen to them and you listen to this called Primeval Dylan Dylan, you just know something is there to show how popular Bob Dylan is talking to the Bob Dylan bootleg show. But the first. One of the first bootleg albums to come out was the great White Wonder, which is Bob Dylan outtakes, because he had that much impact on people. And people wanted to. There were people that wanted to hold on. Hold on to his words. Roddy Plate. And so he has become this iconic figure not only in. Not. Not only in the world of music, but pop culture as well. [00:15:11] Speaker A: And great white wonder was the first introduction people got to what was going on in Woodstock. And the basement tapes. [00:15:17] Speaker B: Oh, and the basement tapes as well. And that's why I feel fortunate here living. I lived in New York City for many years, and the kettle of Fish or Vinci, Gertie's folk city, or. I can't remember the transition and so forth. This is where he started. You'd walk down through the village and some of these places, they weren't still there, but this was the world he treaded in, along with other people. I live here in Newburgh. I lived in Tarrytown. Pete Seeger was generally in the area. He lived in the area his whole life. Then you come up here, and you're not only within eyeshot of the town of Woodstock where he lived. And if you go up to Woodstock, I mean, you go there. There's actually. It used to be called lightsaber, called the Tinker Street Cafe. When you walk down the steps into it, he's on the main drag. And Dylan would apparently go there when he's in Wichita. It's still there. Yeah, it's still there. And he would tinkle on the keys. He played the piano sitting there while he was in his recovery or whatever it was during his motorcycle accident. And then you're also near big pink. You're in the middle of the jurassic park of Bob Dylan with an eye shot or driving windshield distance. [00:16:18] Speaker A: Preserved in amber. [00:16:19] Speaker B: That's it. Preserved in amber, yeah. [00:16:21] Speaker A: And we also live in Newburgh. We live directly across the river from where Dylan's longtime basis, Tony Garnier, lived. [00:16:28] Speaker B: Okay. Yeah. There's a lot of Tony Garnier. The one that's been with him on the. Ever. [00:16:33] Speaker A: Yeah, since the eighties. [00:16:34] Speaker B: Yeah. He used to come, my bartender here, Tony, I guess he lived in the city at one point. Maybe it was in the city. My bartender worked at the metropolitan, big restaurant down there. And he would come all the time. [00:16:46] Speaker A: At this point. You and I talked a little bit about this beforehand. But Dylan's achieved literary status, and you've gestured toward this. Won a Nobel Prize in literature. He's got definite chops. Obviously, he's become a big academic area study. And many of the people who appear on the dilettantes are Dylan scholars. I do some Dylan scholarship myself. But you've said in the early days, some people tended to maybe over interpret him. [00:17:12] Speaker B: Right. [00:17:12] Speaker A: Or try to read signs and symbols in it. How do you relate those two things? [00:17:16] Speaker B: Do you see them as different? Well, I think we're all. I think we're all. If it. We're all entitled to our interpretation. Does it become fact? Does it become part of the story? It does from a fan's perspective. Only Bob Dylan knows what he's doing. If he does, even if he does, who knows? It might just be. It just might be a spur of the moment thought. Like when you're a songwriting, you come up with something, it just comes boom, it hits. But he's just a prolific writer. And I think he said when at one point in his life, he was just in his recovery, he was just right and writing before he came back with John Wesley Harding. And that was the reinterpretation of his career. That's when he launched again. Quite honestly, if Bob Dylan, after the motorcycle accident, not that he had died, but if Bob Dylan said, I can't do this anymore, or I'm physically incapacitated, he'll be very comfortably well off just being the publicist, owning his ownership to his music, the obsession about, to his earlier fan base in regards to Persona, it elevated him to almost a mythical status in the sixties. And attempting to read between his lines, searching for signs and clues to his lyrics. And maybe in a sadder extent, maybe the meaning of life and that's true. But like I said, we are entitled to our opinion. We're entitled to research him and look into it. But we don't know what's actually in Bob Dylan's head. And the interpretations are of what they are. Why did Homer make a left and go to this island, not right? We don't know. I thought, why do Ulysses make left and go right? Ask Homer. He's not around, or Bob Dylan is, but he's still rather protective of episode. You don't see him in the tabloids. That even adds to it, this mystique. And. But people would read between them. If he listened to blowing in the wind. Blown in the wind. It could be a journey of anyone's life. It's not necessarily Vietnam. Everyone loses a protest song. But he was surrounded by protest, Phil oaks in particular. And he was also running with Dave Von Rank, who was at that time, I would like to say, the godfather of the folk scene. A big burly man was the godfather of the folk scene. And he picked off of them and watched them and also helped greatly that Pete Seeger really introduced him to that world through Woody Guthrie. Once again, it all goes back to Woody Guthrie. But people try to read through it. They interpret him different ways. But when he makes radical change, you lose some of your fan base. Yeah. People don't understand. When he elect went electric, he was like, did people get upset when Edison made a light bulb? No. Well, I can start actually reading the dark without burning my house down. So Dylan goes electric, but he saw the wave of music at that point. Yeah. And he said, I am going to morph and change. And that's when he became. And one thing he was enamored about, if I'm going on a tangent, please tell me, shut my mouth. When we talk to people that say, like, he was impressed with the star power and not as he was into being a star, but the popularity of the beatles that level. And he comes along, he goes electric. At a time when he changed the folk scene, going from the puff, the magic dragons and Kingston trio, not they had anything to say, but it was light. It was like folk light. And then he comes out, starts doing stuff and social injustice and so forth, and then they're scratching their heads. And he even alienated people from that world as well, whether it be based on jealousy, whether it be based on their inability to move forward or in the ironic thing. And I think he didn't want to end up because he knew at some point, I think he took full Phil Oaks life as a perfect example. Phil Oaks was an angry protest singer, a great lyricist, a great for his time, but after a while, the protest schtick was cunning to wear a little thing, and he didn't want in this. And Phil Oaks just wandered aimlessly for the next last ten years of his life. Dave von Rank, a very good singer. I don't know about it for original songs he wrote, but he was a great interpreter of folk. But his fear of flying, he never really left New York or the general vicinity, and that really stunted his growth. As many people know the folk world, they know who bidet von Ronk is. Peter La Farge died early, but by total accident. So he didn't want to end up like that. He knew he had to evolve, but once again, he continually morphs. But he's still Bob Dylan. Yeah. [00:21:39] Speaker A: And he said something about time. There's. [00:21:42] Speaker B: And I think that's. [00:21:44] Speaker A: I think that's key to understanding Dylan. His music became much more timeless. Like you mentioned Emmett Till, one of the theories why he never put that down on a studio album or tried to release that song is because the song itself is a topical song. It tells the story. [00:22:02] Speaker B: It's powerful. [00:22:03] Speaker A: But it's like reading a newspaper account, right, as opposed to Hattie Carroll, where it's literally based on a Baltimore newspaper account, but it takes it to a whole nother level, right? To a whole much more lasting level. Something you can interpret and reinterpret and reapply. It's not just telling the story, but. [00:22:24] Speaker B: He is a window into history, because the one thing that's very insane about the Internet, I mean, if you use it properly, you can learn anything. You get different views, but you can really research and find things. And like you said today, what's Billy Jack? Type it in. It'll come up. Hattie Carroll. Who's that? Then you get the story. So the thing is, with Dylan's song being there and part of being part of, I would like to say probably one of his top 50 or 100 songs ever done, he wrote somewhere, someone along the line, someone is going to hear about the lonesome death of Hattie Carroll, and who is this? Who is this? And they look it up. So, in essence, he's keeping that window open to the past without being an oldies review or a sentimental journey. And as someone else learns about it, and the thing about his songs, about social injustice to people, it's not just social injustice, it's social injustice for the forgotten. And that, I think that was his intention. He wants to keep things topical we go to rough and rowdy ways. He just come out, murder most foul. And here's the man. He said what he had to say now, yeah, he still has more to say, but 17 minutes track in a world where TikTok is 7 seconds, where humans have an attention span of probably about 6 seconds, and goldfish have nine. In a world like this, if you listen to it, and it's not a song, it's a story. It's a very melancholy tale. Reminding us of one point and talking about those brilliant hooks he has not really hooks. He comes up with a line at one point and says, don't worry, children, the Beatles will be here soon to hold your hand. That's genius. It's so simple. But it's like, wow. To put that together into a song that's just. That's genius. That's a really. That's written by a man who is observant and watches and picks his words carefully. I can only imagine how many drafts he does of things. But it all matters on how it comes out of the oven when it's done. Yeah. [00:24:27] Speaker A: And a lot of it is not so much murderous foul, but a lot of it is, particularly in the past 25 years, cobbled together from many other sources. [00:24:35] Speaker B: Oh, sure. [00:24:35] Speaker A: Which is fascinating. It's just a fascinating positive. [00:24:37] Speaker B: Even his christian period. Yeah, look, he's going through some great, say, disruptions or hiccups in his career went electric. He goes into his christian faith. What's he trying to prove? Goes into this. Of course people are gonna drop off. And that's like being, what's it called? A fair weather friend or a fair weather fan. It's like the person who watched the New York Yankees their entire life and also having a couple bad seasons, like, oh, screw them, I'm out. I don't care about them. You gotta be, if you're interested in a particular sports team or artist or whatever it may be, write it out, ride it out. Unless the person totally loses their mind. Dylan has obviously not lost his mind. So it's just play it out. It's gonna. You're. You're gonna have some. You're gonna listen to somebody that's gonna say, oh, yeah, that's why I listened to in the first place. And then you have a reflection and you listen to the stuff that maybe you pooh poohed along the way, and then you say, okay, wow, this is making a lot more sense. Yeah. [00:25:28] Speaker A: You know, a lot of the interviews we do and our roundtables on the dilent's that comes up, this idea that maybe the first time you heard it, you're like, ah. Or you avoided something. We just recorded a roundtable on street legal, an album I was literally warned away from. Do not listen to that. It is garbage. You will hate Dylan if you listen to it. So I stayed away from it. [00:25:47] Speaker B: Okay. [00:25:48] Speaker A: And then I maybe 20 some years ago I listened to it and I was like, where has this been? [00:25:52] Speaker B: Yeah, no, I think it's a time it's released. There's a things that come out that are particularly thanks to the many music critics out there. Some who had, like, razor tongues would put it down and it just disappears. And then many years, it could be with film or anything. Sure. 20 years later, you reassess it, at least in the movie world, and they, oh, I will accept it. It's a cult classic. But for the most part, you see something 20 years, 20 or 30 years later, you say, wow, this is really a magnificent piece of work that got lambasted. Perfect example not to change subject. But in the world of film, Heaven's Gate, done by Michael Cimino, bombasted at the box office. The critics, they all hated him. Yeah. Now, many years later, they're looking and saying, well, yeah, he was a bit obsessive. He was what he'd do. But God, look what he created, at least visually. Yeah. As a filmmaker, I think everybody runs through that at some time or another. Yeah. Street legal, when I first heard was this. What is the changing of the guard? Is that the song? I've heard that in the seventies. I said, it's interesting. Now. Did I ever listen to the album all the way through at times? No, I didn't. But I remember hearing, and that was it. They played. They would play that, I believe, on the advertisements on the radio, tv or something. But, yeah, but it's something that you're worn away from. Now. You have to realize, too, Bob Dylan came from a world where folk singers because of protest songs. And let's go back to Woody Guthrie, which I said, this all goes back to Woody Guthrie. And probably people out there other than your show are saying, who's Woody Guthrie? Probably most of the people, thank God. Okay. But he was, he would go to communist parties, communist rallies, so he could play. He never signed a communist. He never signed to become a communist. And then all of a sudden, by the fifties come true. You have the Weavers and you have, you have Pete Seeger. Everybody got targeted as communists in the folk sing because it was different. We want to hear sentimental journey. We don't want to hear, we're not marching anymore. We're not doing this and that. Because it was different ideology at that point. There was a woman that lived up here years ago. I think she's passed on. Her name escapes me, but she lived up in Bonneville. She was like, in her early eighties when I opened the restaurant. And her family were jewish and very liberal. And she told me a story about how they were going to Peekskill in the late forties to see Pete Seeger. And there were people lining the streets, pelting cars with rocks that her father told me. So I remember about the thing. My father told me to hide in the backseat. He didn't know what was going to happen. But that's. That was the general animosity with the red scare and so forth. So all of a sudden, the folk. To overcome the whole thing, that folkies are communists or card carrying communists. To be able to break and be not fluff. We're talking about songs about substance with Dylan. To be able to just say, no, I'm doing it my way. And that's interesting historically in that respect. [00:28:45] Speaker A: So you have a pretty rich background in terms of listening to music. You owned a record store a few doors down from here, which is all the records on the ceiling come pretty much. And so how do you view the level of respect that Dylan's contemporaries had for him? [00:29:01] Speaker B: And that's interesting because Dylan came out, for starters. I think Dylan has. Dylan's had a longstanding relationship of between with the Rolling Stones. People don't know that. At one point he was in print saying, the greatest rock and roll band in the world. Almost like a paid endorphin with the Rolling Stones for what they did. The Beatles, they were either intimidated by him, he had a very interesting relationship with the Beatles. He was complex with individuals, friendly with Ringo, musically collaborative with George Harrison. They. Other than doing the travel in Wilbury's, I know they had sessions in 1970. I think it was. I don't know if anything, they co wrote songs. What's that? They co wrote songs, but I don't think anything really came out of. And correct me if wrong, a fruitful nature of that collaboration. Oh, yeah, they did, definitely. [00:29:44] Speaker A: George Harrison played on new morning. [00:29:47] Speaker B: Oh, no. But as far as working together. But as far as. I don't know. There was something about. But I think that they were friends. They were friends, yeah. John Lennon. It was like a one sided relationship. He viewed Lennon when he met Lennon. I think he viewed Lenin as the alpha male in the Beatles, that he had that Persona, but it was more along. They were friend, they got along, but Lenin was there. Hopefully some of this genius will flow off on me as they sit in a limo and get high. And apparently Dylan introduced them to marijuana and so forth, like this and that and the other. Right. And then Paul McCartney on the other side of the coin, I think in one of his quotes, is when he was gonna meet Dylan. What do I say to him? That's his contemporaries. Also, Jimi Hendrix, who steeped in the blues, played little Richard, the Eisenberg did the chitlin circuit, so to speak, as a session musician, humming out. He always revered Bob Dylan because of the word, the story. And he cut three tracks of Dylan's work, all in which one became right to the top, which was all along the watchtower, as we said, it made it his own, but that very rarely happens. And he also did drifter's escape. And I think, can you please crawl out your window? And these were Dylan's songs. And eventually showed up later on, many years after Jimi Henderson's death. They had a mutual respect. Even were Jimi Hendrix referred to Noel Redding when he played Monterey. I got Bob Dylan's grandmother. He was talking about Noel Redding with the afro on the glass. I got Bob Dylan's grandmother on stage with me. And what happens with this is that people in the sixties, if Dylan were to show up somewhere by this point, it's not Bob, he's Dylan. One single word. If he was at an after party or somewhere after a show. And so, like this, and people are in the back drinking wine, whatever they're doing. All of a sudden, some point in time, this is my picture. Dylan's here. That's all I'm gonna say. And aside from silence and this and that, people, how's my hair look? Like? Hey. And this and that. He had that Persona, but that's because he doesn't. He's not Jim Morrison. He's not gonna get drunk and come in and tip over a table. He just comes in and he's doing. And they want to feed off of him. And then over the years, like I said before, about some of his contemporaries at the time, I would really love to know what his relationship with Dave Ron Rock was. Because I don't think they. I don't know if they were friends in the first place. I know Dave Ron Rock was his kind of guide to the grass village scene. [00:32:08] Speaker A: Yeah, they were definitely friends. [00:32:10] Speaker B: They were friends, but I just. I don't know whatever came of that. And so forth. But like Hendrix, for example, they interviewed him once, I think, when they put out the box set called biograph. And they include it all in the watchtower. Here's a quote in there that he had seen Hendrix numerous times. He had met with him. And the last time he saw him, Hendrix was in a limo just looking bedraggled. And Dylan saw this. That was his last vision of him. And I think Dylan says, here you are. You have to be in charge of your destiny, or you're gonna be surrounded in a cyclone of sycophants. Yeah. They're gonna drain you dry until there's nothing left but a husk, and you're gonna blow away. And I think he observed that as well and said, I'm not gonna let that happen to me. [00:32:52] Speaker A: And that's what was happening to him in 66 for sure, when he had that motorcycle accident, whatever the extent of that. Which, by the way, took place not tremendously far from where we are now. And he was taken to Middletown, New York, which is about 30 minutes from here. And he spent his rehabilitation in a doctor's house. [00:33:10] Speaker B: Yeah. And then he was also. He was also close. Albert Grossman, right, who was another, in many respects, a legendary music producer, promoter. And that's where. Bearsville. That's. He's buried up there. That was his home and his studio. And actually, Albert Grossman had had his eyes on Dylan early on. Did he help with the trajectory of his career? I don't know when Albert Grossman took control of the reins with him or got involved with him. But it was certainly he met the right people. And it's not that. It's not that he sucked up to them. He didn't. I think that they. [00:33:42] Speaker A: Oh, no, this one pursued him. [00:33:44] Speaker B: And even Pete Seeger, when Dylan known fact, Dylan came and visited Woody Guthrie, as he was named. Woody Guthrie had a long, languishing death and visited him. And that's where he met Pete Seeger. And once again, it all boils back to Woody Guthrie. See the Beatles and things. That's why I think when you say about his contemporaries, the Beatles, for example, were. Were influenced. John Lennon was John Berry. Paul McCartney was buddy Holly. George Harrison, to some extent, was actually english, english ukulele players in these old theaters, so forth. And they were influenced by people in the fifties. And the Stones, of course, were blues. But blues in this country here, they came to the States. You couldn't find a blues record yet over there. It was a holy grail to get ahold of. They came and they realized they were sold in black neighborhoods and they were race record, whatever you want to call it. Right? Dylan, he was influenced by Woody Gutzer. This is a guy, the dust bowl ballad. This is a guy who was probably the creme de la creme of the folk movie. He is his mentor, at least musically, and not maybe because he took lessons from him, but his mentor was someone who was greatly respected as a songwriter. And as a matter of fact, he learned certain styles of Woody Guthrie's guitar playing. Not from Woody Guthrie, because he was suffering from Hodgkin's disease. It was a Hodgkin. Huntington's. Huntington's disease. It was a ramble. And Jack Elliott, who was taught by Woody Guthrie. So the influence of where he came from is a very deep. It's not top 40 stuff. It's deep stuff. And that's why I think a lot of his contemporaries were a bit threatened by him. Not threatened, but they were in awe of him. Yeah. [00:35:29] Speaker A: So you have a Dylan themed drink here at the warehouse. You put Dylan on the soundtrack. [00:35:38] Speaker B: Quite a bit in the background. [00:35:40] Speaker A: Do you have any sense of how your patrons respond to Dylan, especially across the generations, because you get a wide range of people here. [00:35:47] Speaker B: We have a very good rapport with our customer music lately. I have an ipod here now, sadly enough, I use another service right now, which I'm really not thrilled about because I can't control my own narrative. But I put Dylan on. It's. Look, one of my friends I met here 15 years ago when I first opened up, I put all types of. I like music, anything from blues to Paul Whiteman Orchestra to jazz era Louis Armstrong, going through and going things such as late sixties, seventies, Ruby deep Purple or Uriah heap, because it's all part of this big story. And he came in one day and we became friends because he said, I've never been in a restaurant that plays Uriah heap on their sound system, but I put Dylan in there as well. I put Dylan out there or the dead. And no, people don't react. They don't react. It's most time when people are talking in a restaurant, you have it as background music. But sometimes, every so often, someone say, oh, wow, that's. You have that. So he does transcend the ages and he transcends the ages as in age groups as well. Yeah. [00:36:44] Speaker A: Do people recognize that blood on the tracks is a Dylan theme? [00:36:49] Speaker B: We let him know that. No, we educate them. So you come here and use the term to get educated here. You come here to get educated. And that's why I have the records on the wall. Most of these records here on the wall have a story about everything. Whether this guy, Daryl Banks here was the singer who was shot and killed and so forth. Everything is a story here. So doesn't mean that my drinks are not a story as well. And as soon as we met my liquor rep, who had said, we have a Bob Dylan's now whiskey business, or he's involved in it, I don't see him sitting there making spirits, but he may have sat there. And who knows? You never know. Because he is an artist. He sculpts, he paints this. Why shouldn't he make whiskey? Let's get drunk and paint. Let's go. When they come in, as soon as he came in, he said, this is Bob Dylan's thing in a second. And there's been stuff in the past. Every rock band has a whiskey named after them. You know, so forth or a vodka or something. So we sit there and as soon as he said, it's heaven's door, wow, it's Bob Dylan's. Give me it. I don't care. I don't care if it's. It could be shoe polish remover. I don't know. It's okay. Let's put it in here. Let's see what I. Because I've had some here that were shoe polish remover with somebody's name on it, and it's actually a very good whiskey. So as soon as he said that, I wanted to make a cocktail, and I said, all right, this, that, and the other little muddled cherry in there, blood on the tracks, which, in my estimation, blood on the tracks. I think that's one of his more powerful albums as far as one of his. That was like a great comeback record for him as well. So that's blood on the tracks. And there it's there. And. And not to toot my horn, but I see more blood on the tracks go out of here than any other cocktails, really. It's a well made cocktail. My wife likes it very much, I can attest. I sat here and went, I know, I know that. And I don't usually drink, but one night I was in a festive mood and. Yeah, there's a cutoff point. [00:38:28] Speaker A: Dan, you have anything else you want to add at the end here? [00:38:30] Speaker B: Yeah, I think at the end, as you're talking about his. When I said, his continual evolution over the years, he changes with the times. He didn't do his beliefs. And let's put him on a trajectory with not a same thing. But David Bowie is always going to be Dylan. David Bowie started as a mod singer named Davy Jones, had like this sixties hair cut, had a song called love you, love you till Tuesday he came out. Then he became Ziggy Stardust, a complete boom, theatrical change. He became the thin white Duke, but he remained David Bowie. But he changed physically. Other than the 75 Rolling Thunder tour, Dylan has changed even more over the years. But he's always been Bob Tillman. He's never had to put a big costume on. And I was saying, what? Maybe do it. It helped with his career and it sold the song. But Bob Dylan has never had to change that way. And where Bob Dylan really strengthens his whole story and why his music is so powerful. If you think of other folk singers out there that have had success, nothing success is Bob Dylan. But you take Don mcLean. What is he most known for? American Pie, which is a story about a tragic moment. It's a story Gordon Lightfoot, although sundown played on the radio all the day of time, the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald, that's what they want to hear. And I think they learned that from him. Those are the songs that endure. And the best way that I could sum up Bob Dylan, it's going to sound very prophetic. Back on blonde, he had a song, and I first listened to it once early on. I said to myself, okay, it's topical, swimmer. And very simply put, most likely you'll go your way and I'll go mine. That is his career. Now. We're all welcome to follow along. Just don't ask too many questions. And that's how I think it all sums up. [00:40:36] Speaker A: That's a great way to end it there, Dan. [00:40:38] Speaker B: Thank you. [00:40:38] Speaker A: Really appreciate it. Thank you so much for appearing on the Dylan toss. [00:40:41] Speaker B: I'm very privileged and happy and honored to be on this show. Like I said, I get tired of talking intellectually in my own bathrooms. [00:40:48] Speaker A: Thank you for listening to the Dylan Tons podcast. Be sure to subscribe to have the news dilentans sent directly to your inbox and share the dilentaunts on social media.