On the Road with Bob Dylan Read online

  But to begin at the beginning of this story, we might as well flash back to a lazy Indian-summery Sunday night in October 1975.

  I remembered that Sammy Walker was playing at Gerdes Folk City on Third Street, so I walked in. Typical Gerdes night: Allyn (she’s a girl) was tending bar, owner Mike Porco was tending Allyn with a hawk’s eye. A few patrons at the bar. Inside, in the music room, Walker was onstage singing about Patty Hearst and her scorpions. My eyes scanned the room and stopped short at center rear. Ensconced at the table near the men’s room was none other than old friend Roger McGuinn and party.

  McGuinn is one of the rock ’n roll hall-of-famers. With Chris Hillman and David Crosby, he founded America’s greatest rock band, the Byrds. And long after Crosby departed for the greener pastures of CSNY and Hillman founded the Burrito Brothers, McGuinn was still plugging away as a Byrd. Then around 1970, he started anew, first fronting a small combo, then going out solo and doing the folkie harmonica neck-rack bit. And it was hard years for the man who gave us “Eight Miles High,” and the definitive hard-rock version of “Tambourine Man.” The solo Byrd never really got off the ground, so Roger went back to a combo idea and re-formed the Roger McGuinn Band. And here at Gerdes up from a date in Philly, were Roger, his guitarist, Richard Bowden, and his road manager, Al Hirsh.

  I joined Roger and his party and Porco came by and bought us all a round of drinks. Porco, of course, is best known in the music biz as one of the first discoverers of Bob Dylan. Dylan’s first professional appearance was at Mike’s original club on Fourth Street, and in those days, Porco was like a father to Bob, making sure that he had his cabaret cards, and generally looking after the ragamuffin minstrel.

  Porco has fathered many a rising star over the years; among the headliners who first got their careers moving at Gerdes are Simon and Garfunkel, Judy Collins, and Phil Ochs. And that night, in that same folk tradition, Sammy Walker, a teenager from Norcross, Georgia, was onstage singing a selection of songs from his first album on the small folk label, Folkways Records. And among those songs was “Ragamuffin Minstrel Boy,” a tribute to Dylan, whom Walker resembled both musically and physically. McGuinn was listening intently, enjoying the new comer, and at one point, after I egged him on a bit, he agreed to do a guest number with Sammy—only McGuinn did it in his own inimitable fashion. Since Roger’s an electronics freak, he carries around two two-way walkie-talkies wherever he goes, so Hirsh was dispatched to the stage where he whipped out his gadget, and held it up to the mike.

  “There’s some that’s born in New York town,” an eerie disembodied voice floated over Hirsh’s walkie-talkie into the microphone, and McGuinn became the first guest star to sit in from his seat. But after the cackly sea chanty, “Heave Away,” the audience screamed for more, so Roger vaulted up to the stage, borrowed Sammy’s guitar, and broke into “Chestnut Mare,” the compelling saga of a boy and his horse that Roger cowrote with Off-Broadway director, Jacques Levy.

  Apparently the singing had built up Roger’s appetite, so we all headed down to Chinatown for a late dinner. And over martinis, the talk turned to Dylan. “I’ve been hanging out a lot with Bob in Malibu,” Roger told us, “playing basketball, and stuff. One day, he was sitting on my couch and we were trying to write a song together and I asked him if he had anything and he said he had one that he started but he was probably gonna use it himself and he started playing ‘Never Say Goodbye.’ He hadn’t written all the verses yet, but he had the tune. I liked it, but it was his.

  “He’s really brilliant, but sometimes he acts naive, like there are gaps in his perception and if you fill in the spots for him, he really freaks out.

  “We once were talking about the airplane Bob used to have and I asked him if he would charter it out when he wasn’t using it and he said no. And I said, Well, that’s what people do who have those airplanes, you gotta charter it out in order to pay the maintenance because they’re too expensive to keep otherwise. Even everybody who’s really rich charters them out and stuff.’ And Bob said, real wide-eyed, ‘Nobody ever told me that before.’ What a great line.”

  It was getting on to 2 A.M. and McGuinn was set to pack it in and go back to his room at the Gramercy, but I suggested we stop for a nightcap at the Other End. Roger demurred. “C’mon, Roger, I hear Dylan just got into town and even if he’s not there I’m sure Levy’ll be there.” So we took a cab over to LaGuardia Place, jumped out, and rang Jacques’ bell. No answer. Roger led the way around the corner to the Other End. Bleecker Street was unusually quiet, almost eerie with a moist mist floating in. Something was in the air. I led the way into the club and immediately saw owner Paul Colby, who, at the sight of us, frantically summoned us to a side table. We turned the corner, and hidden in the first niche were two tables that had been pushed together. I scanned the tables and saw singer David Blue, Off-Broadway director and McGuinn song collaborator Jacques Levy, assorted other nondescript friends, and, hidden in the center of this motley crew, a black-jacketed Bob Dylan. “Roger!” Dylan screamed out, and lunged to hug McGuinn, spilling most of the drinks in the process. “Where you been, man, we been waiting for you all night.”

  By then a large crowd was observing and Levy suggested we go someplace a bit quieter. “Let’s go to Menachem’s,” Bob interjected. So we trudged out of the Other End, Dylan and McGuinn in the lead, the others slowly following. “Hey Roger, we’re going to go out on tour, wanna come with us?” Dylan was cajoling McGuinn, who seemed to be still recovering from the greeting. We hit the sidewalk outside the club and Dylan turned to me. I introduced myself. “Oh, you’re Larry Sloman. I heard you were doing an article on Hurricane Carter. Did ya see him, how is he?” I began to answer but got cut off when a nervous teenager squeezed between us and asked Dylan if she could shake his hand. Dylan peered at her quickly, then broke into a smile. “Sure.” She grabbed his hand and began a monologue about how much Dylan had changed her life. Bob began to look a bit uncomfortable and we got rescued by Lou Kemp, Dylan’s friend, who steered our party to Bob’s car: a cherry-red Eldorado. Jacques, his friend Muffin, Kemp, and I piled into the back seat, and Dylan, McGuinn, and Bob’s friend Mike jumped in the front. Dylan careened around the Village, made an incredible left onto MacDougal, and pulled up in front of the Olive Tree. But Menachem had already called it a night, so we trudged across the street, to the Kettle of Fish, an old hangout for the folkies in the early ’60s. As we crossed the street, Dylan picked up on our conversation about Hurricane Carter, the boxer who’s spent ten years in jail in New Jersey for a crime he never committed. “You’re doing a story, good, he needs that, that’ll be a big help. So will the song I did. We got to get that out, get it out right away. Maybe you could put some pressure on Columbia, Larry. You can lean on them, you got some pull there.”

  Inside the Kettle we took two tables, Dylan, Eric Frandsen, a folksinger friend, Muffin, and me at one; Kemp, McGuinn, Levy and Mike at the other. Dylan and Frandsen were talking about obscure songs and movies, and Dylan seemed really animated. He reached for his Remy and it tipped over. “Oh, I must really be drunk,” Bob moaned. Kemp ordered another one, and Dylan started to talk about his new album. I told him about Jake and the Family Jewels, a great Village band ripe for a big breakout. “Have you heard my new band?” Bob interrupted. “They’re great. That Rob (Stoner), he’s got such a pretty voice.” “Did you ever see his Elvis collection?” I asked Dylan. “He’s got this incredible Elvis scrapbook, with really rare articles.” “Hey listen, Larry,” Dylan leaned in, “you wanna go on the road with us and cover the tour?” “Sure,” I pondered, “I could probably cover it for Rolling Stone.” “Hey Louie,” Bob screamed back at Kemp, “Larry’s going to go out with us; sign him up. It might as well be him, I’d rather have him do it than anyone else.” Dylan swung back and leaned across the table at me, preoccupied with Hurricane again. “We’re gonna get him out in ninety days.” “Did ya hear what Ali said at Trenton the other day?” I asked Dylan. “He predicted that Hurr
icane would be free in three days.” Dylan didn’t blink, “We’re gonna get him out in ninety days, that’s our slogan, ninety days or we fight.” “You mean ninety days after the single’s released,” I corrected. Dylan smiled. “Yeah, after release.”

  Bob seemed restless and his hungry eyes scanned the room. “See that painting up there.” He pointed to a canvas over the bar. “I remember coming in here in the ’60s and always seeing that painting.” The talk then turned to old friends, songwriters Phil Ochs and Kinky Friedman.

  “Keenky,” Bob mimicked, “who’s Keenky?”

  “C’mon, you know Kinky. You love him.”

  “Well, Kinky’s all right, but he’s too sensitive. You know what Kinky’s problem is, he came just a little bit too late.”

  It was 4 A.M. and Kemp made his move. “C’mon Bob, let’s get out of here, we got a lot to do tomorrow.”

  Dylan looked hurt. “Aw, c’mon, lemme finish this drink, then we’ll split.” I mentioned that Thursday night there was going to be a surprise birthday party for Folk City owner Mike Porco and Dylan’s eyes lit up. “Hey Lou, you got that man, a surprise party for Porco Thursday night, what time man?” I gave him the details and he got up and said good-bye to me and Roger. Dylan and his entourage filed out of the Kettle leaving me, McGuinn, and Levy and a bevy of astonished patrons.

  McGuinn still looked stunned. “And you didn’t want to go to the Other End. You schmuck,” I laughed. Roger managed a nod, and we shook hands and stepped out into the MacDougal Street morning. It was raining hard now so McGuinn hailed a cab as I walked home to the sound of thunder. Rolling thunder.

  It was a different Village that Dylan returned to in the summer of ’75. On MacDougal Street, instead of the Gaslight Cafe, where Kerouac had read his jazz-backed poetry, Lord Buckley had spun his moralistic word-weavings, Hugh Romney (later to be Wavy Gravy of Hog Farm fame) had done stand-up comedy routines, and countless folksingers, Dylan included, had sung and strummed for whatever the basket that circulated in the audience could reap, there now was a Middle Eastern boutique with a special on strawberry incense. Across the street at the Cafe Wha?, which once boasted the sounds of Jimmy James, later to be known as Hendrix, was a months-old marquee and a shuttered door. Further up the block at the historic junction of Bleecker and MacDougal, the Figaro, the archetypical Beat-era coffeehouse, had been closed for years. And the Blimpie Base that seemed a harbinger of the decay of the early ’70s—even that had gone out of business. The Cafe Au go go, where Tim Hardin, Odetta, and Frank Zappa and the Mothers first tried out their acts in New York, was long gone too.

  In their wake, the sleaze merchants had scurried in, with armful after armful of schlock Indian garments, head-shop paraphernalia, falafel stands, and T-shirt emporiums. The music was gone, with the hard rockers heading east for the grime of the Bowery and the new bars that dotted the derelict strip. For the sophisticates the chic venues were the gay-dominated discos and nightclubs, places like Reno Sweeneys and Les Jardins, all further uptown. The only club that was still thriving in the Village was the Bottom Line, and to get a booking there you usually had to have a record contract and support from the label.

  But in June, the old Bitter End, long a folkies hangout and closed for a year or so, reopened as the Other End, featuring a bar and restaurant next door to a few-hundred-seat cabaret. The Village music scene quickly coalesced around Paul Colby’s place, so it was no surprise that Dylan was drawn to the club. But it was quite a shock to see Dylan actually hanging out, munching on a hamburger, talking to strangers, shuffling across the sawdust-strewn floor over to the cabaret section to soak in some music. The reclusive icon, he who retreated hermit-style to Woodstock after a much-publicized motorcycle crash, who holed up in the upstate mountains, only coming down every few years to release an album, who swooped out to the West Coast to play an enigmatic role in a movie his friend Kristofferson was shooting and then settled by the beach in Malibu, still the recluse, who relished his privacy and was never known to make a foolish move, what was he doing hanging out, soaking up the street vibe, haunting the old haunts? Something was, as they say, blowing in the wind.

  Dylan was about to create. After all, it had been almost a year since the sessions that produced Blood on the Tracks, an album that many had felt was a triumphant comeback for Dylan. And the Basement Tapes, which Columbia had released that summer, were, as everybody knew, a compilation of years-old demo tapes that Bob and the Band had recorded the year he was recuperating from the accident. And when you’re carrying a muse like Dylan’s, sometimes you have to pick up the guitar, pack up the suitcase, and let the road bring you back to the starting point.

  So Dylan was back, walking down the same streets, drinking in the same old bars, meeting some of the same old people. And as the word spread, some of Dylan’s friends began to seek him out. One of them was Sheena, a raven-haired itinerant singer-songwriter, who had known Dylan for a few years, once even writing a song with him about Krishna consciousness called “Come to Krishna,” a song that Bob gave her. Sheena started peppering Dylan’s studio with notes that read, “Please contact me,” and she left offerings and incense. Then early one afternoon in June the phone rang in her Lower East Side pad.

  “Sheena?” a male voice.

  “Yeah,” Sheena replied, fighting off sleep.

  “This is Bob.”

  “Bob who?” Sheena questioned.

  “The real one,” Dylan replied.

  And what a surprise, since a moment earlier she had actually been dreaming about him, so she went right into a discussion of her new band, and told Dylan about this dynamite black female bass player she found. “Wow, that’s just what I’m looking for,” Dylan bubbled and they made plans to meet for coffee and talk.

  “Bob said he wanted to check out my band,” Sheena related, “so we went up to my friend’s loft on Seventh Avenue and it was a heavy trip, they didn’t know Bob was coming, so we just strolled in. And he was wearing this black leather jacket that he was so excited about, he kept saying, ‘How do you like my new leather jacket.’ It was from 1968 or something from his first motorcycle or maybe the accident, someone had sent it back to him. So this guitarist in the band who is really an uptight envious jerk walks over to Bob and says, ‘You look like what’s-his-name, Bob Dylan. I can’t stand that guy’s music, I think he stinks.’ And Bob was just looking at him so I said, ‘It’s time to go.’ But I’ll tell you something about Dylan, whatever situation he’s in, he is completely there. He gets completely wherever he is at the moment. I mean there is no other moment. So already he was buying a loft like the one I brought him to.

  “So anyway we decided to leave the place, and we were riding around and I said, ‘Where do you wanna go now?’ and he said, Well, I would really like to go visit my friend, how’d you like to go to Paterson, New Jersey, with me? I got this book from this guy who’s in jail, his name is Rubin Carter.’ But we decided it wouldn’t be the best thing to do to take a woman to jail so now we were gonna go to Harlem to hear some music. Like he was literally searching for musicians. I took him to see the bass player I was playing with but she was real big and fat and he took one look and said, ‘Uh uh, she’s not the bass player I was thinking about.’”

  So they hopped back into the car, Dylan behind the wheel and Sheena peering out the window, talking animatedly about her band. They drove aimlessly now, down Second Avenue, heading toward the East Village, when Dylan spotted this woman with hair down to her waist, carrying a violin. “I know what you need for your band, you need a violinist,” he enthused. “Should we stop?” Sheena assented and rolled the window down, as Dylan screeched to a stop.

  “I asked her where she was going and she said she was going to a rehearsal uptown and I asked her if she could play that violin and she said yeah,” Sheena remembered, “and I asked her if she needed a ride, it was almost as if I was seducing her in a roundabout way, ’cause Bob was so shy, he didn’t say a peep and I’ve got a big mouth. She tol
d me later that she thought I was a prostitute and Bob was my pimp and we were trying to get her into the ring. But she got into the car and we told her my name was Sheena and his name was Danny and we had just come back from Europe and we were from Hungary and we were so hungry. Bob and I were both laughing, talking about how hungry we were, really piling it on her.”

  Once in the car, the threesome headed over to the Village, to Dylan’s studio, and once there, the violinist, who told them her name was Scarlett Rivera, took out her instrument and started playing. Dylan picked up a guitar and started into “One More Cup of Coffee,” a new song as yet unrecorded, and Scarlett joined in. “Hey man,” Dylan nudged Sheena, “she ain’t bad, she’s good, she’s real good.” By now Scarlett had recognized “Danny’s” voice, having grown up on his songs, and she was a bit dazed, jamming with Dylan being a far cry from her current gig making twenty dollars a night playing in a Latin band. A friend of Bob’s dropped by and the foursome headed uptown to a jazz club, but first they stopped by the Other End where Dylan eagerly introduced Scarlett around—“She’s in my band, she’s gonna be in my band,” he boasted.