Sunbonnet Sue introduced the speaker, his speech being titled "Bob Dylan -- Highway 53 Revisited."
There's a famous dictum for speakers that you've probably heard before. "Tell them what you are going to say, say it, and tell them what you said." Metsa honored this by telling us what he was going to say and following through. "I will be reading from my book Alphabet Jazz," he said at the beginning, though we received much more than that.
But first, he gave a nod to the man who remains present at all these Duluth Dylan Fest gatherings, alive in all our hearts, John Bushey, whose radio program Highway 61 Revisited was a rich and rewarding feast for countless Dylan fans for more than 26 years. "John Bushey," Metsa said, "was the prime mover behind Dylan being re-respected in Duluth and the Iron Range."
Metsa's first reading from the book was a 1992 letter that he wrote to the Twin Cities Reader in response to a seriously brutal Dylan harangue by Burl "Ives" Gilyard. Metsa's letter was titled, "Dylan -- Still a Hep Cat." It began like this: "Although Bob Dylan certainly needs no one to defend him, I still take issue with Burl “Ives” Gilyard’s shallow musings and cavalier dismissal of the modern Jewish troubadour."
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| Paul Metsa @ Wussow's. Photos courtesy Michael Anderson |
Metsa then covered a swath of territory that included Hibbing High School, the teacher there that was possibly Dylan's biggest influence, and some additional anecdotes about Hibbing and the Iron Range.
In the midst of all this was a story about 4th Street. In addition to beng one of the great put-down songs of all time, "Positively Fourth Street" has a couple of other interesting features. First, the song came out as a single, but was never on any of the tracks on any of Dylan's albums until it appeared on his Greatest Hits album. Second, many people have wondered whether this 4th Street put-down was rooted in a New York experience or Dinkytown, the section of Minneapolis where Dylan was resident before heading off to the Big Apple.
Well, Metsa pointed out that there's a Fourth Street in Hibbing, following up with an anecdote about a couple there that never listens to music. Could this be one of the reasons Bob left Hibbing?
For the record, there is also a Fourth Street in Duluth, one-and-a-half blocks from the home where young Bobby Zimmerman grew up. It's my hope that one day the City of Duluth will rename it Positively Fourth Street some day. (EdNote: Inasmuch as Bob left Duluth at age 6 when his family moved to Hibbing, it is doubtful that the song is referencing any of his kindergarten experiences.)
For what it's worth, Metsa is an engaging storyteller. Whether talking about his experiences navigating the Minnesota music scene or what it's like to live in the same house where Bob Dylan once lived, he draws you in. (He has been renting the lower half of the duplex while looking for a house here in Duluth, which he now has found.)
FWIW, Paul's first book is titled Blue Guitar Highway and is available on Amazon. He also has a third book in the worked that will be published by University of Minnesota Press titled Blood In The Tracks.
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In 2018, the Minnesota musicians who recorded five of the songs on Dylan's much-lauded Blood on the Tracks album got the long-overdue recognition they deserved for their contributions to that very special album. Paul Metsa featured their stories on his Wall of Power program, a very special event for everyone present. Here are my three blog posts about that special day.
Part One
https://pioneerproductions.blogspot.com/2018/10/inside-studio-still-more-blood-and.html
Part Two
https://pioneerproductions.blogspot.com/2018/10/paul-metsas-wall-of-power-featuring.html
Part Three
https://pioneerproductions.blogspot.com/2018/10/lives-touched-and-changed-dylan-blood.html
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Thank you, Paul, for sharing your stories. Welcome to Duluth.
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