Additional Details about A Complete Unknown with Rabbit Holes for Further Exploring

Well it happened. After the international grand opening in Hibbing last weekend, the new Dylan flick hit theaters on Christmas Day. Based on the number of reviews appearing on expectingrain.com there's easily a hundred thousand words that have been published already about the film, the actors, the director, the music, Dylan, the accuracy of the story, the impact of Dylan's career and the likelihood of awards including Oscars, among other related themes. 

I saw A Complete Unknown twice the past few days, on Christmas day and two days later. I enjoyed it. In writing about it here, however, I decided not to summarize the story or analyze the details. Instead, I thought I'd share a few links that may be helpful to newcomers to the Dylan fold, of interest to veteran fans and useful for moviegoers who wish to go deeper on their Dylan adventure.

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Let's start with Olof Björner's Bob Dylan Yearly Chronicles, a compendium of dates and details, songcharts, recording sessions and other stats. Björner (1942-2023) was a Swedish researcher, renowned for his extensive documentation of Dylan's live performances and recording sessions. Björner's work significantly contributed to Dylan scholarship, making him one of the most cited experts on Dylan's career.  

Since A Complete Unknown covers Dylan's life from his January 1961 arrival in New York City to the 1965 Newport Folk Festival, you may enjoy reading through Björner's extensive documentation from his period.

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Boblinks.com is a website dedicated to providing Bob Dylan concert info and links to other Dylan-related sites. The home page says it all: This page is dedicated to providing Bob Dylan concert information and links to other Bob Dylan related sites. If you want to see where Dylan has performed, what fans said or what songs he performed on that date, this is the place. The founder/webmaster of this site is Bill Pagel, a memoribilia collector and archivist who just happens to own both homes that young Bobby Zimmerman grew up in here in the Northland. Each is being meticulously restored to its original period decor. 

expectingrain.com is a wonderful mashup of articles about Dylan, Dylan influences and more. The founder and webmaster is Karl Erik Andersen, whom you can read about here.

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The co-producers of this film were Jeff Rosen and James Mangold, who was also director. When I saw that Mangold had directer 3:10 to Yuma, Logan and Ford v Ferrari, my expectations jumped up another notch. 

For those unfamiliar, Rosen has been Bob Dylan's manager since 1989, playing a significant role in managing Dylan's career, including overseeing his business and music publishing enterprises.  He's also been involved in the curation of Dylan's archives, music licensing, and the management of Dylan's extensive music catalog. He's known for keeping a low profile, the spotlight turned toward our Nobel laureate and national treasure.

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A few more links of interest.

What were Dylan's first months in the Big Apple really like? A film like this compresses four years of history into a little over two hours, so many events are alluded to rather than explicitly pointed out. Peter McKenzie's Bob Dylan: On A Couch & Fifty Cents A Day brings illumination to some events of this period.

Here's an interview with the author:

A Visit with Peter McKenzie, Author of Bob Dylan: On A Couch & Fifty Cents A Day (Part One)
Talking New York, Dylan and More with Peter McKenzie (Part II)

Those familiar with Bob Dylan's story were aware that Sylvie in the film was based on his first NYC girl friend Suze Rotolo. Here's a letter the late Suze Rotolo wrote to her mom regarding Bob, courtesy Bill Pagel.  Suze Rotolo's Letter to Her Mother

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The film's crescendo takes place at the 1965 Newport Follk Festival, and guess what? There's actual footage of that historic performance. Here's "Maggie's Farm." The way Mangold set this up in the film brought a whole new meaning to the song we've all become so familiar with.

 

Here's the actual encore from Dylan's cosing set at Newport 1965, a fitting epitaph to this chapter of Dylan's career. "It's All Over Now Baby Blue":

    

Anthony Scaduto's Bob Dylan

As a result of The Witmark Demos, I've found myself interested in Bob Dylan's story and especially his roots. This led me to Anthony Scaduto's in depth study of the the man behind the shades, simply titled Bob Dylan.

Scaduto was a former crime reporter, so this book is the mother lode when it comes to early Dylan detail. It includes volumes of material on his relationship with Woodie Guthrie (far more than I realized), and all the machinations that brought him so quickly to the limelight in a city crowded with dreamers. It also is a very unflattering portrait, as Dylan's trail to the top was littered with injured or betrayed friends, peers and others who stood on the sidelines and disliked the kid. Yes, he was but a kid when he washed ashore in New York. And anyone who looking for more reasons to dislike Dylan can find additional ammo here.

Which does raise the question for me again as regards the relationship between the artist's life and his work. Take Van Gogh, for example. Characterized by insane extreme behavior -- he cut off his ear and sent it to the woman he loved -- yet extremely sensitive toward the suffering, the needy... and a pioneer in the world of art, a true original.

Well, Scaduto isn't just a bad-mouthin' here. The guy gives the most detailed, in depth look at all the characters who brushed across Dylan's life, and through this book adds understanding to many of the songs we've listened to over the years. "I learned this song from Ric Van Schmidt" is a line at the beginning of "Baby Let Me Follow You Down." Now I know more about Von Schmidt, and Dave Van Ronk, Rambling Jack Elliot and Odetta and the Dinkytown days, the places and faces that became mythical moments in music history. Did you know Dylan played harmonica on one of Harry Belafonte's albums? One song only. Belafonte was a professional and very "tight" with his sound. Young Dylan was ragged, and had no interest in being put in such a confined box. Their styles didn't mesh.

But Dylan's quest was a style of his own. Once he stopped singing Woody Guthrie's boxcar hobo songs of the thirties, his own contemporary interests and subject matter began to emerge. In those early New York years he matured quickly, writing his ideas on scraps of paper and throwing them into his guitar case, an endless stream of material to sift and sort.

This book, published in 1971, will take you back in time. You truly get the feel of that never-to-be-forgotten era.

Here's a tender lament from side one of The Witmark Demos.

Tomorrow Is A Long Time

If today was not an endless highway
If tonight was not a crooked trail
If tomorrow wasn’t such a long time
Then lonesome would mean nothing to you at all
Yes, and only if my own true love was waitin’
Yes, and if I could hear her heart a-softly poundin’
Only if she was lyin’ by me
Then I’d lie in my bed once again

I can’t see my reflection in the waters
I can’t speak the sounds that show no pain
I can’t hear the echo of my footsteps
Or can’t remember the sound of my own name
Yes, and only if my own true love was waitin’
Yes, and if I could hear her heart a-softly poundin’
Only if she was lyin’ by me
Then I’d lie in my bed once again

There’s beauty in the silver, singin’ river
There’s beauty in the sunrise in the sky
But none of these and nothing else can touch the beauty
That I remember in my true love’s eyes
Yes, and only if my own true love was waitin’
Yes, and if I could hear her heart a-softly poundin’
Only if she was lyin’ by me
Then I’d lie in my bed once again

Copyright © 1963 by Warner Bros. Inc.; renewed 1991 by Special Rider Music

Standing Ovation for Bastiens at Guthrie-Dylan Dinner Concert

Last night, Valentini's Italian Restaurant on London Road hosted a benefit concert for the Armory Arts & Music Center. The four-course meal was accompanied by a five-course set of music by the talented tenor/musician Bill Bastien and his gifted wife Laurie on violin. Dressed like the folk heroes of American song that they were presenting, the Bastiens gave us their hearts, thereby capturing the overflowing hearts of the great songwriters of folk.

After a few introductory remarks by Susan Phillips, president of the Armory Arts & Music Center, and the Center's VP Mark Poirer, the Bastiens brought us into the terrain of folk history with some of the songs Woody Guthrie performed in his time, beginning with 900 Miles. The Woodie Guthrie set included the Golden Anniversary Waltz, Pastures of Plenty, Do Re Mi, and Old Joe Clark.

After a scrumptious salad was served, the first Dylan set commenced.

Bastien is more than a musician. I'd heard that he is a great storyteller as well, and as you know every song has a story. The stories were as rich as the heritage from which they birthed.

Bastien's treatment of many of the songs varied, and this first Dylan set included some haunting interpretations of simple, painful songs like 500 Miles, Don't Think Twice, Just Like a Woman, and I Shall be Released.

The main course was then served, along with a wonderfully smooth wine.

When the concert first announced as part of the festivities for Duluth's Dylan Fest, I failed to make the connection between Valentini's and the fund raiser. Raising money here to renovate the Armory only made sense when you look out and see that the Armory is just across the street. Usually I am better than that at connecting the dots.

The Armory is where Bod Dylan saw Buddy Holly's second to last concert before his life ended in an Iowa plane wreck two days later. Purportedly Holly looked directly into the eyes of the young Dylan and "passed the torch" so to speak. Something clicked and Bob Dylan's life purpose was established.

The Bastiens then gave us a set from Arlo Guthrie's Americana, beginning with City of New Orleans. Little Beggar Man, Man of Constant Sorrow, The Last Train and Coming Into Los Angeles followed. Bastien, who also teaches at St. Scholastica here, enriched each song with colorful tales like kite tails streaming in an open sky.

The second Dylan set followed immediately, allowing us to enjoy the Valentini's meat ravioli with sugo, roasted Italian vegentables and bonless slow-cooked chicken breast in Rosemary win sauce. Yummmm.

The selections were interesting, and some surprising. I Ain't Got No Home, O Sister, Highway 61 Revisited, and All Along the Watchtower made for a memorable set.

After dessert and coffee we were offered up chestnuts which included, Turn, Turn, Turn.... The Water Is Wide, Blowing in the Wind, Orange Blossom Special, and a singalong This Land Is Your Land. Standing ovation followed immediately. Wonderful way to kick off a week honoring Dylan, who turns 70 today, May 24.

Happy birthday, Bob, to you.

Blowin' In The Wind

Ed Hilliker turned me on to Dylan. He had the album The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan with him on the school bus and said I should listen to it. The opening cut is Blowin' In The Wind, made popular by Peter, Paul and Mary. I was not an immediate fan. At the time I was getting hepped on the Rolling Stones, the Beatles and other rockers of the time. My first 45 was All Day and All of the Night by The Kinks.

At that point Dylan was a folk singer, and part of the coffee house scene. In his autobiography Chronicle, Dylan details the attraction to folk music. It was issues music, but also had blues and gospel influences. He dug into its depths and found the soil rich with fertile material which his imagination could work with to produce many a good crop of future songs.

One of Dylan's heroes at the time was Woody Guthrie, a folk troubadour whom Dylan idolized. Dylan claims to have originally trekked to New York to see Guthrie when he learned that Guthrie was in Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital in Brooklyn, dying of Huntington's disease. Though Dylan had supposedly been writing songs throughout his childhood, his first recorded original song was Song to Woody, which comes right after Freight Train Blues on Dylan's first album, Bob Dylan, 1962.

So Dylan had caught something from Woody, and Blowin' In The Wind is one of many truly great songs from Freewheelin', his second album. It's elegant simplicity is like a sleight of hand card trick. There is so much here to mull on. The tune, too, gets into you like the harmonic wave of time passing through you. At its heart the song is about injustice, but it's written in a manner that is non-incendiary. It's as if a wise man from the mountain came down and spoke to us, striving to help us see that something is wrong, the world is broken. Who will hear?

That Dylan could craft such a strong song when he was just over twenty was no doubt impressive to some, and that he could carry through with a whole album of such force was especially impressive. To this day he continues to sing Masters of War and one of the most powerful songs of the century (in my opinion) A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall.

This week is Dylan Fest in Duluth. Tonight's Guthrie-Dylan Dinner Concert is sold out or I'd invite you to join us. It's a benefit for the Armory & Arts Music Center with four course Italian dinner, wine and the music of Woody Guthrie & Bob Dylan performed by Bill Bastien & Laurie Bastien.


Blowin' In The Wind

How many roads must a man walk down
Before you call him a man?
Yes, ’n’ how many seas must a white dove sail
Before she sleeps in the sand?
Yes, ’n’ how many times must the cannonballs fly
Before they’re forever banned?
The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind
The answer is blowin’ in the wind

How many years can a mountain exist
Before it’s washed to the sea?
Yes, ’n’ how many years can some people exist
Before they’re allowed to be free?
Yes, ’n’ how many times can a man turn his head
Pretending he just doesn’t see?
The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind
The answer is blowin’ in the wind

How many times must a man look up
Before he can see the sky?
Yes, ’n’ how many ears must one man have
Before he can hear people cry?
Yes, ’n’ how many deaths will it take till he knows
That too many people have died?
The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind
The answer is blowin’ in the wind

Copyright © 1962 by Warner Bros. Inc.; renewed 1990 by Special Rider Music