The first item is something I hadn’t heard before. Dylan sings “North Counry Blues”. A young man, trying to sound older and more gruff than he really is. It’s a little slow, probably of interest to fans only, but give it a try.
Item N° 2 is from Nat Hentoff’s 1966 interview with Dylan, soon after the folk singer went electric. It’s my favorite Dylan interview; just classic:
PLAYBOY: Mistake or not, what made you decide to go the rock-‘n’-roll route?
DYLAN: Carelessness. I lost my one true love. I started drinking. The first thing I know, I’m in a card game. Then I’m in a crap game. I wake up in a pool hall. Then this big Mexican lady drags me off the table, takes me to Philadelphia. She leaves me alone in her house, and it burns down. I wind up in Phoenix. I get a job as a Chinaman. I start working in a dime store, and move in with a 13-year-old girl. Then this big Mexican lady from Philadelphia comes in and burns the house down. I go down to Dallas. I get a job as a “before” in a Charles Atlas “before and after” ad. I move in with a delivery boy who can cook fantastic chili and hot dogs. Then this 13-year-old girl from Phoenix comes and burns the house down. The delivery boy – he ain’t so mild: He gives her the knife, and the next thing I know I’m in Omaha. It’s so cold there, by this time I’m robbing my own bicycles and frying my own fish. I stumble onto some luck and get a job as a carburetor out at the hot-rod races every Thursday night. I move in with a high school teacher who also does a little plumbing on the side, who ain’t much to look at, but who’s built a special kind of refrigerator that can turn newspaper into lettuce. Everything’s going good until that delivery boy shows up and tries to knife me. Needless to say, he burned the house down, and I hit the road. The first guy that picked me up asked me if I wanted to be a star. What could I say?
PLAYBOY: And that’s how you became a rock-‘n’-roll singer?
DYLAN: No, that’s how I got tuberculosis.
Read the whole thing here, if you like.
Last, another clip I’d never seen before: Dylan’s appearance on Dharma and Greg a few years ago. An aging but obliging gent, for whom age is nothing and obliging others is everything.
Happy Birthday, Mr. Dylan, and Thanks for everything.
I’ve never heard of Dharma nor Gregg, but that is a nice clip. The guitarist in sunglasses is T Bone Burnett. According to the credits, Joe Henry is also in the band, but I don’t see him.
At the end, when she asks him to help load her van, I see the young Dylan shining through in the way he answers her. This has made my day.
Cool story, bro.
Yay! I’m gonna jump down a manhole, light myself a birthday candle.
Try to avoid the skandals.
When I can. But I don’t think Bob done it that way.
Sorry Quin, I didn’t see this post before I posted the other one.