Tag Archives: Ramblin’ Jack Elliott

Awesome Early ’60s Bob Dylan Photos Get Show in South Haven — See the Photos Now!

Bob Dylan and John Sebastian at Village Cafe in Woodstock, New York in 1964. Photo by Douglas R. Gilbert.

In 1964 Douglas R. Gilbert got the once-in-a-lifetime assignment to photograph Bob Dylan up in Woodstock, and elsewhere, for Look magazine.

Look never ran the photos, but now they will be exhibited at the South Haven Center for the Arts at 600 Phoenix Rd, South Haven Charter Township, MI 49090.

You can see four of them here.v

But the mother lode is at Gilbert’s website, where you can view 46 of the photos right now!

There are superb photos of Dylan with Allen Ginsberg, John Sebastian, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott and Sally Grossman — wife of Dylan’s manager, Albert Grossman — who was later in the cover photo for Bringing It All Back Home.

Here’s what’s on Gilbert’s website about the photos:

In July of 1964, one year before his music changed from acoustic to electric, I photographed Bob Dylan for LOOK magazine. I spent time with him at his home in Woodstock, New York, in Greenwich Village, and at the Newport Folk Festival. The story was never published. After reviewing the proposed layout, the editors declared Dylan to be “too scruffy for a family magazine” and killed the story.

Some of the photos were used for The Bootleg Series, Vol. 6: Bob Dylan Live 1964, Concert at Philharmonic Hall.

And they appeared in the excellent book: “Forever Young: Photographs of Bob Dylan‚ by Douglas R. Gilbert.”

[In August of this year I’ll be publishing my rock ‘n’ roll/ coming-of-age novel, “True Love Scars,” which features a narrator who is obsessed with Bob Dylan. To read the first chapter, head here.

Or watch an arty video with audio of me reading from the novel here.

–- A Days of the Crazy-Wild blog post: sounds, visuals and/or news –-

Listen: Bob Dylan’s Early Radio Show Recordings From 1961

On July 31, 1961 journalist Robert Shelton (who went on to write “No Direction Home: The Life and Music of Bob Dylan”) wrote an article in the New York Times about a new folk music program on WRVR in New York called “Saturday Of Folk Music.” The show was broadcast from Riverside Church, NY on July 29, 1961.

Deep into the article he wrote:

Among the newer promising talents deserving mention are a 20-year-old latter-day Guthrie disciple named Bob Dylan, with a curiously arresting mumbling, country-steeped manner…

Bob sang three songs by himself, “Handsome Molly,” “Naomi Wise,” and “Poor Lazarus”; played harp on “Mean Old Railroad” with Danny Kalb (who would later go on to play guitar and sing in The Blues Project), singing, and wrapped things up dueting with Ramblin’ Jack Elliot on a doo-wop joke song, “Acne.”

Saturday Of Folk Music

1 Handsome Molly
2 Naomi Wise
3 Poor Lazarus
4 Mean Old Railroad
5 Acne

Click on the link here for Audio Player: Bob Dylan In Session – Saturday Of Folk Music – 1961

And if you know what you’re doing, you can save the file to your desktop.

Later that year (October 1961) Bob appeared on “Oscar Brand’s Folksong Festival,” a weekly radio show broadcast every Saturday at 10 p.m. on WNYC-AM 820 in New York City.

Oscar Brand is a folk singer who has recorded over 100 albums; his radio show was been going now for 66 years. Dylan appeared on it in advance of his Nov 4, 1961 Carnegie Chapter Hall concert.

“Sally Gal”:

-– A Days of the Crazy-Wild blog post: sounds, visuals and/or news –-