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From the bars to the arenas, learn the fascinating stories of how our biggest rock music legends made the leap. Each episode reveals the stories, songs and little known facts of the journey from obscurity to fame of one of rock music’s biggest stars. Join us on Garage To Stadiums as host Dave Anthony teams up with an author of a rock biography or director of a rock documentary to explore that journey, their early years, the stories behind the scenes, their top songs, and their place in music history.
Learn about the passion, talent, luck and even scandal that often came together to propel these stars from obscurity to household names.
Dave Anthony 0:01
Hi there. I'm Dave Anthony and this is the Garage to Stadiums podcast. On each episode we tell you the story of how one of our music legends rose from obscurity to fame, and play some of the songs that mark that journey.
Welcome to Garage to Stadiums. Today's episode is the story of Bob Dylan. Bob was born as Robert Zimmerman to a Jewish family in Minnesota in 1941, and changed his name to Bob Dylan. In this episode, you'll learn why Dylan is considered the groundbreaking musician that played a key role in the evolution of the music industry, with unique and compelling songwriting that touched a chord with audiences. Before Dylan songs were light, jovial or based on light subject matter for the most part. The depth of his writing demonstrated that music could be a mass communication channel for communicating social issues and insights into human behavior, leading his songs to become anthems for the social movements of the 1960s. He's received numerous awards including the Presidential Medal of Freedom 10 Grammy Awards, a Golden Globe Award, and Academy Award, a Pulitzer Prize citation, and a Nobel Prize Award for literature. He's released over 40 studio albums, and he's influenced artists like The Beatles, Bruce Springsteen, Neil Young and many more. Along with Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry and Little Richard Dylan is considered one of the godfathers of rock music in the latter half of the 20th century, he sold more than 145 million records, making him one of the best selling positions ever. Here to discuss Bob Dylan's story is authored Harold Lepidus, who has written extensively on Dylan providing insights on a career that has now spanned eight decades. Harold has been a panelist at various Dylan symposiums, and he's the author of the Bob Dylan book, friends and other strangers. Welcome to Garage to Stadiums, Harold. Well, thank you for having me. We're going to start with Bob's early life, his family life where he grew up.
Harold Lepidus 2:05
Well, he comes from a Jewish family. They migrated to America before he's born. And he was born in Duluth, Minnesota in 1941. He has a brother David and he had his parents were ape and BD Zimmerman, when they were young. After David was born, they moved up to Hibbing Minnesota iron ore country, and his father worked in an appliance store. When the kids were grown. His mother Biddy worked in a clothing store. So when he was young, his father sent t Bob out to I guess, collect money from the poor or parts of town, which probably instilled with him a sense of those less fortunate than self, which I think influenced a lot of his writing. And he also talked about a very cold, cold winters with just tons of snow. And that led to him his imagination going wild. And, of course, that helped him with his career as well. He started playing piano, which he plays now, but he's mostly known as the guitar and harmonica guy, very influenced by in particular, if you look at his, his high school yearbook, his hair is up like this like Little Richard. And that's what it says.
Dave Anthony 3:21
Right? And I guess, Elvis and all those performers from sort of the 50s would have influenced them early on,
Harold Lepidus 3:29
right. He's again, he said that Hank Williams was his first hero. Yeah, well, Richard. Elvis definitely. When Elvis died, it affected him deeply and affected his immediate work afterwards.
Dave Anthony 3:41
So his early musical performances, was this on a high school stage was it where would Where did he perform first?
Harold Lepidus 3:49
Well, one of the famous early ones was like a school with a talent contests their concert member in Hibbing high school and he play piano really wild. Will Richard Todd music and they pull the curtain down. It's a sign of things to come that yeah, he wasn't the easygoing listening guy. They were used to that time.
Dave Anthony 4:11
So was he a bit of a loner? Did he have friends? Like what was his like? He seems like the type who would be a loner, but maybe I'm just surmising Yeah,
Harold Lepidus 4:18
I think he's more private than a loner. He has a very he's his friends. Help with his keep his private life private, for the most part. Like some of his marriages. We didn't find out about too many, many years later. Yeah, he had he had his close friends him. One of them was Louie camp who ended up forming the Kempsey food empire. One of
Dave Anthony 4:38
the musicians that has had a major influence on Bob is Woody Guthrie, when he was a folk singer who wrote social activism songs about the downtrodden workers in America, the poor, the immigrants, etc. he's most famous for his song, this land is your land This
Speaker 1 4:56
land is your land and this land is mine. I land from California to the New York land. Bob admired
Dave Anthony 5:06
his songwriting and when he graduated high school and then spent some time in college at the University of Minnesota, he decided to start performing in local coffee houses doing Woody Guthrie folk songs. He was so enthralled by Guthrie that he hardly attended classes and decided to move to New York City, and incredibly go in search of Woody.
Harold Lepidus 5:26
This is still in the early 60s, and he by this time was heavily influenced by Woody Guthrie and he wants to meet him and Woody Guthrie was very ill at the time he was in the hospital and in New Jersey, so he ended up hitchhiking to New York integrants village and that's that's one of the few places where the folks he was happening Greenwich Village in New York. Yeah, yeah. And went to visit when he got three and some strange guys knocking on the door. And so he ended up going to the hospital where Woody Guthrie was, and we play him all this what do you got few songs back to him? You call themselves a little Woody Guthrie jukebox.
Dave Anthony 6:06
And why was he intrigued by Woody Guthrie? What was it about woody that that Bob sort of admired just
Harold Lepidus 6:11
so many things, I mean, this the social consciousness aspect, I would think would be a major one. The fact that it was just, you know, plain talking to some guy who could play guitar and communicate with people very simply and very directly, but also with a lot of his a lot of humor.
Dave Anthony 6:27
So New York in the early 60s had what was known as kind of a coffeehouse circuit. And Bob starts to play on those what open mic nights perhaps is that how he kind of got his start?
Harold Lepidus 6:38
It started with that, and then ended up being on bills with like John Lee Hooker, and other people. I mean, it got reviewed in the New York Times. And in Roberts Shelton, which was amazing that a folk singer that no one ever knew got a review from Scott Robertson, and the a&r guy in Columbia, John Hammond, who later discovered Bruce Springsteen and Stevie Ray Vaughan did earlier work with signed with a Franklin work with a lot of jazz greats like Benny Goodman, so just kind of signed them on the spot or one beside them on the spot. And, again, a folk act on a major label was unusual that most of them are on labels like folkways or Vanguard. So Dylan being on a major label was really something. And
Dave Anthony 7:23
it's interesting, I've read that, you know, John Hammond is a legend at Columbia, he discovered him. But this is despite other people at Columbia, saying Bob's singing voice was the most horrible thing they'd ever heard in their lives. I mean, that was unusual to have someone of, you know, that kind of voice being signed to a record contract.
Harold Lepidus 7:42
Right? Well, you know, obviously, John Hammond could look past the, as I like to say, you know, he does have a pretty voice, but as a beautiful voice, it is real. There's no autotune. It's gone through different phases throughout the years, you sample and from 1963, to 1969, to 2003, to now, and they're all these different voices. What he conveys is an honesty to whatever he's thinking at the time,
Dave Anthony 8:11
his personal life is germane to his evolution. Let's talk about some of the women in his life. When he got to New York, who were they and how did it influence them?
Harold Lepidus 8:21
Well, the most famous woman, when he first got to New York was he started a relationship with Suze Rotolo. And she's the woman on the cover of the freewheelin Bob Dylan album, his second album, and she's the one who exposed him to a lot of political stuff that was going on next to you know, he's writing songs like Masters of War, and heartbreak is going to fall. And the folk scene in New York was mostly just people singing other folk songs that they were just not. It's not a lot of songwriting going on,
Dave Anthony 8:51
like traditional folk songs, right? And Joan Baez is probably his most famous romantic partner. What did she add to his musical sort of approach?
Harold Lepidus 9:01
It's more of the exposure because she has incredibly beautiful voice. And Bob's voice is very rough. And she would bring him out and started covering his songs just bringing him to a wider audience that he would not have had without her, so I can't imagine what it's like to his career would have been life if she didn't bring him out on tour and, and be his biggest supporter. Bob's
Dave Anthony 9:25
first album was simply called Bob Dylan. It had many cover tunes of various blues and folk songs with not many original songs. He covers House of the Rising Sun that was one of the key tracks on that album.
Speaker 2 9:40
Is a high house down in New Orleans. They call Oh.
Dave Anthony 9:51
His second album comes out in May 1963. Called freewheelin Bob Dylan. This is where it girlfriends Suze Rotolo social consciousness influence until it starts to manifest. It has the famous song blowing in the wind
Speaker 2 10:03
isn't many of terms monster cannon balls flak for the River Band for my friend is
Speaker 3 10:17
blown in the wind, Masters of War, Masters of War
Speaker 2 10:25
in the big guns, planes and bombs
Dave Anthony 10:36
another one a Hard Rain's gonna fall. I mean, this is where he starts to show his absolute insight talent. And he gets kind of associated with that protest type movement. I mean, this is an innovator. What was the special thing that he brought to the music industry at that time? It
Harold Lepidus 10:54
did a few things. One is that the protests or topical songs, it has this morality, which is based on like, almost like a biblical morality. It wasn't just, he used to refer to refer to some other protest singers as being fingerpointing songs, but it puts it in a larger context.
Dave Anthony 11:16
So around this time in 1963, and incredible thing happens, where, for some context, the Ed Sullivan Show is probably the biggest show the 50s and 60s relative to entertainment in the US, you have everyone from comedians, to musicians, to jugglers, to clowns, all sorts of things come on the show every Sunday night. This is the famous place where Elvis in 1956 appeared and they shot him above the hips because it was so scandalous to have somebody shaking their hips. The Beatles came on in 64 and 73 million people watch this. So show. So this is the show if you want exposure. And here's Bob Dylan, not quite a star yet, they offer him a spot on the show. And he gets on the show. And he is going to do a song called the talking John Birch paranoid blues. And effectively they say you can't perform that because it satirizes the US government's preoccupation with rooting out communist sympathizers
Harold Lepidus 12:18
villain not appearing man that he's you know, he's doesn't appear to be for the money if at all, he was in at a higher standard. And there are things more important than money in
Dave Anthony 12:29
February 64 comes, the times they are changing,
Speaker 2 12:33
then don't criticize what you can understand your sons and your daughters are beyond your command. Your own road is rapidly aging, please get a new one cane in your hand, oh, the times are changing.
Dave Anthony 12:55
This, again shows the depth at which this individual can start to write in and provide insights. He's got another song with goner side. Who did he start to influence in music in the early 60s With this depth of his songwriting? Everybody? Almost that's the right answer. Like literally everybody changed their tunes from lighthearted twist and shouts to we got to write something of substance his third album
Harold Lepidus 13:27
times ever changing. It's a mixture of political songs like we've gotten our side, it's something to think about. Now again, for especially people younger, like all this almost music from young people was not taken seriously. It was just, you know, the the older generation, if they grew up on Cole Porter and Frank Sinatra, this did not there was a, you know, a big generation gap. And lines were drawn in. So when Dylan was doing this, it was a signal to the to a whole younger generation, that you don't have to play by the old rules anymore, that you can write about whatever you want, and it would go even further, which we'll talk about I'm sure. Like, for instance, the immediate influence on the Beatles by the end of 64. John Lennon's writing songs, like I'm a loser with harmonica, and that's definitely a Dylan influenced song. His
Dave Anthony 14:22
songs are associated with societal change of the 60s blowing in the wind, the times they are changing. I mean, this is almost the songbook of the 60s movement at some levels. Yeah,
Harold Lepidus 14:33
I mean, he was invited in August 63. To the March on Washington, which the were Martin Luther King Jr. gave his I Have a Dream speech. But again, it's a 1963 is still hardly known. It's around the time he first appeared at the Newport Folk Festival. Clearly, certain people were listening and he was invited to perform there on the same stage, not the same bill, so to speak as Martin Luther King, Jr. Yeah, he's
Dave Anthony 15:00
only 22 years older. So he's been invited to this March. I mean, incredible.
Harold Lepidus 15:06
Yeah. So within within the people in the folk movement and the luxury political movement, they knew who he was, and things would only get bigger from there. So
Dave Anthony 15:17
the next album another side of Bob Dylan comes out in August 1964, and solidifies him as a unique new voice in music that has to be watched. It's got songs like chimes of freedom,
Speaker 2 15:31
and fire each and every dog soldier. Night, when we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing,
Dave Anthony 15:43
he's got another album bringing it all home in March of 1965. It's released and includes Mr. Tambourine Man,
Speaker 2 15:52
Hey, miss the time the Rain Man glass song for me. I'm not sleeping, and there's no place I'm going to do.
Dave Anthony 16:03
But Subterranean Homesick Blues is also included.
Speaker 4 16:08
On the ship, the gap is picky, but I'll hit jump down a manhole.
Dave Anthony 16:17
Here's an interesting question for you. Is this the first hip hop rap song? That's something that's on the internet a lot. Maybe we'll call them the notorious Bobby. Okay, so now we're getting to some interesting times, and Bob starts to be so influential at this point that other artists start covering his songs and having their own hits with his material. For example, The Birds record Mr. Tambourine Man, which goes on to be a number one hit. The folk trio, Peter Paul and Mary record blowing in the wind and make it a hit. Also, Bob comes out with highway 61 Revisited, which starts to mark a departure in the type of music more guitars, drums and other instruments moving to more of a rock sound. It has perhaps one of his most famous songs like a Rolling Stone.
He is getting more fame as you said he was invited to the Newport music festival. And something infamous happens there.
Harold Lepidus 17:33
So in 1965, he had just released Like a Rolling Stone. He's leaning towards going to rock and roll. So a lot of people are coming to the Newport Folk Festival to see Dylan that he is the reason that they're traveling to see all these bands and they expect them to do a full set because this footage is available. But he he has a leather jacket, a Fender electric guitar. There's like a Rolling Stone. And it was very loud. People some people were saying they were booing because the sound was bad. Because they were not used to electrified rock and roll festival. Some people would say they were booing because he was just playing rock and roll. And then when it was over, it was only three songs. A lot of people supposedly were booing because they came all the way from all over New England, I guess to go to this concert to see Bob Dylan
Dave Anthony 18:26
and that leads to his tour of England and he recruits as a backup band the future members of the band, Robbie Robertson and gang, Levon Helm, who were a backup band called The Hawks talk a little bit about that tour of England because that too, had some groundbreaking reaction.
Harold Lepidus 18:46
Some people would be booing in England is actually Manchester. He does this beautiful acoustic set seven songs. It's pristine, but mostly new songs. When he does this, the band comes out for a whole other set. And it's loud, you can hear you know, Dylan, play with the crowd and like he would mumble to everyone settled down and just say you only wouldn't clap. So the most the most famous HECO of all time is right before Like a Rolling Stone. So when the LSAT of Judas and then he did this amazing version of Like a Rolling Stone, so that there's also a video of all this too. Yeah, we'll
Dave Anthony 19:26
include clips of that on our site so that people can see those reactions. So he does come back to the US he's involved in a pretty serious motorcycle accident and really doesn't tour for a few years. But he puts out I guess the Blonde on Blonde album did that happen after the accident or before
Harold Lepidus 19:45
it was recorded beforehand? There is I want you and just like a woman and and one song that went to number two, which was really the women number 12 and 35. The opening track some people know is everybody let's get stoned.
Speaker 2 19:58
This thought Are you trying to go home? Are you in all alone
Harold Lepidus 20:18
it seems just like a drug song. But it's also one way to look at Dolan's writing like a protest song or it's also like a political song because it's like, basically you want to do what you want to do. But people are always trying to stop you.
Dave Anthony 20:29
As you said, he's always evolving. He's always pushing the limits. Tell us about the period that follows though no touring, but there's no double albums put out Where did he go? Where was he? So
Harold Lepidus 20:40
uh, he got secretly married on November 22 1965. To Sarah because if he kept on going the way he's going, he probably would have died. He who's going to play? Yeah, I think Russia and Shea Stadium and all these things were supposedly being planned and he was on amphetamines. He's not certainly not living a healthy lifestyle lifestyle, plus the pressure plus all the controversy. And so he just became a country gentleman, a family man. He and Sarah Sarah already had a daughter and that they had more kids. One of the one of them was a nine six and I was Jacob Dolan of the wallflowers Jacob
Dave Anthony 21:17
went on to have a career as well. And then the album, John Wesley Harding comes out and of course it has all along the watchtower, which becomes a massive hit for Jimi Hendrix. In fact, it's such a hit for Hendrix that Dylan now says that's Jimmy song
must loose on the album Nashville skyline has an interesting duet with Johnny Cash. It's the girl from the north country song if you're
Unknown Speaker 22:04
in the know.
Dave Anthony 22:12
On and then another hit for Bob was lay lady lay lady
Speaker 1 22:21
lay, lay across my big brains
Dave Anthony 22:28
almost has a different voice on that album, it's deeper or there's some different resonance on it. Yeah,
Harold Lepidus 22:33
it's reminiscent of the voice he had before he was famous when he was still in Hibbing. It's very weird. I think he just is able to control it. But yeah, he said it was because he quit smoking, which is ridiculous. Clive Davis at Columbia wanted to release it as a single and Dylan was like, Well, none of my friends listen to a ham radio or buy singles and Clive Davis said, I know this is for people who don't already buy your records. You know, this is like someone listen to expand your audience and that being like a top 10 hit for him.
Dave Anthony 23:03
We move into the 70s the early 70s The album Pat Garrett and Billy and the kid was that that was for a movie like was he was in the movie was that hit knockin on heaven's door and one of his famous songs.
Unknown Speaker 23:18
Heavens too.
Harold Lepidus 23:30
think someone said that's his most streamed song which may be because of Guns and Roses covering it
Dave Anthony 23:36
was covered by Guns and Roses. You read? Yeah, that became a
Harold Lepidus 23:39
hit single. He played a fictional character, which they just wrote in. He just played alias to some guy named Aeleus. And yeah, Dylan Dylan is in the movies. So much that he's a great actor, but you can't take your eyes off and you just want just your I just focus on him and he can be incredibly funny. I think you've been in a couple of movies before that concert Louise, but that's the first acting role. So in the mid 70s, this is the big resurgence for Bob Dylan. So as I was saying in 1974, we were back on tour with the band put up find a way it's his first number one album. The next year he put on blood on the tracks as some people think is his best album or the best album that came out the following
Dave Anthony 24:21
year. tangled up in blue is on there. around
Unknown Speaker 24:30
my shoulder
Harold Lepidus 24:39
that was around the time he was separated from his wife. The album has a reputation of being about all about that. It's about all sorts of things.
Dave Anthony 24:46
He ended up writing a song about the jailing a boxer Rubin, Hurricane Carter for the murder of someone that Carter was, I guess unjustly sent to jail for life and he was innocent. That's Long was called hurricane let's play a little bit about that now
Speaker 5 25:02
it comes estado que the man the authorities came to pay for something that he never
Unknown Speaker 25:17
gonna be the champion
Harold Lepidus 25:20
was his first major political statement in years and it definitely was instrumental in getting him a retrial.
Dave Anthony 25:28
The album I do want the audience to maybe give a listen to is that desire LM because Emmylou Harris is the country performer is on that album singing a few duets with Bob.
It's one of the few times he's done duets with a female performer. Is that true? Yeah, it's
Harold Lepidus 25:55
rare. What
Dave Anthony 25:56
sort of in the 80s and 90s? Was he kind of known for like he there was a couple of seminal events there. Was there not?
Harold Lepidus 26:03
Yeah, so in the late 70s. The people call it is born again phase. But it was a guy he explored gospel music,
Dave Anthony 26:11
it became a Christian, did
Harold Lepidus 26:12
he not the terminology is a bit murky, because if you're born Jewish, there's only there are certain rules that you know where you can where you are, but it's
Dave Anthony 26:22
gonna break those rules. It's Bob Dylan. Definitely.
Harold Lepidus 26:24
He gave these like sermons and the initial tour was all new songs with the gospel feel a lot of Jesus a lot a lot of it is though from a Jewish perspective, too. So it's it's fascinating stuff and an alienated a lot of people by giving them a whole new audience of people who were not fans beforehand. By the time that ended those tours like the 79 to 81 he had lost a lot of his audience. So in 1984, in England, there was a do they know as Christmas which was a benefit, single organized by Bob Geldof of the Boomtown Rats. And the next step was around the time of empire burlesque. We are the world singer, which is a charitable single Okay,
Dave Anthony 27:11
Lionel Richie. And Michael Jackson organized a group of performers that there's I was actually featured in a documentary called the greatest night and pop. And they assembled to raise money for the famine victims of Ethiopia. In that documentary if you've seen it, Harold, I mean, it looks awkwardly out of place, almost like a deer in the headlights. Yeah,
Harold Lepidus 27:35
it's it's not his thing. If he is on a stage, and he's in control and everything or he's in the studio, and he does what he wants, and everyone leaves him alone. He is the best, but if he has to listen to other people, sometimes he seems to be in many instances just painfully shy. Is
Dave Anthony 27:52
that sort of the story on him? Like he's eccentric at some levels? Like, is he on the spectrum? Is he like, what is what is it with him? Yeah,
Harold Lepidus 27:59
I think we're all on the spectrum. But um, you know, I think I just think he, he thinks differently, and just the idea, the theme he has makes him shut out the world, a lot of the world he just doesn't want to deal with people. So I think he just doesn't really want to deal with a lot of people he has, from what I understand he has a very robust personal life with the friends that he has and so on his band members and family and so on, but you know, outsiders doesn't want to those want to deal with them
Dave Anthony 28:30
in the ADC also hooks up with George Harrison, Jeff Lynn, Tom Petty, Roy Orbison to create the Traveling Wilburys a group they had a hit with Handle With Care
Speaker 6 28:43
got some bad to me Joe Biden next
Dave Anthony 28:57
today like he's still tours constantly like how does what's his motivation after achieving so much like how does he still stay on the road for so long? Well,
Harold Lepidus 29:07
I think when he it so in 1988, is when they started when he started the so called Never Ending tour. Yeah, most
Dave Anthony 29:14
people say this is, you know, the final tour or whatever they call it, in which they always come back and play more but he calls it the never ending tour.
Harold Lepidus 29:22
And if you ever see is like setlist of what he that I've written out, it's like multiple choice, or none of the above. He just plays whatever he feels like. And other musicians have to figure out what he is what he's doing. You're not going to see the 1965 Bob Dylan or the 1975 Bob Dylan, you're going to see some guy who wouldn't say doesn't want to be Bob Dylan, but he doesn't want to be that Bob. The only one He's a he's someone who's continues to do what he wants and doesn't want to be trapped by his own past
Dave Anthony 29:52
is kind of a polymath at some levels. He's published books. He's So an artist he hosted a, I guess, an XM Satellite show during the same
Harold Lepidus 30:04
time theme time radio are,
Dave Anthony 30:05
he's won an Oscar. Bob Dylan is now at three or four years old.
Harold Lepidus 30:11
And still a viewer. Yeah, the 83 may 24. As
Dave Anthony 30:15
you sort of step back and take a look at the canvas that he's left what what would you say is his legacy? He
Harold Lepidus 30:22
changed songwriting in many different genres again, you know, topical political songs, love songs, surrealistic, kind of pre psychedelic songs, breakup songs, just almost like avant garde, you know, the Beatles when they're around they every year, they look a little different. And they change a little different someone like David Bowie was constantly changing from what he was doing. That's another thing that I think influences a lot of artists. But it's basically, you know, he set a template for doing what you want. I mean, you can say like, when he went electric, either a new part he started hard rock, and heavy metal and punk or something, almost one with one song, you know, it was very loud music. And he was fearless.
Dave Anthony 31:12
Harold, we're at that point where we're going to ask you to pick three songs with some sort of theme or, or why you pick them? Is there a genre? Is there something that discusses his various stages, three songs or whatever theme you want to apply? Why did you pick the three. And that's hard to do with an artist with over 40 studio albums. My goodness,
Harold Lepidus 31:33
I'm trying to picture someone who basically, as you said, knows the hits, knows stuff about Bob Dylan, but doesn't know anything deeper. And so I picked three songs. Again, since he's been making records since 1962. I decided after much very long conversation with myself to do three to three songs from the 60s I have three different styles of music. So the first one is a song called Farewell Angelina, which was recorded but unreleased from the bring it all back home sessions early 65. But it's, it's it. It's a acoustic it's, it's that early poetic kind of imagery. And again, it's a great song. Most people probably don't know.
Speaker 2 32:23
Angelina, guys changing colors. Mostly.
Dave Anthony 32:30
Okay, number two,
Harold Lepidus 32:32
so I tried to pick up pick a topical song. So called protests on it was on a time zero change and now it's from the song mission is 63 came out 64 And it's called the Lonesome death of Hattie Carroll. And it's one of his strongest summaries of a storytelling thing that over time, builds this case about what a horrific event occurred when
Speaker 2 33:03
a kid who had a carer with a cane thrown around his damaged ring finger that evolved to my hotel, society gathering.
Harold Lepidus 33:15
Number three. For my third song, I was trying to pick one of his funnier songs. I decided to go with something from the Basement Tapes to give you a feel of what was going on then when, like I say, a bunch of fully baked musicians wrote a bunch of half baked songs. So there's the one I'm picking is million dollar bash, there's sexual innuendo if you want to read that into it, but it's one of my funniest verses is the last one. He says. I looked at my watch, I looked at my wrist, I punched myself in my face with my fist, I took my potatoes Danti mashed then he made over $2 million for bash.
Speaker 6 33:55
When I lived in my watch, I lived in my wrist, I punched myself in the face with my fists, and took my potatoes than to be masked. And I made it on all
Dave Anthony 34:11
this, well, that's great. We'll put those three songs on the official garage to stadium's Bob Dylan playlist. So we'll have these three tunes plus those other ones that people can download on Spotify, or Apple Music or their favorite streaming platform. It's been a pleasure to have you today, Harold and you've really eliminated us on the genius that is Bob Dylan and how much he influenced changed the music industry.
Harold Lepidus 34:38
Well, this is a lot of fun. As I told you before, and I listened to all the episodes that you've had before. I really enjoyed the show. And I'm glad to be on it. And hopefully, he'll turn some people on and maybe even change some preconceived notions. So thank you for inviting me.
Dave Anthony 34:53
Thank you very much. Some closing notes on Bob Dylan incred Billy Bob did not have a number one hit until his song murder most foul in 2020. It was a 17 minute song about the assassination of John F. Kennedy. And Dylan was 79 years old at the time. We'll include that on our Bob Dylan garage to stadiums official playlist available on Spotify, Apple and other streaming platforms as his parting note in his 1959, Hibbing Minnesota high school yearbook, Bob or Robert Zimmerman, as he was known at the time, summarized his ambition as follows, quote, unquote, to join Little Richard. Why did he choose the name Dylan as his new surname? The answer remains a mystery. It's commonly thought that he named himself after poet Dylan Thomas, a Welsh born poet and writer. But Dylan shot that theory down as early as 1961, in an interview with The New York Times in which he said, straightened out in your book that I did not take my name from Dylan Thomas, quote, unquote. And he went on to say, Dylan Thomas's poetry is for people that aren't really satisfied in their bed for people who dig masculine romance. I would say that's a fairly emphatic denial. When he signed his first contract with Columbia Records, he was only 20 and therefore he needed his parents consent. No problem, thought, Bob, I'll just say I'm an orphan, and therefore, no parental signature was required. In the early 1960s, Dylan was considered to play the lead character, Holden Caulfield in a film adaptation of the book The Catcher in the Rye. The film was never made. When Elvis died in 1977, a melancholy Dylan did not talk for a week. He said, If it was not for Elvis and Hank Williams, I couldn't be doing what I do today. In 1988, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with an induction speech by Bruce Springsteen, and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2012. The highest civilian honor in American President Barack Obama at that ceremony said, quote, There is not a bigger giant in the history of American music. Dylan has six children and has nine grandchildren and is the proud owner of a bumper sticker that reads World's Greatest grandpa. We talked a little bit about Dylan's eccentricity. Irish singer songwriter Glen Hansard, who won an Oscar in 2008 for the song Falling slowly from the movie once said he wants had dinner with Bob Dylan Van Morrison and Elvis Costello in complete silence. Afterwards, Hansard commented quote, I don't know how these guys brands work. I don't know if it's Asperger's or autism, but the whole meal was silent. No one said anything. Bob Dylan sold the publishing rights to his entire catalogue of songs estimated to be over 600 songs for reported $200 million in 2020. The songs were purchased by Sony, which owned Columbia Records his first record label. From more on Bob Dylan's career visit garage to stadiums.com, where you can see our blog entry on villain which includes video clips of various concerts and appearances throughout the decades. You can also see our show notes and transcripts for all of our episodes at the site, including the official garage to stadiums playlists for each performer feature. Follow our show on your favorite podcast platform to be alerted when our next episode drops. We hope you enjoyed our show today. Special thanks to our guests Harold Lepidus, author of The Bob Dylan biography, friends and other strangers and our producers for this episode, I mean a foe bear and Connor Samson, others who contributed to the episode include Scott Campbell, you've been listening to garage two stadiums another blast furnace labs production. I'm Dave Anthony. See you next time for another garage to stadium story.