Dylan Joins the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame 30 Years Ago Today

         

Excerpt from Chapter 16 of Dylan & the Grateful Dead: A Tale of Twisted Fate

Inspired to return to public service and perform his songs, Dylan unexpectedly put a pause on his plans due to a freak accident that injured his hand. “It had been ripped and mangled to the bone and was still in the acute state—it didn’t even feel like it was mine,” Dylan wrote in Chronicles. “It was like a black leopard had torn into my tattered flesh. It was plenty sore. After being on the threshold of something bold, innovative and adventurous, I was now on the threshold of nothing, ruined.”

            Dylan wrote that the injury happened in 1987, and talked of being laid up in January, disappointed that his ensuing spring tour might be canceled. It’s obvious he’s talking about the 1988 tour, but surrounded by a legendary cast, he played guitar and sang “Like a Rolling Stone” when he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on January 20, 1988. The accident might have happened after that ceremony, because there’s no record of any public appearances or recording sessions between January 20 and his Traveling Wilburys rendezvous in April. It’s an unusual period of inactivity for a restless soul. Regardless of whether the accident was before or after January 20, it was during this period of recovery that Dylan started writing again, and these terrific songs would end up on his next album, Oh Mercy.

            Among those inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with Dylan were the Beatles, Beach Boys, Woody Guthrie, Lead Belly, and Les Paul. One of the memorable moments was Bruce Springsteen’s induction speech for Dylan. Bruce said, “When I was fifteen and I heard ‘Like a Rolling Stone,’ I knew that I was listening to the toughest voice that I had ever heard…a guy that had taken on the whole world and make me feel like I had to, too. The way Elvis freed your body, Bob freed your mind.” Paying homage to Dylan’s latest works, Springsteen added, “To this day, where great rock music is being made, there is the shadow of Bob Dylan over and over again…If there was a young guy out there writing ‘Sweetheart Like You,’ writing the Empire Burlesque album, writing ‘Every Grain of Sand.’ they’d be calling him the new Bob Dylan.” It was a thorough induction speech hitting all the right notes, putting Dylan on Mount Rushmore without putting him out to pasture.

            Dylan couldn’t have fathomed that after paying his dues for twenty-six years on the road to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, he hadn’t even reached the halfway point of his career. He would go on to play more shows in the second half of his career than the Grateful Dead did during their Long Strange Trip from 1965-1995. Of course, this was a silly and implausible notion for anyone to ponder back in 1988, but the new Dylan was on the cusp of a remarkable rebirth.

            Jerry Garcia never changed masks. Year after year, it was the same musicians by his side and the same tie-dyed masses out there, getting larger and larger and becoming more supportive. It didn’t matter anymore how good the band was playing; everything was groovy and greeted with rapturous applause. Commenting on the crowds at the shows he was doing with Petty, Dylan said, “I’d see people in the crowd and they’d look like cutouts from a shooting gallery, there was no connection to them.” In March of 1988, as I heard Deadheads explode in ecstasy to mediocre music, I felt little connection to the scene. I wondered if Garcia felt the same way as Dylan did on certain nights, as if he was playing for spinning hippie puppets.

The Dead’s spring tour of ’88 had few shows that impressed me. At this point I was satisfied with a couple of hot jams per show, something worthy of repeated listens. There was a hot “Mississippi Half Step” in Atlanta, a killer “All Along the Watchtower” in Hampton, and a smoking “Fire on the Mountain” at the Brendan Byrne Arena. But after seeing three abysmal shows to end the tour in Hartford, the idea of putting in all this effort to watch Garcia deteriorate before my eyes didn’t make sense.

            The coma did take something out of Garcia’s creativity on certain songs. The more intricate jams of “Let it Grow,” “Scarlet Begonias,” and “China Cat Sunflower” didn’t shine as they had before. In the Jerry Garcia Band, hard-hitting jam songs like “Let it Rock,” “After Midnight,” “Rhapsody in Red,” and “Sugaree” were replaced by soothing spiritual numbers. Garcia had aged physically beyond his years, and his insane workload and inability to kick his drug dependencies guaranteed a slow and steady decline, even though the band rebounded for some quality runs over the next two years.

            As fans drifted in and out of the Dead touring scene, an unconditional love and allegiance to the band and Garcia remained. No matter how drugs negatively affected Garcia’s playing, Deadheads cherished the good times, and they never ranted against the direction the band was heading. Sure, after experiencing the Wall of Sound in ’74, there was disappointment for some in the stripped-down sound system and the tepid jams when the Dead returned to action in ’76, but their loyalty remained in place. Nobody shouted “Judas!” at Garcia or angrily protested the direction of the band. It was a world unto itself that defied the standard rules and conventions of rock and roll and it kept growing, even when the music went through periods of stagnation and decline. It was the opposite of Dylan’s love/hate relationship with his fans.

            Physically and mentally on the mend, Dylan was ready to roll when he received the fateful call from George Harrison, inquiring if he could record a B side for a single in Dylan’s Point Dume home studio. After recording “Handle with Care” with Harrison, Roy Orbison, Tom Petty, and Jeff Lynne, the supergroup—and record executives—knew there was potential for something special. They decided to make an album, The Traveling Wilburys Volume 1. With Dylan’s tour starting in June, the Wilburys decided to write and record the album in a ten-day span in May, at the home and recording studio of Dave Stewart of the Eurythmics.

            An uncanny comradery continued through these recording sessions as five legendary singer/songwriters strummed acoustic guitars and set up microphones and recording equipment in Dave Stewart’s kitchen. Jim Keltner, the percussionist for these sessions who was dubbed “Buster Sidebury,” placed microphones on the fridge and rattled the doors with his drumsticks. From song lyrics to vocals, everyone contributed freely, although Petty admitted he was a bit intimidated when he was auditioned for lead vocal on a song right after Roy Orbison. There was tremendous reverence for Roy, and a giddy feeling of disbelief that he was in the band.

            Having an ex-Beatle and Roy in the room must have put Dylan at ease—all eyes were not focused on his every gesture. Although, George was fascinated as he watched Bob write a large chunk of “Tweeter and the Monkey Man.” Harrison said, “The way he writes the words down, like very tiny, like a spider’s written it, you know, you can’t hardly read it. And that’s the amazing thing. It’s just unbelievable seeing how, how he did it.”

Being in the company of great singers forced Dylan to be attentive to his vocal performance. Dylan was coming off one of his roughest years as a singer; his voice was uneven, nasally, and whiny, and it sounded like he’d rather not be singing. Instead of being intimidated, Dylan’s voice offered a wonderfully gruff counterpoint to Orbison. And an engaged Dylan made Petty seem like an apprentice. As consistently smooth as Harrison and Lynne were, Orbison and Dylan are the standout voices of the Traveling Wilburys.

Paul Williams was an outstanding Dylan analysist, but I found his criticism of “Tweeter and the Monkey Man” harsh: “To my taste the song that resulted is significantly lacking in charm; and Dylan’s delivery of the narrative as lead singer is void of presence or conviction.” I believe the opposite. The dynamic that makes this song special is Dylan’s singing. He could have used dummy lyrics with the driving energy and sharp cadence at play here. Even though the tune was constructed quickly, he sang brashly, as if this were an urgent tale. “Tweeter and the Monkey Man” is a light-hearted outlaw New Jersey adventure that includes the titles of two Springsteen songs, “Mansion on the Hill” and “Thunder Road,” and there are allusions to Dylan songs: You can hear them tires squeal (“Sweetheart Like You”), and in Jersey anything’s legal as long as you don’t get caught, which is similar to in Patterson that’s just the way things go (“Hurricane”). Steeped in Americana, “Tweeter and the Monkey Man” is not so much a parody of a Springsteen or Dylan song as it’s a parody of the Traveling Wilburys and the song-making process they found so engaging. “Tweeter and the Monkey Man” makes my double CD collection of Dylan’s best songs of the decade.

“Dirty World,” a Prince parody with Dylan on lead vocals, follows “Handle with Care” on the Traveling Wilburys Volume 1. Dylan deadpans Prince in his own style with a bold and charming vocal. With its energetic bluster, playfully overt sexuality, and the campfire singalong finale, “Dirty World” is a zany piece of the Wilburys puzzle, but not the type of tune Dylan would bring to life at one of his shows. “Congratulations,” the other song Dylan sings lead on, is an outtake set of lyrics that Dylan brought with him to the sessions, and the only song that wasn’t organically created on the spot. If Dylan was determined to stand and get back to the place he once was, these sessions were a great workout.

There’s a magical flow to the album, and a camaraderie that’s distinctive to this group. These were the right musicians coming together at the right time. As they had perfectly layered “Handle with Care” with the right voices in the right spots, they accomplished the same effect on “Last Night,” as Orbison belted out another unforgettable bridge, “I asked her to marry me, she smiled and pulled out a knife. ‘The party's just beginning,’ she said, ‘it’s your money or your life.’”

Prior to “Tweeter,” the eighth track, “Margarita,” captured the joyous, freewheeling spirit of the album—everything they threw against the wall was bound to stick. It’s a simple ’50s-style pop tune with a one-word chorus, and Dylan grumbles the main verse with pizazz, “It was in Pittsburgh late one night. I lost my hat, got into a fight. I rolled and tumbled till I saw the light. Went to the Big Apple, took a bite.” With that rough voice busting in, it sounds like Dylan just stepped out of a barroom brawl. Even in a simple throwaway tune, Dylan was on his game.

Petty takes the lead on the feel-good finale and gives a shout-out to Jimi Hendrix, “Maybe somewhere down the road when somebody plays, Purple Haze.” “End of the Line” took on a haunting tone when Orbison died of a heart attack three months after the album was released. Yet, like “Touch of Grey,” it’s a triumphant song of survival.

Well it’s all right, even if you’re old and grey

Well it’s all right, you still got something to say

Well it’s all right, remember to live and let live

Well it’s all right, the best you can do is forgive

Well it’s all right, riding around in the breeze

Well it’s all right, if you live the life you please

Well it’s all right, even if the sun don’t shine

Well it’s all right, we’re going to the end of the line

            This record captures a time in the lives of five musical legends who had paid their dues, seen some tough times, and had just tasted the sweet smell of success or were on the threshold of something momentous. This is the coolest pop record of its kind. An album can be simple, humorous, spontaneous, and, one of the greatest albums of all time. This can’t be classified as a Dylan album, and I wouldn’t dare rank it with his ten best albums, but I’d find a spot for it in my Top 100. Like the famous Seinfeld episode when Jerry and George pitch a show about nothing to an executive at NBC, great music, like great TV, doesn’t have be about anything or have some important message.

                         DYLAN & THE GRATEFUL DEAD: A TALE OF TWISTED FATE

Deadhead Born In the Aftermath of an Unspeakable Tragedy

 Excerpt from Dyan & the Grateful Dead: A Tale of Twisted Fate

Remember, this is just a football game, no matter who wins or loses. An unspeakable tragedy confirmed to us by ABC News in New York City. John Lennon, outside of his apartment building on the West Side of New York City. The most famous of perhaps all the Beatles, was shot twice in the back and rushed to Roosevelt Hospital. Dead on arrival. Hard to go back to the game after that news flash.

Howard Cosell, Monday Night Football, December 8, 1980

Millions of Americans found out about the murder of a beloved Beatle as they watched a Monday Night Football contest between the Miami Dolphins and the New England Patriots. Violence in America had no limits. Four months after Lennon was murdered in the city he loved, President Ronald Reagan was shot and nearly killed in the nation’s capital. Car and motorcycle accidents, plane crashes, and drug overdoses have tragically claimed the lives of talented rock stars, but the random act of a lunatic targeting a legend sent shock waves through the world of music.

 A year earlier in Cincinnati, eleven fans were trampled to death by a surging crowd trying to get into a general admission concert to see The Who. Neil Young was singing, “Hey hey, my my, rock and roll will never die.” While this axiom was true, rock and roll had seen better days.

In 2012, Rolling Stone published a list of the Top 500 albums of all time. These lists are overblown. How can you calculate what the 343rd best album is, and who cares? Ranking more than one hundred albums is superfluous. The golden age of great albums began with Bringing It All Back Home in 1965, and ended in 1980 with London Calling by The Clash. Excluding compilations, if you break down the top fifty albums on the list and group them in five-year spans, 1965 to 1970 produced nineteen of the top fifty, 1971 to 1975 accounted for thirteen of the elite albums, and 1976 to 1980 had four selections on the list. Over the next six years, starting in 1981, only Michael Jackson’s Thriller made the top fifty. There are lots of reasons for this decline, including MTV, which debuted on August 1, 1981 (Jerry Garcia’s 39th birthday). Making a fetching music video became an easier road to popularity than creating an entire album. Madonna, Michael Jackson, and several one-hit wonders thrived in this video format, as new wave and musical simplicity became the craze of the day. Dylan was with Jesus, and The Who, Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, and Led Zeppelin were fading after their domination of the ’70s. And with the assassination of Lennon, George Harrison and other icons decided to take a break from the music business.

  

  In these culturally depraved times, the Grateful Dead road show became an irresistible option for those craving an authentic music adventure—a traveling caravan of hedonistic freaks pulling together as a community—a throwback to the Haight-Ashbury days. During the ’80s, I saw 150 Grateful Dead shows and 50 Jerry Garcia Band shows, and towards the end of the decade, I found my way to 50 Dylan concerts. As a witness to what transpired between Dylan and the Dead later in the decade, and as a case study on how an obsessive rock fan finds himself on tour with the Grateful Dead, here’s my story.

When John Lennon was gunned down on the outskirts of Central Park, I was a rebellious seventeen-year-old teenager watching Monday Night Football. Howard Cosell broke news of the unspeakable tragedy. Cosell and Lennon, the heroes and voices of my childhood, would be forever tangled in a historical nightmare.

  

When I was in third grade, I had to do a presentation in front of my peers. I chose to imitate a Howard Cosell Talking Sports newsflash, which he used to broadcast on 77 WABC radio in New York. More than any other announcer, Cosell’s honking Brooklyn accent and his fancy vocabulary became part of the big event. It’s hard to think of Muhammed Ali in his prime without Cosell being part of the soundtrack. And prior to the night of December 8, 1980, his most famous call was “Down goes Frazier! Down goes Frazier! Down goes Frazier!” as George Foreman pummeled Joe Frazier in a shocking upset to win the Heavyweight Championship of the World. I also felt an affinity for Cosell because we shared the same name. There weren’t many famous Howards scoring touchdowns or singing hit songs on the radio.

My older cousins turned me on to the Beatles when I was six. Until that time, my three favorite albums from my father’s collection were West Side Story, Fiddler on the Roof, and Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass Greatest Hits. My father bought Let It Be for me, and I disappeared into my room and listened to nothing but that album and some AM radio for at least a year. My cousins were Beatles fanatics, and above all, they preached the virtues of Lennon.

  

On the night John was murdered, I was sitting on a sofa in the basement of my parents’ house in the suburban town of Nanuet, New York. Hearing Cosell broadcast those words was a deathblow to any remaining youthful innocence inside me. I was a chronic class-cutting, pot-smoking kid, and then I decided to go all the way and drop out of high school. I went to a community college to get my GED, but I didn’t believe in academic or religious institutions. The only thing I believed in was the world of song, and soon that would lead me to Jerry Garcia.

My friend Doug was the only cat I knew who had a passion for music that was equal to mine. We devoured every classic and progressive rock album out there. We knew every lyric, lick, and subtle nuance of every album by bands such as The Who, Rolling Stones, Doors, Beatles, Yes, ELO, ELP, Jethro Tull, Santana, Pink Floyd, etc.…We knew Dylan’s greatest hits, but there wasn’t enough jamming on the surface for us to explore any further. As for the Grateful Dead, we admired their Skeletons in the Closet compilation and American Beauty, but lack of overwhelming lead guitar kept us from going further down that road.

After spending the summer of 1980 at a Jewish sleepaway camp, Doug returned home a devout Deadhead, and Jerry Garcia was the Messiah. The idea of putting Garcia in the same class as Clapton, Hendrix, or the emerging guitar god Eddie Van Halen seemed ludicrous. Doug tried to steer me into his camp, but I didn’t initially get it. Listening to the Grateful Dead is like trying to learn a new language—some pick it up quickly and run with it; for others, there’s a learning curve before it overtakes them, and some folks slam the door shut on the Dead. I held out hope. If Garcia could overwhelm a music lover like my charismatic friend, there had to be merit in the music, somewhere, and that intrigued me.

My Grateful Dead revelation occurred seven weeks after Lennon’s death, on January 24, 1981. I remember the date because on that night, I witnessed hockey history at the Nassau Coliseum. Mike Bossy, the young French Canadian star of my favorite hockey team, the New York Islanders, scored two goals in the last five minutes of the game to become the second player in NHL history to score fifty goals in the first fifty games of a season. The thrilling event paled in comparison to the ride home. The driver, Seymour, my friend Scott’s brother, popped Europe ’72 into his tape deck and turned the volume up full blast. I don’t know if it was the dopamine high of the thrilling sports spectacle or the potent bone we smoked on the way home, but I salivated in stunned silence as I experienced the true majestic sweep of the Grateful Dead for the first time.

 “Cumberland Blues” blasted away—electrified, psychedelic hillbilly music. An arcane world emerged. “Jack Straw” from Wichita was on the run from sea to shining sea. The hypnotic, jazzy jamming of “China Cat Sunflower” was surreal and seductive, unlike any music I’d ever heard. “The news is out all over town,” crooned Garcia in a sad, smooth tone that paid tribute to Hank Williams but was pure Jerry in style. Pigpen hammered the blues with “It Hurst Me Too.” I don’t think I’d ever heard Hank Williams or Elmore James before. A door to another world opened. Instantly, I felt linked to an alternate musical reality.

Hearing “Ramble on Rose” put me over the edge—fascinating lyrics and alliteration placed upon a plush melody and delivered with deliberate ragtime flavor. Garcia’s pitch-perfect-voice connected characters, real and imagined, from different times and places: Jack the Ripper, Billy Sunday, Mary Shelly, Mojo Hand, Crazy Otto, Frankenstein, New York City, Jericho. It was a beautifully crafted song with a searing guitar solo. The following day I rode my bicycle to Tapesville USA, a record shop located in front of the Nanuet Mall, and purchased Europe ’72. Within a few weeks, I’d purchased every Dead record in the bin.

 I still had to overcome the Jerry Garcia is the greatest guitarist hurdle. I saw my first show at Madison Square Garden on March 9, 1981. The band endeared themselves to me by playing “Ramble on Rose” as the fourth song of the night. The Garden roared in unison when Garcia sang, “Just like New York City,” and Jerry’s guitar roared out a scathing, yet lyrically beautiful, guitar solo. I recognized most of the songs, but I lost my focus during the long, spacey jams, like the one connecting “Estimated Prophet” to “Uncle John’s Band.” Grateful Dead appreciation is an acquired taste that takes patience and the willingness to approach listening to music differently. A few months after my Dead debut, I scored a copy of the MSG show and realized it was a spectacular show. I was there, but not really.

My first bootleg tape was a ninety-minute BASF cassette of highlights from a show at Raceway Park, Englishtown, New Jersey, on September 3, 1977. My Garcia is god epiphany arrived when I heard “Mississippi Half Step Uptown Toodeloo.” The dynamic energy of the performance was superior to the truncated studio track. The between-verse guitar solos sparkled, but there was a long, masterful musical segment prior to the band singing the “Across the Rio Grande” bridge. Phil’s bass rumbled as the band paved the way for a two-tiered climax from Garcia. And then the Dead created something that had never existed before. Godchaux tinkled his keyboards in a manner that pleased Garcia. Jerry tweeted back like a singing robin. Everybody in the band was listening and slowly contributing. Things got heated, and before there was another soaring crescendo, the band wisely eased into the “Rio Grande” chorus—no need to be redundant. This was a distinctive masterpiece that could never be duplicated.

A few weeks later, Doug turned me on to the Cornell tape, the legendary show from 5-8-77. An extraordinary half-hour Scarlet > Fire kicks off the second set. Everything is sublime: inviting rhythm and tempo, expressive singing by Garcia, intricate improvisation by all involved. The music played the band. The segue between “Scarlet Begonias” and “Fire on the Mountain” separated the Dead from any other band I’d heard. They channeled strange alchemy and seemingly suspended time by dabbling in both songs—coming and going in the present moment. And few instrumentals in the band’s history match the burning intensity of the last solo in “Fire,” or the colossal jam in “Morning Dew.”

Bootleg tapes like Englishtown and Cornell, as well as many other shows from 1969-1977, represent the Grateful Dead’s finest music. Bob Dylan is an outstanding live performer; however, you don’t have to listen to bootlegged performances to understand and measure his greatness. Although, sampling his unreleased live material is highly recommended because Dylan’s songs tend to evolve and change form as he plays them through the years. To truly understand the Grateful Dead—what they do, and what they are capable of—listening to their shows is essential.

                                                      A TALE OF TWISTED FATE