DVD Compilation #01

D011 THE 1965 SF PRESS CONFERENCE ~ A PARTIAL WHO'S WHO

The press conference was organized by Ralph Gleason (see below) and staged at the 4th and Bryant Street studios of educational San Francisco TV station KQED on Friday 3 December 1965.

[X:XX] = DVD screenshot timing



(1) SUJANNA KOSKY (?) [28:08; Your songs are supposed to have a subtle message…] Described by Lisa Hobbs (see below) as "a pert teenage editor from a Bay Area high school newspaper."

(2) GARY GOODROW [4:30 - after D says Oh, yes… Oh, sure…, see him smiling, left screen, open-necked shirt.] Comedian and actor; founding member of SF comedy improv troupe The Committee.

(3) ROLLIN POST [22:34; When you stop making money?] Bay area political reporter (though a New Yorker by birth) working for KPIX in 1965, though later joined KQED (where we see him) then, in 1979, KRON where he stayed until his retirement in 1999.

(4) PHILIP ELWOOD (1926-2006) [11:16 - after the question is asked If you were going to sell out to a commercial interest…, Elwood can be seen, upper left screen, briefly raising his left hand to his mouth.] Jazz critic for the San Francisco Examiner (and later the Chronicle) for more than 35 years. His review of the first Berkeley show featured words like spiritless, mediocre, dour, shouting and wailing but concluded: It isn't emotionally or physically easy to attend a Dylan concert but it's provocative and rewarding in a degree seldom found elsewhere in American artistic expression.

(5) ROBERT SHELTON (1926-1995) [43:55 - see him, top right of screen, as speaker Post says You really have no idea…] D biographer and, while on the staff of the New York Times, an important early career influence.

(6) ALLEN GINSBERG (1926-1997) [6:49 - with beard and glasses, just after D name-checks him.] Poet, sometime collaborator, friend.



(7) RALPH J. GLEASON (1917-1975) [1:15 and throughout]. SF-based TV and print journalist, later co-founder (with Jann Wenner) of Rolling Stone and (after early reservations) staunch D advocate.

(8) ERIC WEIL [1:39] Asks the event's first question (about the cover photo of H61R) then takes many pictures.

(9) MARY ANN POLLAR (1927-1999) [5:00; Bob, you said you always do your words first…] Promoted many Bay area concerts in the early sixties, including some of D's. (She was clearly involved with his forthcoming run of five too, for, at the very end, after Bob has gone, someone jokingly hits on her for "better tickets" while to the question "Are they all sell-outs, Mary Ann?" she replies "No, not quite.") You can also hear her asking where the evening's (first post-show) party will be and, according to BM (see below), wound up hosting it herself at her Berkeley home.



(10) JIM MARSHALL [44:25; Do you feel that part of the popularity is because of an identification…] "One of the great photographers of musicians and entertainers, having more than 500 album and CD covers to his credit. His photographs of Woodstock, the Monterey Pop Festival, the final Beatles concert and the vibrant youth culture of San Francisco in the 1960s are among the most iconic images of the era."

(11) LARRY HANKIN [32:00; What do you bother to write the poetry for if we all get different images?] Actor; another member of The Committee - see (2) above - with well over one hundred IMDb credits dating from 1966 to the present day. (And what a lovely answer Bob gives him.)

(12) BILL GRAHAM (1931-1991) [25:50; Of all the people who record your compositions…] In December '65 was manager of a SF-based mime-troupe - indeed, the poster D holds up at [47:30] advertises a benefit concert organised by Graham on their behalf. (When Bob mentions that "someone" gave it to him, you can hear Bill shout: "I did!") It was the success of this venture that opened Graham's eyes to the possibilities of a career in promotion - by decade's end, having found his calling, he was the most forward-thinking and influential rock impresario on the block. Promoted D's 1974 and 1984 Tours, among others. A cross between Mother Teresa and Al Capone (Peter Coyote). See and hear a little more of him on D027.asu.



(13) JONATHAN COTT [7:02; In Positively 4th Street you're pretty hard on the supposed friend…] Then a writer for Ramparts magazine (edited by Gleason). Went on to join Rolling Stone (for whom he interviewed D in 1978), produce Dylan (book) in 1985 and edit BD: The Essential Interviews in 2006.

(14) LISA HOBBS [13:28; Mr Dylan, you call yourself a completely disconnected person…] Journalist - wrote up this event for the SF Examiner, where she described D as "an under-nourished kewpie doll" [with] "little suede boots".

(15) MICHAEL GRIEG [34:30; For most of this dialogue, or monologue…] Another journo. Both headline - It's Lonely Where I Am - and content of his subsequent Chronicle piece neatly validate D's complaint to him that reporters in the main cannot be trusted.



(16) MICHAEL McCLURE [32:39, left of screen.] Poet, playwright, songwriter, novelist, born in Kansas in 1932.

(17) ELSA KNIGHT THOMPSON (1906-1983) [45:51, as voice says Other than the booing…] Influential radio documentarian and broadcaster. Worked for the BBC in London during World War II. Public Affairs Director at KPFA from 1957 to the early 1970s. "A pathfinder for women in broadcasting."

(18) CLAUDE MANN [15:36; You're considered by many people to be…] KQED staffer.



(19) BOB NEUWIRTH [12:53] Sitting quietly on the back row, wearing shades, visible over McClure's right shoulder. Singer, painter, associate, friend, the legs on the front cover of H61R and co-vocalist (the one without the mask) in Renaldo And Clara's opening song.

(20) JEAN GLEASON [14:32; Phil Ochs wrote something in a recent Broadside magazine…] Wife and widow of Ralph J.

(21) JERRY JENSON (1934-1984) [48:10] Brief left profile shot. News anchor on Channels 4 (1959-67), 44 (1967-9) then 7 from 1969 until his premature death in 1984.

ALSO ...

(22) ROBERT N. ZAGONE [29:14] Man standing hands on hips behind TV camera. Floor director. Went on to score film/TV producer/director credits in 1967 and 1970; co-wrote and directed drama Read You Like A Book (2006).

(23) at [13:15], (24) at [26:33], (25) at [27:20] and (26) at [38:00] are active questioners as yet unknown. The second of them looks like - but probably isn't - Maureen Cleave, the Evening Standard reporter who, near the start of DLB, asks Bob if he ever reads The Bible. Judge for yourselves:


??? SF PC (3 Dec 1965) .......... Cleave in DLB (27 April 1965)

And finally ...



(27) BOB DYLAN Song and Dance Man extraordinaire.

SPECIAL THANKS To Blair Miller for original research. For further info see:

http://kripes.proboards105.com/index … p;thread=1

D011 FROM THE DEEPEST OCEAN

Whether or not the compiler intended it, this DVD shows us, in a series of lovely black and white sequences, the metamorphosis of boy Zimmerman to icon Bob. Though Scorsese's No Direction Home started earlier ('59) and finished later ('66), the tale here is just as powerfully, eloquently and convincingly told. To anyone interested enough in Bob to be visiting this site, almost everything on this wonderful disc comprises essential viewing. I don't have much more to add to previous reviews, other than to give more content detail (for those who don't already know).


Boy Zim (and friends) ...

The programme starts with a snippet of Pawn In Their Game (just the last two verses) in the familiar 1963 clip previously incorporated into Don't Look Back. There then follows a telecast of wider (rather than just Dylan-related) historical importance featuring Bob, Baez and others in Washington at the Civil Rights March of August '63. Bob sings Ship Comes In (Baez harmonising), then Pawn In Their Game alone. Each time the camera stays on Bob for a verse or so and then leaves him to roam around while the song continues to a conclusion - and in doing so it catches and records for posterity some memorable scenes. This section then closes with Bob participating (though minimally) in a group rendition of Hold On.

Next comes the first major delight here - the full Quest show, and in mainly excellent quality (tails off slightly in last two songs, though still okay). Songs featured are Times (with opening credits superimposed), a puckish WWIII Blues, a beautifully-paced Hattie Carroll, Girl From The North Country, Hard Rain and finally a very rare live Restless Farewell (with closing credits over).

To 1965 and the first three verses only of God On Our Side from the BBC Tonight show. Cliff Michelmore introduces the song as "(Dylan's) latest protest". Picture is fine, song plods as ever.

So back across the Atlantic to the Steve Allen show. Bob bears five minutes worth of Allen's heavy-handed fawning with patience and good humour, then sings Hattie Carroll (I'd rate the Quest version a bit better, though each to his own). Throughout this performance, a running clock is superimposed across Bob's guitar. However, at the song's conclusion, the disc repeats the take with the clock greyed out. Oddly, of the two versions, it is the first (slightly brighter and sharper image) which remains the more watchable.

And so to the marvellously entertaining 50 minutes which is the 1965 SF press conference. Bob - among friends (Gleason, Ginsberg) as well as strangers - is warm, witty, charming. Though the film quality is not sharp, it is nonetheless clear and its "softness" somehow only adds to its (and his) appeal - for, yes, young Mr D is at his most alluringly photogenic. He is also disarmingly honest in a great deal of what he says. He is also (not for the first or last time) prescient:

Q: If you were going to sell out to a commercial interest, which one would you choose? A: Ladies' garments!

It got a big laugh. But fast-forward forty years to the Victoria's Secret hullaballoo - maybe someone from that concern has watched this DVD too?

All in all, pure magic. Don't miss it.


... to Icon Bob

THANKS To my kind benefactress (she knows who she is).
STARS Five