Bob Dylan Convention Footage + Bonus

D639 BD CONVENTION FOOTAGE PLUS

In the last thirty years there have been at least sixteen UK BD conventions. The first - Dylan Revisited - organised by Richard Goodall and Brian Stibal (editor of early US fanzine Zimmerman Blues/Changin') took place on the weekend of 27/9 July 1979 at Manchester's Portland Hotel. Principal guest speaker was Christopher Ricks, his talk called Can This Really Be The End? Also present were Gerde's owner Mike Porco, D-biographer and one-time NY Times journo Robert Shelton who of course played an important role (check the back of the first album) in getting young Bob started and the indefatigable and relatively unsung Bill Pagel. Sadly, Bob Johnston, who had also agreed to fly over, took ill at the last minute and didn't show.

Goodall plus two Keeble brothers but minus Stibal, now calling themselves Thin Man, next put on a one-dayer - Winterlude - in December '79 then, on 29/31 August the following year at Owens Park, Manchester, their swan-song event, Dylan Revisited '80. Presentations this time came from (among others) Porco with Shelton (Talkin' New York), Shelton by himself (Which Dylan?), Wilfrid Mellers (God, Mode And Meaning In Some Recent BD Songs - aren't you sad you missed that one?) and a pre-Telegraph John Bauldie (A Look At Some Rarer BD Songs - one of which, at a guess, would have been I'm Not There, of which he was excessively fond).



Dylan booksellers My Back Pages have staged five events, all at Sachas Hotel, Manchester, starting with Million Dollar Bash (principal guest commentator Paul Williams) in May 1988, then November 1990's Days Of 49 (Paul Williams again, standing in for last minute drop-out Larry Sloman), May 1994's Bringing It All Back Home (archivist Glen Dundas & writer Clinton Heylin), May 1998's Something Is Happening (Mickey Jones) and May 2001's Forever Young (Cesar Diaz, in the last year of his life).

Isis magazine organised two events, first a one-dayer called Forever Young - Mr Bob Zimmerman's Birthday Masquerade at The Park International Hotel, Leicester on 18 May 1991 then, at the same venue, in association with My Back Pages, on 30/31 October 1992, Highway 51 (yes, another age reference).

Finally, there have been six "John Green Days". John Green was an avid fan who reviewed audio recordings of shows for Isis and Freewheelin' magazines as well as sending free copies to any and all who asked. After his death, aged just 43, in December 1999, some of his colleagues decided to hold a memorial meet each year in his home town of Northampton. The first, on 31 March 2001, included talks from writers C P Lee, Andrew Muir and Heylin and music from Steve Gibbons. Five subsequent events through to 2006 have included performances by Carolyn Hester (2003) and latterly tribute band H61 Revisited, featuring Rob Stoner and Scarlet Rivera (both ex-RTR) and 1992-96 NET drummer Winston Watson. No 2007 event appears to have been held.

The excellent D639 recalls for us something of the flavour of such meetings. Its first, longest and most absorbing chapter comes from the second (October 1992) Isis Leicester event and brings all too briefly back to life the late John Bauldie (for more on JB, see D725 review, second para) who talks here in typically discursive and entertaining style for just under an hour on BS1-3 and related matters Bob (not forgetting, of course, his equally beloved Bolton Wanderers - D at Burnden Park, so near and yet so far). Though covering much the same ground as his D725 June 1993 talk to Italian fans, this one is 20 minutes longer, better shot, without interpreter and minus the jets howling over, thus easily (though both are well worthwhile) the pick of the two.

A rough transition then jumps us straight into half an hour in the company of '66 Tour drummer Mickey Jones - and whether by design or not, the Bauldie theme continues as MJ relates how, at the time of John's death, the two were in the middle of a long and voluminous email exchange about Mickey's time with Bob - material intended, no doubt, for eventual Telegraph publication*. MJ then goes on to speak in fluent and lucid fashion about his own early days, his link up with D and the tour itself. From various things said in this and the next chapter, it's clear that Mickey's talk was given late in 1997, thus not at any of the conventions listed above. A part-transcript of the talk he gave at the Manchester 1998 event is included in ISIS: A BD Anthology (pp 92-6) and the one we see here clearly isn't it. As part of the promo push for BS4, released on 13 Oct 1998, USA Today ran a feature on Jones dated 16-18 October '98 in which he tells reporter Edna Gundersen that he'd never heard a recording of the Manchester '66 concert until invited to speak at a UK Dylan convention the year before (i.e. 1997). (He also professed himself "stunned" to find fans there who "knew more about me than I (did)" - and we see amusing signs of this dawning realisation on D639.)


Mickey Jones

The precise nature of the day would be interesting to establish - it may well have been, in fact, a specific JB commemoration or tribute gathering*, for next up is Gunnar Lunde, a "humble lawyer from the west country of Norway" who speaks briefly about his one encounter with and memories of JB. The pair met in Kensington, London on 23 May 1996 - and who might Gunnar be? He was one of a Norwegian campaign committee that on 1 October 1996 formally proposed D for the Nobel Prize for Literature (the World Cup of creativity - Bruce Williams). And the JB connection is intriguing, because, according to Mr Lunde, it was John and Penny (JB's partner) who suggested the committee involve in their effort Allen Ginsberg (a member of the American Academy of Arts & Letters), which they duly did. Other academics then came on board and the campaign went ahead - as we now know (so far, at least) without success. Indeed - basement down the stairs / all night 'til the break of day / Ring them bells for the blind and the deaf / someone around him died and was dead / More frailer than the flowers* / Lenny Bruce / Sara's kelp verse / just about all of Tarantula - it is, sadly, all too easy to scoff. Here's a short piece JB wrote on the subject just two weeks before he met his end:

... nominations must be sent to the Swedish academy before February 1. Later in the spring a Nobel prize committee within the academy reduces the numbers of those nominated to a list of five names which is then passed on to the members in the academy so that they can read works by these authors during their summer holiday. Then the academy decides which one of these five will receive the Nobel prize. The announcement of [winners is] made in the first week of October. All of which makes you wonder if those old Swedes have CD players, and if they'll be given advice on the right tracks to play. I mean, what if one of them cues up I'll Remember You?

D639's last chapter is a very short (1:15) look at the sale by auction at the same event as the Jones/Lunde talks of one item - an unnamed LP - for £60. It would be of absolutely no interest were the auctioneer not Larry "Lambchop" Eden, a fan of some notoriety who can be heard bellowing extravagently and proprietorially on many early/mid-nineties audience tapes. On at least three occasions (Edinburgh '95, Utrecht and Brussels '96) Bob addressed him personally from the stage, calling him The Chopper. Eden passed away in June 2007.


Larry "Lambchop" Eden

Bonus item from CNN is a 4:40 BS4 promo that D639 dates 26 Sept 1999 - but, since the album was released almost a year earlier, and since we hear Steve Wright talk of "32 years later" (than the 1966 concert), either (most likely) the given date is wrong or possibly the clip was an archive-type re-broadcast of something previously shown the year before.

THANKS G, Dave D, BW, Kurt, GL
STARS Another you really shouldn't miss. Five.

* Indeed, Telegraph #56 (the last issue, published after JB's death) does include The Wanted Man Interview: Mickey Jones.

* The event, held at London's Hyatt Carlton Tower Hotel on 1 November 1997, was an evening-long invitation-only celebration of John's life and achievements, organised by his partner Penny (now also deceased).

* Bad grammar and plagiarism - and if the latter doesn't sink him with the judges, they don't know their business.