Austin 11/29/94 5:10 AM

bob dylan's muses?

So this whole post is taken straight from http://folkfanlcb89.tripod.com/

It's a great Bob Dylan fan site with lots of information, quotes, pictures and so on. The kind of site I could spend a long time browsing.

echo star helstrom

Echo, described as the Minnesotan Brigitte Bardot, was Dylan’s first serious girlfriend. She lost her virginity to Bob, who claimed that it was his “first time” as well (though she later found out he had, in fact, lost his virginity to a very close friend of Echo’s just a few weeks earlier). They broke up after graduating from high school. 

bonnie beecher

A beautiful brunette whom he dated in college; is supposedly the inspiration for the song “The Girl From The North Country”, although Bob also told Echo the song was for her. She is now married to 60’s hipster “Wavy Gravy”, Hugh Romney. She now goes by the name Jaharana Romney.

suze rotolo

Bob and Suze met in the summer of 1961, when they were both living in New York. Suze and Bob first met at Gerde’s Folk City in the Village. Rotolo was 17, and the daughter of a liberal, cultured family. They would date from 1961-1964, with Suze being the muse for some of his most famous songs, including “Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright” and “Boots of Spanish Leather”. In 1963, Suze learned she was pregnent with Bob’s child, but instead of keeping the baby, she decided to have an abortion. In early 1964, Suze left for Italy to attend a summer course at the University of Perugia. While she was away, Dylan would have restless nights where he wept over missing Suze so bad. Musician Dave Van Ronk remembers that on many occassions, he would get a phone call at absurd hours of the night, with Dylan in tears on the other line. Upon her return, the two restarted their relationship though Dylan had just begun seeing Joan Baez as well. They appeared as a loving couple on the cover of Freewheelin’ but theings were falling apart. Dylan had become too controlling. Due to this as well as Suze’s disaproving family (the fall-out between Dylan and Suze’s older sister Carla is well-known) and Bob’s emerging relationship with Baez, their relationship was coming to an end. Soon, Rotolo opted to live her own life. During the mid-70’s Dylan tried to contact her but she decided not to see him. She lives happily with her film editor husband in New York City, and, although their split was bitter, she still has very fond memories of Dylan and the time they shared together.

joan baez

Joan and Bob first met in 1961, in a Cambridge folk club. He was actually first attracted to her younger sister Mimi, and Joan was not impressed by him. But they re-met in 1963 and then Joan decided it would be a good idea to bring Bob on tours with her, so he would get the attention he deserved for writing all the songs she and other folk acts had begun singing and recording. Joan secretly had a crush on Bob ever since they had met, and even before they started dating, Joan told Mimi they were in love. “I remember, I was living in Paris at the time, and Joanie would send me all the latest American records. She sent me Bobby’s Freewheelin album and she pinned a note on the cover of it that said ‘my new boyfriend.’ I was really surprised because when we first met, Bobby barely even talked to Joanie.”

It was when they first toured together that their affair began. Friends said that sometimes you would walk by a dressing room, and see Joan and Bob slow dancing to a pop song on the radio. Or they would always be sitting together, with Bob’s head laying on her shoulder, and Joan stroking his hair. Also, a friend of theirs remembers one time in Woodstock, Bob and Joan were sitting together, talking about getting married, and what they would name their children (they had the name Shannon in mind). But in 1965, Joan started to notice a change in Bob. He ignored her out in public, and when he did speak to her, it was only to yell at and humiliate her. One time, when they were out at dinner with Mimi and her husband Richard Farina (who would soon beproducing one of Joan’s albums), Bob started making fun of Joan, about her appearance. Joan began to cry and went outside. Richard got up and ran to comfort her, while Mimi dealed with Bob who was laughing. She grabbed his hair and bent his head over the back of the chair. She screamed in his face “Don’t you ever make her cry again! Don’t you ever treat Joanie like that again, you here me?!!” Bob began to cry and was nearly choking. She let go of him, and went outside to see Joan still crying in Richard’s arms. “What a gerk.” Farina said.
Even after all this, Joan still went with Bob on his 1965 tour of England, but half way through she came back to America because Bob and his friends were treating her so badly. Baez realized it was truley over when once when she came to visit Dylan at his home in Woodstock, Sara Lowndes answered the door. They began a new friendship in the 1970s when she joined him on the Rolling Thunder tour, with Bob even living with her for a short time. Even if it was a case of two egos clashing, they influenced each other greatly at key points in their lives.

dana gillespie

The British blues singer first met Dylan on his 1965 English tour when she was 16. They saw each other whenever he came to England and built an enduring friendship. In 1998, Dylan rang asking her to support him on tour. When asked why, he replied “Because you’re a great songwriter and you’ve always been nice.” To Gillespie, Dylan will always be the perfect gentleman. “He’s amusing, he’s spiritual. As for the promiscuity, at least he’s honest. Women prefer to be seduced by a brain than bullock. Brains go a helluva long way.”

he was able to talk about those things in a way that people responded then, and still respond to

When Jim wrote, he wrote from a universal standpoint. That is, he dealt with themes that are universal, and they are timeless. He dealt with love, death, sex, breaking away from one's family, mysticism, breaking on through to the other side. To see a new reality, he talked about rebellion and revolution. Those are things that are a lot different than "Sixteen Candles", boy meets girl, boy loses girl. Not only were his themes meaningful, but the way he addressed those themes, the way he treated them. He read deeply into philosophy, and psychology. He was a very learned and well-read person and he was able to talk about those things in a way that people responded then, and still respond to. I think people who listen to him are attracted now both by his physical image, his voice, and also the things he wrote and talked about because those subjects are always meaningful to people.

Frank Lisciandro

my sympathy runs to the lame and crippled and beautiful things

I don't know about other people's sympathy, but my sympathy runs to the lame and crippled and beautiful things. I have a feeling of loss of power - something like a reincarnation feeling; I don't feel that for mechanical things like cars or schools.

Bob Dylan - Playboy Interview - February 1966

flakes are good at letting things happen naturally

"I’m a flake… But sometimes it comes in handy, ‘cause flakes are good at letting things happen naturally, even if they’re disasters, complete disasters."

Jeff Buckley - august 1995 - RRR radio

that makes it 44

NOVEMBER 17th. happy birthday jeff

(jeffbuckley.com)

We were both overly sensitive and needed shelter from the storm

“Bobby had an impish charm that older women found endearing, though my mother was immune. He was aware of it and used it when he could. But in general he was shy around people. He had a habit of pumping the air with his knees, a kind of marching in place, whether standing or sitting—all jumpy. Onstage he did it in tune to the music. He looked good, despite his floppy clothes. He had a natural charisma, and people paid attention to him.
At the height of his Woody Guthrie phase, he talked through his teeth and when he laughed he would toss back his head and make a cracking ha ha sound or a small ha, with fingers covering his mouth. His walk was a lurch in slow motion. He had a touch of arrogance, a good dose of paranoia, and a wonderful sense of the absurd.
It was very important t him at that time t write as he spoke. Writin like speech an without havin any punctuation or t write out the word to.
We got on really well, though neither one of us had any skin growing over our nerve endings. We were both overly sensitive and needed shelter from the storm. But Bobby was also tough and focused, and he had a healthy ego. The additional ingredients protected the intense sensitivity. As an artist he had what it took to become a success.»”

— Suze Rotolo, “A Freewheelin’ Time”

A phrase began to beat in my ears with a sort of heady excitement: 'There are only the pursued, the pursuing, the busy, and the tired-The Great Gatsby

before sunset

Grace Woodroofe

I remember reading an article about her in January 2008. Grace Woodroofe. She went to school with Heath Ledger's half sister Ashleigh who sent Heath Grace's music.... and then he flew her out to LA, introduced her to Ben Harper... and so on. It's a fairy tale. And then of course Heath Ledger died...

Now her album is finally being released. You really should read this article from theaustralian.com.au/

One of the songs titled H... I think you know why, is heartbreakingly beautiful. One of those songs you listen to with your eyes closed, and builds and unregrettable saddness in you. I was almost too effected by Heath Ledger's death. I have a way of attaching myself to people I don't even know (Jeff Buckley...) I remember I went to New York City for the first time in November 2007, and you should have seen me. Walking through Chinatown, walking through Brooklyn, on the subways, just trying to find Heath Ledger. Then a week after I got home there were articles online of him riding the subways with Matilda looking like a homeless man thanksgiving week! Haha, why couldn't I have seen him! The week before he died I had started a portrait of him and his daughter, and I haven't been able to finish it. It's safe to say I'm a dramatic person... I went to London for my senior trip the summer after  he died and I had a list of places I knew he had been filming The Imaginirium of Doctor Parnassus. And then when I was lucky enough to go back to NYC in 2009, I stopped by the Soho apartment he had died in, and the Boerum Hill home he lived in with Michelle and Matilda... okay now I have sufficiently convinced anyone who reads this that I'm thoroughly obsessed with the man, but I guess only to show how I relate to this song. Aren't songs better when you know either what created them, or what makes them real to you? It's not like I wrote it with the dilusional fabrication of knowing him. But by a girl, my age, with a beautiful talent, who knew and lost an unreplaceble friend.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgnCONPrMF4

download the song -H.

her myspace

My dad wrote 4 words on a tiny piece of paper,
these are the stages you'll go through. He said
shock, anger, deep denying sadness,
in time acceptance will come too.
Oh, I wish I could fast-forward time, for that matter rewind.
I know you said time was blind,
now you are in a place that only exists in my mind.

I have this image of you leaning out the window,
your lungs encapsulating smoke,
but I would give everything to smell your cigarette's burning,
you were always so impassive when you spoke.

I feel you with me all the time,
your guiding hands lead mine,
but I miss the stories that you'd share,
and the little garments that you always used to wear.

I am wearing nothing but your love,
and I can honestly say
that I think about you everyday.

I have this image of you leaning out the window,
your lungs encapsulating smoke,
but I would give everything to smell your cigarette's burning,
you were always so impassive when you spoke.

Your house is empty, shelves are bare,
your presence felt, but you're not there.
That's where you sit, I mean where you sat,
I am still adjusting to getting used to that.
You won't show up at my door.
Wherever you are I hope you find
what you were searching for.