Down the Highway Read online

  Praise for Down the Highway:

  “Fascinating and finely written.… The strength of [Down the Highway] is to penetrate behind the music so as to provide a sense of [Dylan’s] life.”

  —The New Republic

  “Wonderfully surprising.”

  —The New York Review of Books

  “With little sensationalism, the inscrutable and intensely private Dylan is dissected, measured, and categorized.”

  —Esquire

  “Many writers have tried to probe [Dylan’s] life, but never has it been done so well, and so captivatingly.”

  —The Boston Globe

  “Sounes appears to know every nuance of every track Dylan has ever recorded—and the inspirations for famous songs.”

  —The Washington Post Book World

  “Irresistible … What Dylanphile wouldn’t want to sift through what Sounes has dug up?”

  —Detroit Free Press

  “Sounes … open[s] new angles on the enigmatic polyhedron that is Dylan.”

  —The Nation

  “Magnificently realized.”

  — Mojo

  “Sounes’s book has the definite virtue of being the last one you’ll ever need to read about Dylan.”

  —Salon.com

  “[Down the Highway] must stand as the definitive work…. [and] the best psychological profile anyone is likely to produce for some time.”

  —St. Paul Pioneer Press

  “By far the best Bob Dylan biography.”

  —Rock & Rap Confidential

  “[This] fast-paced book has a fine interest in details [and is] rich with the observations of new witnesses.”

  —Variety

  “The music book of the year…. [Sounes‘] meticulously researched book (drawing on 250 original interviews) is the most persuasive portrait of Bob Dylan—the teenage Robert Allen Zimmerman’s invention—ever presented.”

  —Uncut

  Also by Howard Sounes

  Fab: An Intimate Life of Paul McCartney

  Charles Bukowski: Locked in the Arms of a Crazy Life

  Bukowski in Pictures

  The Wicked Game

  Seventies

  Fred & Rose

  Heist

  DOWN THE HIGHWAY

  THE LIFE OF BOB DYLAN

  HOWARD SOUNES

  Copyright © 2001, 2011 by Howard Sounes

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review. Scanning, uploading, and electronic distribution of this book or the facilitation of such without the permission of the publisher is prohibited. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated. Any member of educational institutions wishing to photocopy part or all of the work for classroom use, or anthology, should send inquiries to Grove/Atlantic, Inc., 841 Broadway, New York, NY 10003 or [email protected].

  First published in Great Britain in 2001 by Doubleday

  an imprint of Transworld Publishers

  This revised and updated edition published in Great Britain in 2011

  by Doubleday an imprint of Transworld Publishers

  Published simultaneously in Canada

  Printed in the United States of America

  eBook ISBN-13: 978-0-8021-9545-6

  Grove Press

  an imprint of Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

  841 Broadway

  New York, NY 10003

  Distributed by Publishers Group West

  www.groveatlantic.com

  For Jane Sounes and Claire Weaver

  CONTENTS

  Author’s Note and Acknowledgments

  Prologue: YESTERDAY IS GONE, BUT THE PAST LIVES ON

  Chapter 1: NORTH COUNTRY CHILDHOOD

  Chapter 2: BOUND FOR GLORY

  Chapter 3: CITY OF DREAMS

  Chapter 4: APOTHEOSIS

  Chapter 5: FULL POWER

  Chapter 6: COUNTRY WAYS

  Chapter 7: ON THE ROAD AGAIN

  Chapter 8: FAITH

  Chapter 9: GLIMPSES

  Chapter 10: NOT DARK YET

  Chapter 11: THE RETURN OF THE HAS-BEEN

  Bibliography

  Source Notes

  Index

  AUTHOR’S NOTE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  BOB DYLAN IS an artist of almost unrivaled importance in modern, popular music. He is a great recording star, an extraordinary live performer, an iconic figure of popular culture, and, most important, he is the preeminent songwriter of his time.

  His reputation does not rest on commercial success. Dylan has sold, throughout the world, approximately 100 million records, including thirty-seven million albums in the United States. Although these figures seem huge, they are less impressive when one considers that his near-contemporaries, The Beatles, are estimated to have sold a billion records, including 177 million US albums and numerous number one singles. Dylan has enjoyed surprisingly few hits, never achieving a number-one single in America, and not placing a single in the top forty since 1979.* Dylan has always been considered more of an album artist. Yet, as of 2010, he languished at forty-second place in the Recording Industry Association of America (R.I.A.A.) league table of lifetime sales, lagging behind younger artists such as Madonna and Prince, even outsold by the likes of Rod Stewart and Foreigner. Still, Bob Dylan’s greatest albums, such as Blonde on Blonde and Blood on the Tracks, are touchstones of popular culture, works of such depth and quality that they place him in the front rank of entertainers.

  Dylan tours the world relentlessly, and is one of the hardest-working live performers in music. On stage, he is truly dynamic, exuding a palpable charisma comparable to the likes of Elvis Presley and Frank Sinatra. But he stands apart from these great artists because – aside from a limited number of cowriting credits given to Presley – they did not write their own material. In addition to being a performer, Dylan is the author of approximately 600 original compositions, including popular classics like ‘Blowin’ in the Wind’’, ‘The Times They Are A-Changin’’ ‘, ‘Like a Rolling Stone’, ‘Forever Young’, ‘Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door‘, and ‘Tangled Up in Blue’. These songs are as diverse in subject matter and as rich in imagery as the work of a major poet or novelist. For the most part, they were written with ease. Dylan has always felt he is a channel for divine inspiration, and has said that the words stream through him. The ability to create brilliant work over a long period of time, without straining for ideas, is the signal characteristic of his genius.

  Bob Dylan changed music in the 1960s by bringing poetic lyrics to popular song. He was not afraid to say serious things in a medium that had never been taken particularly seriously, and did so with such deftness, wit and élan that he inspired others to follow. Almost every singer-songwriter of recent times owes him a debt, including John Lennon and Paul McCartney. The Beatles were greatly influenced by Dylan, who was a star before they were and who has long outlasted them. Indeed, his longevity in the front rank of popular music is another achievement that sets him apart.

  Lennon and McCartney were a songwriting team, like the teams of Goffin and King, Jagger and Richards, and Leiber and Stoller. Collaboration is commonplace in songwriting because few artists have both a talent for melody and a facility for language. For the most part, however, Dylan has written on his own, just as he has built his live shows on solo performances. He is a fundamentally self-contained man. ‘He walks out there alone. He comes back off that stage alone. He writes those songs alone. He is his own man. He stands proud in his shoes. He don’t need nobody to do nothin‘,’ says former girlfriend Carole Childs. ‘He’s that gifted and that talented.’

  Such is the power of his work that Dylan has become more than an entertainer. He is a minstrel guru to millions who hear their deepest thoughts and feelings expressed in his songs, an artist who is perceived to be an original thinker, whose work encapsulates wisdom. Bob Dylan lyrics have become figures of speech. ‘Blowin’ in the Wind’ may be the best-known example. Others are ‘money doesn’t talk, it swears’ and ‘to live outside the law, you must be honest’. His quips are included in compendiums of modern quotations, such as his reply to a question from Playboy magazine in 1966 about whether he knew what his songs were about: ‘Oh, some are about four minutes; some are about five, and some, believe it or not, are about eleven or twelve.’ Once again, this makes him a very unusual entertainer; however great Elvis Presley was, few would consider him a source of wit and wisdom. In his youth, as a folksinger, Dylan was also closely associated with movements for social change, an icon of the early 1960s alongside Martin Luther King Jr. and President John F. Kennedy. In the mid-1960s he rebelled against categorization by setting his poetic lyrics to the sound of amplified rock ’n’ roll. In his maturity, he has written eloquently of love, faith, marriage, parenthood, and aging.

  It is remarkable that Dylan’s best work is not limited to a single period. After the glory years of the 1960s, he came back in 1975 with the outstanding Blood on the Tracks, an album as good as anything he had recorded before, and one that many consider to be his best. He surprised again in the mid-1980s with major new songs like ‘Blind Willie McTell’ (recorded in 1983, but not released until 1991) and the triple Grammy Award-winning Time Out of Mind. In between there have been remarkable co
ncert tours, like the celebrated Rolling Thunder Revue of 1975-76. Few major artists have produced so much first-class material, and given so many compelling concerts, over such a long period. The undeniable fact that there has also been disappointing work – shambolic concert appearances and lackluster albums – has not detracted from his ability to surge back. Successive generations have grown up to appreciate his achievement, and teenagers are found next to parents, and even grandparents, at the hundred or so concerts he gives each year. It seems ‘A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall’ is still as relevant in an age of ecological concerns and flashpoint wars as it was during the Cuban Missile Crisis; the excitement of ‘All Along the Watchtower’ has not faded; the romance of ‘Lay, Lady, Lay’ has endured; and a recent song like ‘Love Sick’ can hold its own alongside songs of the past.

  As a man, Dylan has always been contradictory and mercurial. He is one of the most famous people in the Western world and yet, when he is not on stage, he is reclusive. He is also extremely secretive. It is remarkable, considering he has been scrutinized by the world’s press all his adult life, that large areas of that life have remained clouded with mystery. In this book, much that was mysterious becomes clear. For example, although it is well known that Dylan married former model Sara Lownds in 1965, and that they divorced in 1977, the fact that he married a second time in 1986, to backing singer Carolyn Dennis, and had a second family, has been hidden from press and public. There has been a great deal of speculation about this part of Dylan’s life – including estimates of how many children he has fathered and by whom – but most of what has been written is wrong. The full story, based on documented fact and the accounts of intimate friends and family, was revealed in the first edition of this biography, published in 2001, and now updated.

  Bob Dylan has long been a figurehead for the counterculture, yet paradoxically he takes little or no active interest in politics or social causes, going so far as to denounce politics as the ‘instrument of the devil.’ His mind is elsewhere – in the language and ancient morality of the Bible and in the ghostly heritage of American folk music. He is a deeply serious person, refusing to smile for cameras and refusing to talk on television shows. At the same time, he is renowned for his sense of humour; he can surprise with childish jokes, even card tricks, and takes impish delight in mind games. He is extremely wealthy, but chooses to live like a gypsy, spending more time on his tour bus than in any of the seventeen properties he owns around the world. Eccentricity has enhanced the legend. It is one thing to be a genius; it is better still to be an eccentric genius.

  It is not surprising that more has been written about Dylan than almost any popular music artist; there would be something amiss if he had not been studied extensively. There have been dozens of books over the past fifty years, including picture books, books analyzing lyrics, and four previous biographies of note: Bob Dylan: An Intimate Biography (Grosset & Dunlap, 1971) by Anthony Scaduto; No Direction Home: The Life and Music of Bob Dylan (New English Library, 1986) by Robert Shelton; Dylan: A Biography (McGraw-Hill, 1989) by Bob Spitz; and Dylan: Behind the Shades (Viking, 1991) by Clinton Heylin (revised as Bob Dylan: Behind the Shades – Take Two [Viking, 2000]). While good work has been done, the challenge of writing a major biography that conveys the full grandeur of Bob Dylan’s artistic achievement, and also reveals the true life of this fascinating and elusive man, has remained.

  THIS BIOGRAPHY IS based on painstaking new research. As a solid foundation to the book, I obtained a considerable amount of previously unseen documentary evidence about Bob Dylan’s professional and family life. This includes birth, marriage, and death certificates, court papers, and real estate and property tax records. These documents have enabled me, in many cases, to pin down precise details in areas where there has been widespread, and often erroneous, speculation. Nearly everyone of significance in Dylan’s life was contacted and new interviews were conducted with most of these people. Subjects who had never previously given interviews shared their experiences, and a surprising amount of new information was revealed that illuminates almost every aspect of the life. It includes, but is not limited to, the first full picture of Dylan’s family life (for instance, the full names and the dates of birth of his first five children have been only sketchily understood until now). It also includes the inside story of his years of seclusion in Woodstock; stories behind the making of albums like Blonde on Blonde; his life on the road; his secret second marriage; his wealth; his legal battles; his unexpected property interests; and how the obsessive behavior of deranged fans, over many years, has caused him to fear for his safety.

  Direct quotations have been taken only from previously published interviews in the case of Bob Dylan himself, who chose not to contribute to this biography, and where subjects have died or were otherwise unavailable for interview. All such quotations are attributed in the comprehensive source notes at the end of the book, together with explanations of background material used. More than 250 people helped me in this project, most by granting formal interviews, some by answering questions by letter or e-mail, and others by engaging in general discussions. These sources include relatives, childhood friends and teachers, girlfriends, neighbors, religious confidants, former employees, band members, poets, filmmakers, painters, and fellow musicians. Key sources include members of Bob Dylan’s family and his closest male and female friends. Many of these people – including longtime girlfriend Carole Childs; Woodstock neighbor Bruce Dorfman; Albert Grossman’s widow, Sally; and Dylan’s oldest friend, Larry Kegan – have not spoken to previous biographers. Girlfriends Echo Helstrom and Bonnie Beecher have given their first interviews in many years. Many distinguished musicians with close associations with Bob Dylan have contributed to the book, including Rick Danko, Levon Helm, Garth Hudson, and Robbie Robertson of The Band; also, Tim Drummond, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, Arlo Guthrie, Richie Havens, Carolyn Hester, John Lee Hooker, Jim Keltner, Al Kooper, Mark Knopfler, Roger McGuinn, Maria Muldaur, Tom Paxton, Pete Seeger, Mick Taylor, Bob Weir of The Grateful Dead, and Peter Yarrow and Noel Paul Stookey of Peter, Paul and Mary. Some key people, including members of the Dylan family, helped on the understanding that they would not be named. A handful of others asked not to be quoted directly.

  I am particularly grateful to the following individuals some of whom have died since the book was published:

  Kenny Aaronson, Steve Allen, David Amram, Al Aronowitz, Mary Alice Artes, Arthur Baker, Eve Baer, Stanley Bard, ‘Bucky’ Baxter, Danielle Beeh, Joel Bernstein, Louise Bethune, Theodore Bikel, Ronee Blakley, Peggi Blu, Oscar Brand, Marshall Brickman, Bob Britt, John Bucklen, Joanna Bull, Henry ‘T-Bone’ Burnett, Wayne Butler, Kenny Buttrey, Hamilton Camp (aka Bobby Camp), Nancy Carlen, Cindy Cashdollar, Anna L. Chairetakis (née Lomax), Carole Childs, Liam Clancy, John Cohen, Paul Colby, Walt Conley, Ron Cornelius, Billy Cross, Jones Cullian (née Alk), Ethel Crystal, Charlie Daniels, Rick Danko, Erik Darling, Luke Davich, Bruch Dorfman, Tim Drummond, Sly Dunbar, Manny Dworman, Pastor Bill Dwyer, Debi Dye-Gibson, Delores Edgin, Bob Engelhardt, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, Mimi Fariña (née Baez), Barry Feinstein, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Anton Fig, Ray Foulk, Erik Frandsen, Dottie Gardner, Dana Gillespie, Tony Glover, Robert F. Goheen, Harvey Goldsmith, Dennis A. Good, Nick Gravenites, Wavy Gravy (aka Hugh Romney), ‘Mean’ Willie Green III, Marlie Griffiths (née Helstrom), Sally Grossman, Pastor Kenn Gullikson, Arlo Guthrie, Nora Guthrie, George Haidos, Bobbye Hall, Tova Hammerman, John Hammond Jr., Jo Ann Harris, Richie Havens, Ronnie Hawkins, Bill HeckeRoth, Levon Helm, Echo Helstrom, John Herald, Carolyn Hester, LeRoy Hoikkala, J. J. Holiday, John Lee Hooker, Jim Horn, Neil Hubbard, Garth Hudson, Gayle Jamison, Bob Johnston, Mickey Jones, Steve Jones, Horace Judson, Pete Karman, Robert J. Karon, Larry Keenan, Larry Kegan, Jim Keltner, Doug Kershaw, Millie Kirkham, Mark Knopfler, ‘Spider’ John Koerner, Sandy Konikoff, Al Kooper, Danny Kortchmar, Daniel Kramer, Tony Lane, Bruce Langhorne, Harold Leventhal, Jacques Levy, George Lois, Alan Lomax, Peter Lownds, Rory Makem, Tommy Makem, Gerard Malanga, David Mansfield, Angel Marolt, Paul Martinson, Victor Maymudes, Charlie McCoy, Michael McClure, Martha McCrory, Faridi McFree, Roger McGuinn, Augie Meyers, Marvin Mitchelson, Bob Moore, Dave Morton, Wayne Moss, Maria Muldaur, Jim Mullen, Shawn Nadery, Gloria Naftali, Bobby Neuwirth, Anne Noznisky, Jeffrey Noznisky, Odetta, ‘Spooner’ Oldham, Tony O‘Malley, Richard Ostrander, Peter Ostroushko, Jon Pankake, Graham Parker, Alan Pasqua, Bernard Paturel, Mary Lou Paturel, Tom Paxton, Kenneth Pederson, Gretel Pelto (née Whitaker), D. A. Pennebaker, Regina Peoples, Ted Perlman, Billy Peterson, Chuck Plotkin, Larry Poons, Charlie Quintana, Kenny Rankin, Jean Ritchie, Scarlet Rivera, Hargus ‘Pig’ Robbins, Robbie Robertson, ‘Duke’ Robillard, B. J. Rolfzen, Jahanara Romney (née Bonnie Beecher), Dave Van Ronk, Arthur Rosato, Susan Ross, Carla Rotolo, Suze Rotolo, Bruce Rubenstein, Howard Rutman, Carole Bayer Sager, Monique Sampas (née Paturel), Ed Sanders, Philip Saville, Paul Schrader, Tim Schussler, John Sebastian, Mike Seeger, Peggy Seeger, Pete Seeger, Sam Shepard, Janine Signorelli, Roy Silver, P. F. Sloan, Larry ‘Ratso’ Sloman, Steven Soles, Mark Spoelstra, Patrick Stansfield, Yvonne Staples, Maeretha Stewart, Brian Stoltz, Lewis Stone, Rob Stoner, Noel Paul Stookey, Henry Strzelecki, Jonathan Taplin, Mick Taylor, Dr. Ed Thaler, Selma Thaler, David C. Towbin, Adam Traum, Happy Traum, Jane Traum, Matt Umanov, Bill Walker, Ian Walker, Jennifer Warnes, Bill Waterous, Winston Watson, Harry Weber, A. J. Weberman, Bob Weir, Dave Whitaker, Ubi Whitaker, Josh White Jr., Steve Wiese, Charlie Wolven, Peter Yarrow, Israel ‘Izzy’ Young, Monalisa Young, Terry Young, William Zantzinger, and Jack Zimmerman.