The Never Ending Pool

1978 was one of the great years.
Hard to believe 30 years have flown by!

There was, of course, Street-Legal.
(see the Street-Legal thread)


The Budokan concerts were recorded in Feb/March (though the album was not released until April '79).

There were many interesting interviews (especially, perhaps, the famous Playboy interview, published in March '78).

Rehearsals for the World Tour began at Rundown Studios in December '77, and continued through January, finishing on Feb 1, '78).

Just over two weeks later, Bob arrived in Japan:




From the other end of the year (Nashville, Dec 2): Changing of the Guards

Playboy Interview (published March, 1978)
(for full text: http://www.interferenza.com/bcs/interw/play78.htm )




PLAYBOY: Exactly 12 years ago, we published a long interview with you in this magazine, and there's a lot to catch up on. But we'd like at least to try to start at the beginning. Besides being a singer, a poet and now a film maker, you've also been called a visionary. Do you recall any visionary experiences while you were growing up?

DYLAN: I had some amazing projections when I was a kid, but not since then. And those visions have been strong enough to keep me going through today.

PLAYBOY: What were those visions like?

DYLAN: They were a feeling of wonder. I projected myself toward what I might personally, humanly do in terms of creating any kinds of reality. I was born in, grew up in a place so foreign that you had to be there to picture it.

PLAYBOY: Are you talking about Hibbing, Minnesota?

DYLAN: It was all in upper Minnesota.

PLAYBOY: What was the quality of those visionary experiences?

DYLAN: Well, in the winter, everything was still, nothing moved. Eight months of that. You can put it together. You can have some amazing hallucinogenic experiences doing nothing but looking out your window. There is also the summer, when it gets hot and sticky and the air is very metallic. There is a lot of Indian spirit. The earth there is unusual, filled with ore. So there is something happening that is hard to define. There is a magnetic attraction there. Maybe thousands and thousands of years ago, some planet bumped into the land there. There is a great spiritual quality throughout the Midwest. Very subtle, very strong, and that is where I grew up. New York was a dream.

PLAYBOY: Why did you leave Minnesota?

DYLAN: Well, there comes a time for all things to pass.

PLAYBOY: More specifically, why the dream of New York?

DYLAN: It was a dream of the cosmopolitan riches of the mind.

PLAYBOY: Did you find them there?

DYLAN: It was a great place for me to learn and to meet others who were on similar journeys.

PLAYBOY: People like Allen Ginsberg, for instance?

DYLAN: Not necessarily him. He was pretty established by the time I got there. But it was Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac who inspired me at first-and where I came from, there wasn't the sophisticated transportation you have now. To get to New York, you d have to go by thumb. Anyway, those were the old days when John Denver used to play sideman. Many people came out of that period of time. Actors, dancers, politicians, a lot of people were involved with that period of time.

PLAYBOY: What period are you talking about?

DYLAN: Real early Sixties.

PLAYBOY: What made that time so special?

DYLAN: I think it was the last go-round for people to gravitate to New York. People had gone to New York since the 1800s, I think. For me, it was pretty fantastic. I mean, it was like, there was a cafe-what was it called?-I forgot the name, but it was Aaron Burr's old livery stable. You know, just being in that area, that part of the world was enlightening.

PLAYBOY: Why do you say it was the last go-round?

DYLAN: I don't think it happened after that. I think it finished, New York died after that, late to middle Sixties.

PLAYBOY: What killed it?

DYLAN: Mass communication killed it. It turned into one big carnival side show. That is what I sensed and I got out of there when it was just starting to happen. The atmosphere changed from one of creativity and isolation to one where the attention would be turned more to the show. People were reading about themselves and believing it. I don't know when it happened. Sometime around Peter, Paul and Mary, when they got pretty big. It happened around the same time. For a long time, I was famous only in certain circles in New York, Philadelphia and Boston, and that was fine enough for me. I am an eyewitness to that time. I am one of the survivors of that period. You know as well as I do that a lot of people didn't make it. They didn't live to tell about it, anyway.

PLAYBOY: Why do you think they didn't survive?

DYLAN: People were still dealing with illusion and delusion at that time. The times really change and they don't change. There were different characters back then and there were things that were undeveloped that are fully developed now. But back then, there was space, space-well, there wasn't any pressure. There was all the time in the world to get it done. There wasn't any pressure, because no body knew about it. You know, I mean. music people were like a bunch of cotton pickers. They see you on the side of the road picking cotton, but nobody stops to give a shit. I mean, it wasn't that important. So Washington Square was a place where people you knew or met congregated every Sunday and it was like a world of music. You know the way New York is; I mean, there could be 20 different things happening in the same kitchen or in the same park; there could be 200 bands in one park in New York; there could be 15 jug bands, five bluegrass bands and an old crummy string band, 20 Irish confederate groups, a Southern mountain band, folk singers of all kinds and colors, singing John Henry work songs. There was bodies piled sky-high doing whatever they felt like doing. Bongo drums, conga drums, saxophone players. Xylophone players, drummers of all nations and nationalities. Poets who would rant and rave from the statues. You know, those things don't happen anymore. But then that was what was happening. It was all street. Cafes would be open all night. It was a European thing that never really took off. It has never really been a part of this country That is what New York was like when I got there.

The 1967 40th anniversary threads had it all over this.

I mean '67 I'd only pushed my wrist up to my elbow and my teeth up toward my eyes.

but - in the words of Sir Frankie Crisp "let it roll"

that's Ron Rosenbaum's incisiveness "people like Allen Ginsberg ...?

oy

... and, of course, very special 1978 30th anniversary and new year greetings to 'clairdelalune'!

Where would we be without you?

Don't forget the massive Jonathan Cott interview from that illusterious magazine Rolling Rumor. I'm listening to Rock of Ages which has nothing to do with anything except it happened on New Years eve though a lot of the record didn't apparently.

'78 is certainly up there with the weirdest of Bob years. It lasted here a week if that and the reaction of most people attending was gee, it wasn't that bad.

At his one concert here, he announced the score of the Phillie's playoff game happening across the street and was universally scorched for that in the local press. He did a truly bizarre "Is Your Love In Vain" shouting out DO YOU LOVE ME, for the 2nd tune. There was a white Gibson J-200 with a black pick guard on stage for most of the show that was never touched. Somewhere in the middle of the show the band left and Bob Dylan appeared for a great solo "It Ain't Me Babe." The Bob Dylan left and he came back. Bob Dylan didn't return for 3 years, but when he did it was spectacular.

thanks for typing up some of that playboy stuff, fourth, terrific as it is it's all about the sixties.

why not use this thread (like the 1966 one at the old pool) to take things chronologically. we could start with early january and work our way through to december. or was that your intention anyway?

the following two images i have just photographed from clinton heylin's 1996 book. (i have neither the time or skills to type up the relevant bits) but these late december 1977 entries will serve as a prelude of what could turn out - if folk are willing - to be another terrific thread. all we need now is for fordy to turn up with some new pictures. take it away.

Here's a comment about the '78 European Tour, from bass player, Jerry Scheff:

"...I put together a band to do an album for Tanya Tucker. It included drummer Paul Leim, pianist John Hobbes, and guitarist Billy Walker, all of whom have since moved to Nashville. We cut a country hit called "When I Die Just Let Me Go To Texas" I think that was the name of it! They were talking about taking the band on the road when I got a call from saxophonist Steve Douglas telling me that "Bob Dylan" was rehearsing and had fired his bass player. I went down to play with him and all of a sudden we were on our way to Europe to tour on a private train. It was a wonderful tour. We had a private dining car complete with private chef and an extensive wine collection. When we left, say, Paris for Berlin, our cars were added to a train heading for Berlin, and away we went. After we arrived in the next city, cars would take us to our hotel. Eric Clapton, Elvis Costello, Steel Pulse, and Joan Armatradin[g] were some of the other acts on the bill. We played a concert at Zeppelin Field in Nuremberg Germany for 80,000 people. The last concert in Europe was at Blackbush[e] Aerodrome in England for 250,000 people: the largest crowd I have ever played for live.
http://www.scheff.com/jerry/bio.html




JL 01 1978, Zeppelinfeld, Nuremberg, Germany

"Masters of War," July 1, 1978, Nuremberg
http://www.sendspace.com/file/51nrwa




43 Years, Previous: "Roll Call" at Zeppelinfeld, Nuremberg, November, 1935

according to heylin dylan spent quite a bit of time in early january promoting the renaldo and clara movie he had put together the previous year - one in which elvis presley had died. elvis's death had a profound effect on dylan's state of mind, which he appears to have carried with him throughout 1978. even the stage outfits dylan wore had become presleyesque.

Oakland, CA, NO 13 1978

yes, warren, that's the type of get-up i was thinking of.

I saw him two nights prior to the Oakland show, jacko. He was definitely wearing "Vegas Bob" attire. The most notable item was a honkingly wide belt that easily matched anything Presley wore. Didn't sparkle as much, though.

At first sight, seeing him so dressed was a bit of an OMG moment, in spite of reading about "Vegas Bob," beforehand.

snatched this from the street legal thread.
http://www.myspace.com/dylandoessoundtracks

may come in useful around about july.

this was my first ever bob. earls court.



my second show was a month later by which time bob was clad in black and top hatted.

Thanks to PSB, jackobob and Warren.

j'bob, I didn't actually type up the extract from the Playboy interview (just a cut-and-paste job from the linked site).
Yes, it is about the 60s, but I think it is an interesting indication of his mind-set in 1978.

There is a consistency between 60s/70s interviews and more recent material when it comes to the theme of (re)inventing himself ('I'm Not There''!).
e.g.

DYLAN: I had some amazing projections when I was a kid, but not since then. And those visions have been strong enough to keep me going through today.

PLAYBOY: What were those visions like?

DYLAN: They were a feeling of wonder. I projected myself toward what I might personally, humanly do in terms of creating any kinds of reality....

The above comments on the 'Vegas Bob' link to then recently deceased Elvis may well be a case in point, a brief experiment with a possible 'Dylan' persona, which seems to have been dropped after 1978. On the other hand, the 1979+ 'Gospel' experiment may have been partly influenced by the impact of Elvis's death:

By this time I'd-a thought I would be sleeping
In a pine box for all eternity.
My faith keeps me alive, but I still be weeping
For the saving grace that's over me.


As for this thread, a chronological approach might be too restrictive, since people who attended a show later in the year might like to contribute memories. So, I suggest it could be just a collage of impressions, opinions, reminiscences, etc., with any additional comments on Street-Legal reserved for the S-L thread linked above.