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WD_211/ 2005
(  Satoshi Kinoshita )
| Series: | Works on paper: Drawings 3 | | Medium: | oilstick on paper | | Size (inches): | 25 x 19.9 | | Size (mm): | 640 x 510 | | Catalog #: | WD_0211 | | Description: | Signed, date and copyright in pencil on the reverse.
BOB DYLAN - THE BERT KLEINMAN INTERVIEW, JULY 30 1984.
Conducted by Bert Kleinman at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in New York. Also present was old time friend Artie Mogull who in 1962 signed Dylan up with Witmark & Sons. Released on DYLAN ON DYLAN, Westwood One (Radio Station Discs), Nov 17 1984.
Sources: Tape. Transcription in "Talkin' Bob Dylan 1984 & 1985 (Some Educated Rap)" by Stewart P. Bicker.
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B.K.: Is it true that you taught yourself guitar and harmonica?
Dylan: Well, nobody really teaches themselves guitar and harmonica, you know, when you don't know anything first of all you get yourself a book or something. What I remember is learning a couple of chords from some books and then going out to watch people, you know, to see how they're doing it. You don't go so much to hear 'em ... you just go to see how they do what they do, get as close as you can, see what their fingers are doing. In those early stages it's more like a learning thing, and that can sometimes take ... years, many years. But to me I kind of picked it up fairly quickly, I didn't really play with that much technique. And people really didn't take to me because of that, because I didn't go out of my way to learn as much technique as other people ... I mean I know people who spent their whole lives learning John Lee Hooker chords, just hammering on, you know, on the E string, and that was all. But they could play it in such a beautiful way it looked like a ballet dancer. Everybody had a different style, they had styles and techniques, especially in folk-music, you know there was your southern mountain banjo, then flat picking, then your finger picking techniques, and just all of these different runs you know, different styles of ballads. Folk-music was a world that was very split-up ... and there was a purist side to it. Folk people didn't want to hear it if you couldn't play the song exactly the way that ... Aunt Molly Jackson played it. And I just kind of blazed my way through all that stuff (laughter). I would hear somebody do something and it would get to a certain point that you'd say, what do you want from that, you'd want to see what style they were playing ... I don't know I just stayed up day and night just barnstorming my way though all that stuff. And then I heard Woody Guthrie, and then it all came together for me ...
B.K.: Do you remember the first Woody Guthrie record you heard?
Dylan: Yeah, I think the first Woody Guthrie song I heard was "Pastures Of Plenty". And "Pretty Boy Floyd" and another song ... he used to write a lot of his songs from existing melodies, you know "Grand Coulee Dam". They just impressed me.
B.K.: Got to you?
Dylan: Oh, yeah. Because they were original, they just had a mark of originality on them, well the lyrics did. I just heard all those songs and I learned them all off the records. All the songs of Woody Guthrie that I could find, anybody that had a Woody Guthrie record or that knew a Woody Guthrie song. And in St. Paul at the time, where I was, there were some people around who would not only had his records but who knew his songs. So I just learned them all, some of the best records that I heard him make were these records that he made on the Stinson label, with Cisco Houston and Sonny Terry. I don't know if Leadbelly was on there too, I learned a bunch of Leadbelly's stuff too and learned how to play like that. But one of the biggest thrills I ever actually had was when I reached New York, whenever it was, and I got to play with Cisco Houston, I think I got to play with him at a party someplace. But I used to watch him, he used to play at Folk City. He was an amazing looking guy, he looked like Clark Gable, like a movie star.
Mogull: He reminded me a little of Tennessee Ernie actually.
Dylan: Yeah.
Mogull: Also very unheralded.
Dylan: Oh, completely. He was one of the great unsung heroes. One of the great American figures of all time, and no one ... you know you can ask people about him and nobody knows anything about him.
B.K.: When do you think you started to develop something that was uniquely yours? You were talking about playing Woody Guthrie ...
Dylan: Well, when I came to New York that's all I played - Woody Guthrie songs. Then about six months after that I'd stopped playing all Woody Guthrie songs. I used to play in a a place called Cafe Wha?, and it always used to open at noon, and closed at six in the morning. It was just a non stop flow of people, usually they were tourists who were looking for beatniks in the Village. There'd be maybe five groups that played there. I used to play with a guy called Fred Neil, who wrote the song " Everybody's Talking" that was in the film "Midnight Cowboy". Fred was from Florida I think, from Coconut Grove, Florida, and he used to make that scene, from Coconut Grove to Nashville to New York. And he had a strong powerful voice, almost a bass voice. And a powerful sense of rhythm ... And he used to play mostly these types of songs that Josh White might sing. I would play harmonica for him, and then once in a while get to sing a song. You know, when he was taking a break or something. It was his show, he would be on for about half an hour, then a conga group would get on, called Los Congeros, with twenty conga drummers and bongoes and steel drums. And they would sing and play maybe half an hour. And then this girl, I think she was called Judy Rainey, used to play sweet Southern Mountain Appalachian ballads, with electric guitar and small amplifier. And then another guy named Hal Waters used to sing, he used to be a sort of crooner. Then there'd be a comedian, then an impersonator, and that'd be the whole show, and this whole unit would go around non stop. And you get fed there, which was actually the best thing about the place.
Mogull: How long a set would you do?
Dylan: I'd do ... oh, about half an hour. If they didn't like you back then you couldn't play, you'd get hooted off. If they liked you, you played more, if they didn't like you, you didn't play at all. You'd play one or two songs and people would just boo or hiss ...
B.K.: This wasn't your own stuff you were singing there?
Dylan: No, I didn't start playing my old stuff until ... much later
B.K.: Well, when did you start to perform your own stuff?
Dylan: Well, I just drifted into it you know, I just started writing. Well I'd always kinda written my own songs but I never played them. Nobody played their own songs then. The only person that did that was Woody Guthrie. And then one day I just wrote a song, and the first song I ever wrote that I performed in public was the song I wrote to Woody Guthrie. And I just felt like playing it one night - and so I played it.
B.K.: Was writing something that'd you'd always wanted to do?
Dylan: No, not really. It wasn't a thing I wanted to do ever. I wanted just a song to sing, and there came a certain point where I couldn't sing anything. So I had to write what I wanted to sing 'cos nobody else was writing what I wanted to sing. I couldn't find it anywhere. If I could, I probably would have never started writing.
B.K.: Was the writing something that came easy to you? Because it is a craft that you do very well and you talk about it so causally.
Dylan: Well, yeah, it does come easy. But then ... after so many records sometimes you just don't know anymore whether ... am I doing this because I want to do it or because you think it's expected of you. Do you know what I mean? So you'd start saying, well, it's time to write a song - I'll write a song . And you'll try to do something but sometimes it just won't come out right. At those kind of times it's best just to go sing somebody's songs.
B.K.: Was it a lot of work writing? Was it a labour?
Dylan: No. it was just something I'd kinda do. You'd just sit up all night and write a song, or ... in those days I used to write a lot of songs in cafes. Or at somebody's house with the typewriter. "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall" ... I wrote that in the basement of the Village Gate. All of it, at Chip Monck's, he used to have a place down there in the boiler room, an apartment that he slept in ... next to the Greenwich Hotel. And I wrote "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall" down there. I'd write songs people's houses, people's apartments, wherever I was.
B.K.: Were you much of a polisher, I mean did you write it and then pour over it?
Dylan: Pretty much I'd just leave them the way they were ...
break
Dylan: Well, I don't know why I walked off that show [Ed Sullivan 1963]. I could have done something else but we'd rehearsed the song so many times and everybody had heard it. They'd run through the show you know and they'd put you on and you'd run through your number, and it always got a good response and I was looking forward to singing it. Even Ed Sullivan seemed to really like it. I don't know who objected to it, but just before I was going to sing it they came in, and this was show time you know. They came in, there was this big huddle, I could see people talking about something. I was just getting ready to play you know ... and then someone stepped up and said I couldn't sing that song. They wanted me to sing a Clancy Brother's song, and it just didn't make sense to me to sing a Clancy Brother's song on nationwide TV at that time. So ... I just left.
Mogull: Do you remember that time you were down in San Juan, Puerto Rico, at the CBS convention. And ... it was being held at the San Juan Hilton I guess ... this huge record convention, and it was just as Bob was beginning to hit. And the President of CBS at the time was a fabulous man named Goddard Lieberson. And ... they wouldn't let Bob in the hotel, because he was not wearing a tie or a jacket ...
Dylan: Yeah, or a shirt.
Mogull: And Lieberson, to his credit, told the hotel manager either he comes in the hotel or I'm pulling the whole convention out of here. Have I told the story right?
Dylan: Yeah, he was a big supporter of mine. Goddard Lieberson, as was John Hammond. Without those people like that I don't think anything would have happened for me. If I was to come along now, in this day, with the kind of people that are running record companies now, they would ... you know ... bar the doors I think. But you had people back then who were more entranched in individuality.
Mogull: And also not as insecure in their jobs.
Dylan: No, they ran things, you know they made decisions and it stuck. Now, I mean, it seems like everybody chats with somebody else, it's like well, I'll tell you tomorrow, call me back later, yeah we almost got deal, stuff like that.
B.K.: Did you get along with Lieberson okay ...?
Dylan: Oh, yeah, he was great ... he even used to come to some sessions of mine. He stop in and say hello you know ...
B.K.: Was there ever any pressure on you? I mean some people considered your music almost subversive. Although I always considered it very American.
Dylan: I guess they did ... I don't know. But, like I said, they seemed to run things. You know other people may have been talking under their breath or something, behind their back, and things like that. But at this time their big acts were Mitch Miller, Andy Williams, Johnny Matthis. I didn't really begin to sell many records until the second record ... and the "Subterranean Homesick Blues" that made the charts.
B.K.: That was an amazing single when you think of what the singles were like at the time.
Dylan: They made some good records then, that you know were good pop records. Not on Columbia though. Phil Spector was doing a lot of stuff at the time, and Jerry Lieber and Mike Stoller ...
B.K.: Were you listening to a lot of pop stuff at the time?
Dylan: Yeah, I listened to a lot of pop stuff, but it never influenced what I was doing. At least to any great degree. It had earlier, like the really earlier stuff, when rock 'n' roll came in after Elvis, Carl Perkins, Buddy Holly, those people. Chuck Berry, Little Richard, that stuff influenced me ... You know, nostalgia to me isn't really rock 'n' roll. Because when I was a youngster the music I heard was Frankie Laine, Rosemary Clooney, Denis ... what's his name? Denis Day? And you know, Dorothy Collins ... the Mills Brothers, all that stuff. When I hear stuff like that it always strikes a different chord than all the rock 'n' roll stuff. The rock 'n' roll stuff I had a conscious mind at that time, but ten years before that it was like "Mule Train" and ... Johnny Ray knocked me out. Johnny Ray was the first person to actually really knock me out.
B.K.: What was it? What do you think it was about Johnny Ray?
Dylan: Well, he was just so emotional, wasn't he? I ran into him in an elevator in Australia ... he was like one of my idols you know. I mean I was speechless, there I was in an elevator with Johnny Ray! I mean what do you say?
B.K.: When you started to move from the pure folk style into a more electric style, was that a tough one?
Dylan: We're getting into a touchy subject. (laughter).
B.K.: Well, I mean today you go on stage and both of those things co-exist. Nobody thinks twice.
Dylan: Yeah, they always did co-exist ...
B.K.: I'm not talking so much about that, but at least what it seemed like from the outside was that people were trying to tell you how to make your music.
Dylan: Oh ... there's always people trying to tell you how to do everything in your life. If you really don't know what to do and you don't care what to do - then just ask somebody's opinion. You'll get a million different opinions. If you don't want to do something, ask someone's opinion and they'll just verify it for you. The easiest way to do something is to just not ask anybody's opinion. I mean if you really believe in what you're doing ... I've just asked people's opinion and it's been a great mistake, in different areas. In my personal life, I've asked people what do you think about doing this and they've said ... Oh Wow! ...! You know, and you end up not using it or else using it wrong.
Mogull: As a matter of fact I think the artist has to make the innate decision about their ...
Dylan: Yeah, you know what's right. When those things come you know what's right. A lot of times you might be farming around and not knowing what's right and you might do something dumb, but that's only because you don't know what to do on the first place. But if you know what's right and it strikes you at a certain time then you can usually believe that instinct. And if you act on it, then you'll be successful at it. Whatever it is.
B.K.: Recording is a whole other thing from being on stage. And you, from what I've read, try and record as spontaneously as possible ... ?
Dylan: I have yeah, I have, but I don't do that so often anymore. I used to do that ... because recording a song bores me, you know, it's like working in a coal-mine. Well I mean it's not really as serious as that, you're not completely that far underground! Maybe not in a literal sense, but ... you could be indoors for months. And then what you think is real just is just not anymore, you're just listening to sounds and your whole world is just working with tapes and things. I'm not ... I've never liked that side of things. Plus I've never gotten into it on that level, when I first recorded I just went in and recorded the songs I had, That's the way people recorded then. But people don't record that way now, and I shouldn't record that way either because they can't even get it down that way anymore. To do what I used to do, or to do what anybody used to do you have to stay in the studio a longer time to get that right. Because you know technology has messed everything up so much.
B.K.: It's messed it up?
Dylan: Yeah, it's messed it up. Technology is giving a false picture. Like if you listen to any of the records that are done now they're all done in a technology sort of way. Which is a conniving kind of way, you can dream up what you want to do and just go in and dream it up! But you go see some of that stuff live and you're gonna be very disappointed, because ... er ... I mean if you want to see some of it live. You may not want to you know. Well, I think it's messed it up, but that's progress you know. You can't go back the way it used to be. For a lot of people it's messed things up, but then for a lot of other people it's a great advantage. In other words you can get something right now, it doesn't have to be right but you can get it right. You know, it can be totally wrong but you can get it right! And it can be done just with sound and ... We were just recording something the other night and we were gonna put some handclaps on it. And the guy sitting behind the board, he was saying 'Well do you guys wanna go out there and actually clap ...? I got a machine right here that can do that.' And the name of this thing was Roland or something. (laughter). So we went out and clapped instead. It wasn't any big deal, we could have had some machine do it ... But that's just a small example of how everything is just machine oriented you know.
Note: Continued on the following "page" as "WD_212".
-www.interferenza.com/bcs/interw/84-jul30.htm
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