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Popular Music and Society

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Hey, hey woody Guthrie I wrote you a song: The political side of Bob Dylan
R. Serge Denlsoff; David Fandray

Online Publication Date: 01 January 1977

To cite this Article Denlsoff, R. Serge and Fandray, David(1977)'Hey, hey woody Guthrie I wrote you a song: The political side of Bob

Dylan',Popular Music and Society,5:5,31 42

To link to this Article: DOI: 10.1080/03007767708591096 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03007767708591096

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"HEY, HEY WOODY GUTHRIE I WROTE YOU A SONG": THE POLITICAL SIDE OF BOB DYLAN

R. Serge Denlsoff and David Fandray Bob Dylan appears as the most enigmatic and controversial artist of the turbulant 1960s. Dylan was all things to many people, at least at one point in that decade. His fans and the media enjoyed a love-hate relationship with the singer that has rarely been witnessed. He was labeled a voice of a generation, yet turned his back on the role. His importance was immense long before "Like a Rolling Stone" finally reached the pop charts. Very few people aware of Dylan are neutral about him. His aesthetic changes have been roundly criticized. The stormiest side to Dylan is in the sphere of politics. Originally heralded as the heir apparent to Woody Guthrie, Dylan was roundly condemned as an "opportunist" and a "sell-out" by the same people who championed his career. Counter culturists who bootlegged records chose Dylan as their first and main target. A.J. Weberman, a selfproclaimed revolutionary, even started a Dylan Liberation Front. The underground Weathermen chose thier name from "Subterranean Homesick Blues." Nowhere but in the radical press has Dylan been so violently attacked and yet so loudly praised. Several biographers and critics have attempted to explain this Janus-like relationship. Craig McGregor, perhaps, summed it up best writing "Dylan is a master of masks. If any proof were needed, his manipulation of the mass media and his deliberate choosing among images to present to the public are sufficient."1 Certainly there is a manipulative aspect to Dylan's career as Toby Thompson and Tony Scaduto have aptly illustrated in their biographies.2 However, Dylan's relationship with the Left, Right, and indeed, political Middle are not merely a symptom of the man's personality. Dylan is a child of the folk music revival which exploded upon the consciousness of American youth in the waning years of the 1950s. Triggered by "Tom Dooley," the revival found literally hundreds of guitar carrying youths wandering into the world of Greenwich Village. The Village was more than just a string of "basket houses" such as Gerde's where guitar pickers could exhibit their wares for a few dollars and an occasional free beer. The Village had an entire Zeitgeist. The Village was the home of Bohemianism and progressive politics going back to the days of John Reed, John Dos Passos, and the literary Masses. It was here that the Almanac Singers-Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Lee Hays, and numerous othersheld the first hootennanies to pay their rent and help various political causes. The short-lived Weavers paid their dues at the Vanguard. Folk music as well as jazz dominated the MacDougal Street music scene. During the 1950s, folk music was mere replication of Child and Lomax ballads. Only Pete Seeger and a handful of ex-People's Songsters continued to topical song traditions of the post-war years. Some of the early Village artists looked with some degree of crypticness at topical song-writing. In 1959 Dave Van Ronk and Dick Ellington put out a satirical songbook title The Bosses Songbook: Songs to Stifle Flames of Discontent This is an obvious parody of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) Little Red Songbook. In the lyrics, Van Ronk and Ellington mocked the agit-prop material of previous years. One verse commented tersely: Their material is corny But their motives are the purest And their spirit will never be broke, As they go right on with their great noble crusade Of teaching folk songs to the folk.3 While generally discarding the political ideology of the preceeding decade, singers did find the works of Woody Guthrie and other artists to be of considerable value. Guthrie was somewhat of a saint in the dingy folk clubs. There were few village performers that

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POPULAR MUSIC IN SOCIETY did not toss in at least one "hard travelin" number from the Dust Bowl days. In the beginning, artists such as Dave Van Ronk, the New Lost City Ramblers, and other "interpreters" intermingled with veterans like Brownie McGee, Sonny Terry, and of course Pete Seeger. This was before the HUAC protest in San Francisco, the freedom rides, the SDS Port Huron statement. In the Village there also existed a small in-group of singers that dominated the scene. These were the people with recording contracts. Most of these contracts were with the small esoteric labels such as Prestige and Folkways. There was little money, but having a record out served as a badge of honor. In the early 1960s the underground heritage of the American Folk Music movement began to surface. Its uneasy alliance with the Left of the 1930s and 1940s suggested musical directions at a time when many collegiates were finally awakening from the deep sleep of the 1950s. Labor songs and the topical material of Guthrie, Seeger, and Leadbelly appeared contemporary in light of Selma and the Bay of Pigs. Still, only Seeger seemed to be carrying the political torch. There is a good deal of controversy as to who was the first topical songwriter in the New York milieu. Phil Ochs claims he was the first, and their is little reason to dispute that assertion. But it was Bob Dylan that drove the vehicle to stardom. Dylan's original involvement with topical material seems to have been motivated more by his roommate than by any deeply felt political convictions. Tony Scaduto suggests: Suze was working for CORE as a secretary and envelope stuffer. She spent many hours telling Bob about the realities of the black man's life as she saw it from her desk at CORE, where the phones rang day and night as field men called in to describe the latest segregationist brutalities. And so one of Dylan's first protest songs, "The Ballad of Emmett Till," was written for CORE.4 ' "The Ballad of Emmett Till" was a narrative depicting the murder of a young black youth in Mississippi. The true story was somewhat of a cause celebre in civil rights circles as Till's killers went free. While not as well written as some of his later material, the song did create a pattern. The motif was a social injustice and lack of public reaction, or better yet indignation to it. Songs like "The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll," "Percy's Song," "Only a Hobo," "Oxford Town" and "Hollis Brown" were all in this vein. Dylan's concluding verse included "Your eyes are filled with dead man's dirt" and "Hattie Carroll" concluded with "Now is the time for your tears." His second "protest song, "The Ballad of Donald White," an executed black, ended with "When are some people gonna wake up..." This type of material greatly appealed to those involved in movement politics. A basic premise of any social movement is that if the false conscience of the public could only be eradicated, then social change would take place. Dylan's writing of topical and protest material revived in the Village an aura of the 1940s where the Almanac Singers sang for various causes, followed after the war by People's Songs, Inc. The role of the folksingerthen was fairly well defined by liberal and "progressive" politics. The balladeer was the social conscience of the people.* Phil Ochs labeled this orientation "the Guthrie-Seeger tradition." Needless to say, many veterans of the earlier years were only too happy to proclaim Dylan "the great white hope" of the 1960s. Dylan was to be the "new Guthrie," a role which he did not originally totally reject. In fact, his first album as well as official record company biography stressed his heritage of the Dustbowl Balladeer. Bob Dylan included "Song to Woody" as well as the following liner notes: "Although they are separated bythirty years and two generations, they were united by a love of music, a kindred sense of humor, and a common view toward the world." 6 Dylan's actual connection to Guthrie is different to establish. In fact, the famous Hospital visit has been denied by Dylan himself on several occasions. Some observers claim that even if Dylan did go to the Greystone Hospital in New Jersey, Woody was

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HEY, HEY WOODIE GUTHRIE, I WROTE YOU A SONG incapable of communicating with his visitor. In a 1966 interview, Phil Ochs indicated that Dylan was in fact using the politics of the Village to further his own career. Ochs' charge may be a bit strong; however, there is little historical evidence to refute the argument that Dylan's career was substantially aided by veterans of the Old Left as well as a new generation of politically conscious youths. Sing Out! magazine, the dominant folk music publication, first sang Dylan's praises to their audience in 1962. Gil Turner wrote an article introducing him as a dedicated and committed singer of topical and political songs who refused to have his material watered down ^ Gordon Friesen wrote a similar essay in Mainstream. When Broadside magazine first appeared in 1961, Dylan's "Talking John Birch Society" was included. Broadside was the brainchild of ex-People Songsters Pete Seeger and Malvina Reynolds who felt that Sing Out! was not publishing enough political material. Agnes "Sis" Cunningham and her husband Gordon Friesen started the mimeographed publication in 1961 with the help of Gil Turner who solicited material from his contemporaries at Gerde's folk club. The orientation of Broadside was openly movement directed. Early issues stressed disarmament, civil rights, and anti-Radical Right songs. Dylan fit the mold with "Talking John Birch Society," "I will Not Go Down Under the Ground," and in the sixth issue "Blowin in the Wind" which became an anthem for the desegregation movement. Because of his songs, Dylan by 1963-the year of the March on Washington-was firmly established as the leading "new" topical song writer in the folk music revival. Few people doubted Dylan's commitment to the cause. Pete Seeger introduced his songs at concerts, the New York Times reported a "Bob Dillon" at a rally in Greenwood, Mississippi; and Dylan was at the historic March on Washington as well as at the finale of the 1963 Newport Folk Festival. For the folk music revival and the protest song vogue, the 1963 Newport convention was the highpoint. It ended appropriately with Joan Baez, Peter, Paul, and Mary, the Freedom Singers, Pete Seeger, and Bob Dylan, arms linked, leading the crowd with "We Shall Overcome" and "Blowin' in the Wind." Dylan's dedication to the civil rights movement and the New Left was questionable. Unlike his forebearers Seeger, Hays, and sometimes Guthrie-Dylan was not the voice of any given movement. His songs may have reinforced the belief systems of those involved in changing the social conditions of the 1960s, but he was not physically one of them. First and foremost Dylan was a performer very aware of audience preferences. In the folk world tying up with the Guthrie-Seeger tradition was a definite plus. However, Dylan could never accept the demands of politics upon him. The Guthrie-Seeger balloon was finally popped at a dinner staged by the Emergency Civil Liberties Committee where he was given the Tom Paine Award. At the dinner Dylan denounced the participants. The reasons are not clear, but later he explained to a friend "All they can see is a cause, and using people for their cause. They're trying to use me for something, want me to carry a picket sign and have my picture taken and be a good little nigger and not mess up their little game. They're all hung up on games. But games don't work any more". Dylan obviously was turned off to much of the civil rights movement. In an interview with Nat Hentoff, Dylan admitted some affinity for the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), but later added "I agree with everything that's happening...but I'm not part of no Movement. If I was I wouldn't be able to do anything else but be in 'the Movement.' I just can't have people sit around and make rules for me. I do a lot of things no Movement would allow." 8 Musically Dylan made similar statements beginning with Another Side of Bob Dylan and his farewell song to protest and perhaps even folk music with "My Back Pages." Dylan's reasons for the change are not totally clear. Several writers have indicated that Dylan desired to reach the youth market of popular music rather than just the folkies who could not give him a gold record. 9 While many called Dylan's artistic retreat "opportunism" it should

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POPULAR MUSIC IN SOCIETY be remembered that the economics of folk music revival benefited very few artists. Pop acts like Peter, Paul, and Mary, The New Christy Minstrels, and several others did enjoy the bounties of the college concert circuit. However, most folksingers were almost totally dependent upon a handful of urban night clubs and a host of coffee houses where the pay was marginal. Few acts had recording contracts with major labels. There Dylan was fortunate as most of his Village contemporaries did not have the promotional and distribution power of Columbia Records. Most artists found themselves with Prestige, Elektra, Vanguard, or Verve, companies with limited budgets who in many instances did nothing for the artists except press their records. Many advocates of the Guthrie-Seeger tradition disdained the commercial aspect of folk music. The Kingston Trio, Limelighters, and the New Christy Minstrels were frequently denounced for their "commercialism." Not surprisingly Dylan's behavior at the Paine Awards, the Hentoff interview, and "My Back Pages" sparked a bitter debate in Greenwich Village and in the pages of Sing Out', and Broadside. Most of Dylan's original critics were old-time guardians of the Guthrie-Seeger tradition. Irwin Silber attacked Dylan in Sing Out! for "selling out." Silber, a veteran left-wing polemicist, wrote "The American Success Machinery chews up geniuses at a rate of one a day and still hungers for more...through noteriety, fast money, and status, it makes it almost impossible for the artist to function and grow. It is a process that must be constantly guarded against and fought." 10 Paul Wolfe in Broadside labeled Dylan's "defection" as being "innocuous" showing utter "disregard of the tastes of the audience" and a symptom of "self-conscious egotism." 11 The Silber-Wolfe articles sparked a considerable controversy. Dylan had his defenders. Phil Ochs, already being heralded as the "new" master of the Guthrie-Seeger tradition, wrote "As for Bob's writing, I believe it is as brilliant as ever and is clearly improving all the time. On his last record 'Ballad in Plain D' and 'It Ain't Me Babe' are masterpieces of personal statement that have as great a significance as any of his protest material." In the same issue a reader commented "I found Paul Wolfe's article 'The New Dylan' sad and depressing. It brought me back to the old sectarian days of Sing Out-when a song was 'male chauvinist' or 'racist' if it didn't hew to the left wing line." 12 While much of the attack on Dylan was ideologically motivated there were also a number of underlining causes. Dylan was a symbol of what was happening to the folk music scene. Its old mentors at Sing Out! and in the Village who had long labored in the folk music vineyard were losing control of it. Record sales and recording contracts were rapidly displacing topicality as a major criterion of success. The star system so long condemned was entering into the scene. Dylan's ever-present entourage offended many. The reaction was generated both by fear and some jealousy, but perhaps an even more significant cause was a general dislike of Dylan as a person. Dylan's ascendency to stardom was not filled with grace. He had used and bumped many people. Singers at Gerde's told many stories of having Dylan walk in and take over the stage. Stories abounded in the Village about his mistreatment of Suz-Rotolo. Rumors about Dylan's penchant for money were plentiful. Esquire may have labeled Dylan the voice of a generation, but many of his contemporaries disliked and envied him intensely. The final break between Dylan and the folk music scene occured at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965. Dylan appeared with a dreaded symbol from rock and roll: a Fender electric guitar. Prior to that time rock music was a source of scorn for those in the folk music. Rock was trivia for adolescents and another symptom of American commercialism. Few people in the folk music movement saw it as having any merit. Joan Baez, Peter, Paul, and Mary in fact did parodies of rock songs at their concerts. The Animals "House of the Rising Sun" was considered almost sacreligious. Dylan's roots, however, were in rock. In 1965 after hearing the Byrd's version of "Mr. Tambourine Man" he decided to follow suit. The best description of what occurred at Newport was

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HEY, HEY WOODIE GUTHRIE, I WROTE YOU A SONG provided in Dylan's first biography: The sight of the instrument infuriated the crowd. It was to them the hated emblem of rock 'n roll, the tool of performers whose only air was to take big money from dumb kids. In the hands of the man who had been their god, it was the symbol of the sell-out.13 Jeering and heckling finally drove Dylan from the stage momentarily to return the Fender to its case. He emerged with his Martin and sang "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue." It was. Once again the pages of Sing Out! and Broadside served as a forum for another Dylan debate. Tom Paxton labeled Dylan's new sound "folk rot." Izzy Young wrote "He is forced to a brilliant obscurity in his writing so that people will continue to buy his records." Irwin Silber added "I do not believe that Dylan's vision of the world is really where it's at." One reader of Sing Out! wrote a poem: McCartney sings, backed up by a celli And no one gets a pain in the belly. Why do folkies, then, get cramps On hearing Dylan play with amps? A more direct statement was "That fact is, he has caught the general ear while you have yet to be heard above a whisper." Dylan's record sales supported his defenders. Bringing It All Back Home would in time be his first gold album. There is little question that Bob's artistic sense of timing was correct. The charge that he was one of the main factors for the dissolution of the folk revival has some merit as his success did point other performers in similar directions. Dylan's relationship to the progressive parts of the folk music scene is a complex one. It is too simple merely to dismiss him as an "opportunist" unless one accepts the notion that a performer must be a "cry for justice." Dylan did go where the audience was when he started writing topical songs. How calculated a move this was is impossible to establish. All artists play what people want to hear. However, there is a point where individual creativity interjects itself. There is little question that this-at least partiallywas the case in the evolution of Bob Dylan. Dylan's protest songs also offended another segment of the American polity: The Radical Right. Since the early days of the Martin Dies Committee, spokesmen for the Right have taken an interest in topical songs especially those in the folk idiom. Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger became favorite targets of those testifying before the infamous House Un-American Acitivities Committee and those writing Right-wing literature. 1 * A number of folk performers-at least those not willing to "cooperate" with HUAC-were blacklisted during the McCarthy period. Pete Seeger had to wait seventeen years to make a network television appearance. Early in his career Bob Dylan encountered the wrath of those with a Rightist perspective. Dylan wrote and recorded "Talking John Birch Society" in 1962. The song was destined for the Free Wheelin' album. The talking blues attacked the paranoia of the Right. "Found out there were red stripes in the American flag...Oh Boy!" CBS Records released the album with the anti-Right number only to quickly remove it from circulation. The original copies are now valuable collectors' items. Dylan encountered a similar problem with the CBS network censors who refused to allow the song's performance the Ed Sullivan show. Dylan walked off the program screaming "Bullshit! I sing that or I sing nothing." At that point in his career the act was fairly daring as Bob could have used the national exposure provided by the Sunday night program. In 1964 Dylan became the target of numerous right wing articles. American Opinion, the John Birch Society magazine, began the attack with: Dylan, whose personal characteristics include his scorn for baths and disdain for haircuts and razors, has been called the 'most important writer of folk songs in the

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POPULAR MUSIC IN SOCIETY last 20 years.' The New York Times has praised him as a moralist, a pamphleteer, an angry young man with a guitar, a social protest poet...perhaps an American Yevtushenko. Dylan, who usually travels with two bearded bodyguards, is a student of old-time Communist Woody Guthrie." Having linked Dylan with the Soviet poet and Guthrie-who was never a member of the Communist Party-American Opinion went on to describe Dylan's songs as "filled with the bitter polemic which characterized the Communist folk song."15 David Noebel of the Christian Crusade, who became the Right's authority on subversive music, devoted a chapter to Dylan calling him the "prince of rock and folk."16 Noebel's portrayal of the singer was that of a dirty, long haired subversive who was a threat to American morality and security. At another time he would write: "Dylan might not be fit to marry the household pet, but Columbia Records feels he's fit to influence the psyche of millions of our teenagers."17 Ironically, this description of Dylan appeared several years after the famous Newport incident. In 1969 American Opinion repeated its charges of Dylan's Communist connections.18 At the same time portions of the New left and the Con III movement were bitterly attacking Dylan for having sold out their values. A.J. Weverman was launching his ludicious Dylan Liberation Front while bootleggers were releasing Dylan tapes as a "public service." Once again the Radical Right missed the boat as Dylan was never an overt Leftist or even an ideologue. Liberating Bob Dylan Bob Dylan's conversion to rock and roll seemed to substantiate all of the fears of both the Left and the Right. Most notably through the successes of such singles as "Like a Rolling Stone" and "Rainy Day Women," Dylan began to reach the mass of young rock fans who heretofore had only the Beatles and Rolling Stones to claim as major objects of adulation. Dylan quickly assumed a position of importance in the growing youth culture of the mid-60s. He was playing the electric music that young people wanted to hear; he had a reputation for being critical of "the establishment"; and the songs of his Highway 61 Revisited and Blonde On Blonde period, while not carrying overtly political messages, reflected the general sense of alienation that was growing in young people throughout America. Thus, Dylan quickly was elevated to a status equal to that enjoyed by The Beatles and The Stones among members of this group of young people. In fact, he may even have superceded these two bands in significance, as his appeal was not only musical, but intellectual because of the stress placed on the lyrical side of his songs. As a result, Dylan became the spiritual, if not actual, leader of yet another group of people. This man who has repeatedly denied that he is anything more than a musician and entertainer now had not only the Left and Right interpreting his every move and note played, but he had this vast and unorganized mass of young people in the middle looking to him as the symbol of America's counter culture. He could no longer function as a mere entertainer without the critical analysis of every young person who looked upon him as the American prophet of the 60s. Dylan, however, did not spend much time in the eye of his newly-found public. The summer of 1966 brought with it Dylan's near-fatal motorcycle accident. Rumors of death, dismemberment, and brain damage immediately spread across the country. Rumors continued to wax and wane throughout the year that Dylan spent in convalescence in upstate New York. The injured prophet did little to stop the rumors and speculation about the effects of the accident on his career. He remained quiet, maintaining little or no contact with his public. While he was recuperating, Dylan underwent a drastic change in his orientation to his music. It was a change that was taking him far away from thecourse popularmusic was taking as it moved into the summer of 1967. While Sergeant Pepper and San Francisco psychedelicism were sweeping this country's young people and musicians into an era of musical complexity and experimentation, Bob Dylan was jamming with The Band,

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HEY, HEY WOODIE GUTHRIE, I WROTE YOU A SONG creating music that was raw and stark in its simplicity. By the October of 1967, Dylan was ready to record again. He went to Nashville, and recorded John Wesley Harding, an album so subdued in its country flavor that it made even Dylan's work that summer seem like raucous rock and roll. The Band, at least, knew how to rock, but the session man used in Nashville played with such restraint as to make their presence on the album almost unnoticeable. When the album was released in January, 1968, many Dylan fans were shocked by the musical style. The lyrics were unmistakably Dylan, but what did this have to do with the music he was making on Blonde On Blonde? This shock was nothing, however, compared to reaction voiced the following year when Dylan released Nashville Skyline. This album appeared in the spring of 1969, and many of those who had begun to look on Dylan as a leader and symbol a few years earlier were nothing less than scandalized. Like its predecessor, Skyline was recorded in Nashville and featured a distinctly country sound. Unlike John Wesley Harding, though, it not only featured Dylan singing duets with the likes of Johnny Cash, but its lyrics touched upon little except the usual country themes of love and simplicity. For those dedicated to opposing the entire way of life idealized in country music, Nashville Skyline was worse than disappointing; it was betrayal. Dylan, either of his own volition or due to his failure to stand up to corporate pressures, was seen as selling out the movement he had been chosen to lead.19 Dylan, of course, was only following his own artistic impulses. Many in the counter culture, however, saw Dylan only in his role as symbolic leader of a generation. This made him public property; and as public property he had no right to release as little as one album every year or so, and have this precious album go against the things he was supposed to symbolize in both the artistic and ideological senses. While some merely criticized, others who would save Dylan from himself acted. Thus, several Dylan enthusiasts took a step that was calculated (at least in their official statements on the matter) to bring some of Dylan's best music to the people, regardless of what Dylan and Columbia Records wanted to release. In doing so, they introduced the "bootleg" record to the rock music industry. The practice of bootlegging is an old, and almost venerable institution. In general practice, bootleggers take records or tapes of what they consider to be significant performances that are no longer, or never have been available through commercial recording companies. Using these sources, they transfer performances to a master tape; which is, in turn, taken to a commercial pressing plant, where the performances are put on record. These records are then distributed to anyone interested in having a copy of the performance. Bootlegging has been common among fans of jazz, blues, and classical music. Through the practice, historical performances that would never have been available may be obtained and preserved. (A good example of this is the bootlegging Maria Callas' performance of Verdi's Macbeth-a performance that has never been available commercially). In blues, jazz, and the classics, the practice has largely been condoned by record companies because it can be seen as a preservation of history, and the bootleggers have rarely tried to compete with the companies by issuing recordings of commercially available performances. 20 Bootlegging was introduced to rock and roll in the fall of 1969. At this time, a plainly packaged album that became known as the Great White Wonder appeared on the shelves of record stores on the West Coast. Although it has been traced to a tape librarian at Columbia Records the exact producer of the original Great White Wonder remains unknown. Whatever the album's origin, however, it quickly became a fastselling item.21 What made it important was the fact that it was Dylan. The double-album set consisted of some tracks recorded in 1961 in a hotel room in Minneapolis, most of the songs recorded by Dylan and The Band in the summer of 1967 (the legendary "basement

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POPULAR MUSIC IN SOCIETY tapes" which included such notable selections as "This Wheel's On Fire," "I Shall Be Released," and "Tears Of Rage"), and one song recorded from Dylan's appearance on Johnny Cash's television show. The recording quality was poor, and the performances were unpolished, but the set captured Dylan before he has eaten "country pie." In the face of Nashville Skyline, this album was extremely important to those who saw Dylan's music as something sacred to a generation. In addition, by 1969, anything recorded by The Beatles, The Stones, or Dylan was considered important due to the growing infrequency of their releases.22 By December of 1969, the album was available in major cities across the country. On the West Coast, its price ranged from seven to twelve dollars. Its cost rose as it became available in the east, reaching a price of $20 a copy at one store in New York City. Despite the high price, it was estimated that between 60,000 and 100,000 copies had been sold.23 In addition, two more Dylan bootlegs had become available. Troubled Troubadour was a single-record set that contained some material from the first bootleg, plus a few new songs. Stealin', another single-disc set, was a collection of alternate takes from Dylan's Bringing It All Back Home and Highway 61 Revisited sessions. The recording quality of this latter record was so good compared to the other two that Columbia believed the tapes had been stolen from its own vaults.^* As sales the figures indicate, the bootlegs were warmly-received by the public. Music fans were merely glad to obtain new music by Dylan.Thosewho saw Dylan as a cultural symbol welcomed the bootlegs because they were seen as a public reclamation of Dylan's music, and an attack on the corporate system of which he and Columbia Records were a part. It was considered a political act; and once again Dylan was pulled into the middle of an ideological confrontation. The bootleggers' primary line of justification drew on both political and artistic elements. As one told the Los Angeles Free Press: Some of the songs are better than the shit Columbia has released. They just keep sitting on them, so you might say in a sense, we're just liberating the records and bringing them to all the people; not just the cnosen few.^ Grail Marcus, who gave some modicum of legitimacy to the bootlegs by reviewing them in the Rolling Stone, did not give the records unrestrained approval. However, he did note: In a way, the bootleg phenomena may well force artists to respond to what the public wants-or lose a lot of bread. One obvious way to squelch the Great White Wonder album, without arousing any bad feelings, would have been to issue the basement tape. ...the bootleggers might well force more albums out of The Stones and Dylan, in particular.26 ' It must be noted, however, that for all of the claims of benevolence made by the bootleggers, they were making money. Since they paid no royalties or recording costs, they had few expenses other than the cost of delivering the records and the costs of manufacturing them, which was probably little more than $.35 an alburn.^ The response to bootlegging by the recording company and the artist was immediate and unfriendly, however, Columbia's initial reaction to the first bootleg was: We consider the release of this record an abuse of the integrity of a great artist. By releasing material without the knowledge or approval of Bob Dylan or Columbia Records, the sellers of this record are crassly depriving a great artist of the opportunity to perfect his performances to the point where he believes in their integrity and validity. They are at one time defaming the artist and defrauding his admirers. For these reasons, Columbia Records, in cooperation with Bob Dylan's attorneys, intends to take all legal steps to stop the sale and distribution of this album.28 The label then sent a group of private investigators out to find the producers of the

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HEY, HEY WOODIE GUTHRIE, I WROTE YOU A SONG album. The original producers had fled to Canada with the proceeds from 8,000 albums, but two record store owners, Norton Beckman and Ben Goldman, had begun making their own pirated recording of the bootleg. The detectives ultimately located Beckman and Goldman, and Columbia filed in federal court for a restraining order and asked for injury to plaintiff Dylan."2" Beckman and Goldman ceased production of the record. Record stores that carried it began to remove Great White Wonder from their shelves, either in response to the court ruling or as a result of pressure from Columbia's field representatives. Dylan's exact role in the suppression of Great White Wonder and the other bootlegs is somewhat ambiguous. At first glance, it would appear that the action was primarily carried out in the interests of his record company. However, spokesmen for the label said that the bootlegging did not hurt the company. Since the albums did not duplicate any albums released by Columbia, the company did not stand to lose money. These spokesmen maintained that the appearance of these albums merely injured the artist who lost royalites for his performances and songwriting, and the right to determine what he wanted to release to the public.3" Thus, it would appear that the fight against the albums was carried out on Dylan's behalf. This view is supported by Columbia's statement that it was working with Bob Dylan's attorneys, and the assertion in the restraining order that the bootlegs were causing injury to Dylan. Dylan's tacit approval of the campaign against his bootleg albums could be viewed as further evidence that he was betraying the generation that had come to look on him as a leader. Here was an example of the people demanding his music. In effect, they were saying that they wanted to hear anything he had to offer, no matter what the quality. Yet, he both refused to make the material available legitimately and sanctioned the efforts to keep it from reaching the people through other means. This only fanned the flames of anger against the performer. Was he so greedy that he wanted to stop the loss of performing and composing royalties? Did he feel that he was above being responsive to the desires of his public? Dylan's reasons for not releasing the basement tapes in the 60s, and for at least allowing his attorneys to seek the restraining order against Great White Wonder may never be entirely known-especially in light of the fact that he allowed the release of the tapes officially in the summer of 1975. It seems, however, that the real key to his behavior in this situation can be traced to his insistance that he is a musical artist rather than a public servant. As noted by Greil Marcus in his review of Great White Wonder, "Like any artist, Dylan chooses what to reveal and what to keep for his own. That such choice has, in this case, been taken out of his hands is something about which most must feel ambivalent." 31 This view was further substantiated by Columbia's insistance that the record "defamed" Dylan because he simply did not want that material released. His reasons for not wanting the tapes released can be understood. As he told Rolling Stone, the songs on the basement tapes were recorded merely to be circulated to other artists as part of his publishing company's portfolio. "They weren't demos for myself. They were demos of the songs. I was being pushed again...into coming up with some songs." He maintains additionally that they were merely "a kick to do," not performances meant for public consumption.32 That these were Dylan's primary thoughts in dealing with the bootlegs is the view maintained by biographer Anthony Scaduto. In his book, Scaduto states, "Dylan conceives an album the way a writer conceives a book of poetry, or a novel." Because of this lack of artistic control, Dylan, then, was understandably upset by the bootlegs. As proof of this, Scaduto recalls an incident that occured while he was finishing his book: During one of his visits to my apartment I was playing one of the bootlegs...When

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POPULAR MUSIC IN SOCIETY he walked in the door and heard the album, he said: "Oh, the basement tapes. You should hear the originals. They're fantastic. The crap they're putting out doesn't even sound like me. And they're sure not in the order I'd put them on an album.33 It hardly seems surprising that an artist would object to a product bearing his or her name without having had any amount of control over its complete synthesis. This, of course, has always been Dylan's major problem in relating to the labelmakers and demagogues. As any artist, he was absorbed into the important events and feelings in his environment, and brought them together in potent form in his art. Whether he has done this in a calculated effort to gain popularity, or simply in a natural step in the perfection of his art may be debated. What cannot be debated, however, is Dylan's reluctance to do anything not in the interests of his music and-or career. While those who viewed him as the leader of a generation of young Americans decried his musical progression, and the bootleggers boasted their benevolence, calling themselves modern day Robin Hoods, Dylan merely concerned himself with his music. As a result of this overriding preoccupation, he was drawn into yet another ideological skirmish. As before, the battle raged and died while Dylan moved calmly into a new decade. Conclusion During the turbulant 1960s Bob Dylan began as a prophet who quickly was transformed into a false one. He was never the pamphleteer or the revolutionary that the Left and indeed Right demanded. He was condemned by both, but for different reasons. What political radicals failed to realize was that Dylan was just Bob Dylan not the Savior or Devil of the 1960s. FOOTNOTES 1. Craig McGregor, ed., Bob Dylan: A Retrospective. New York: William Morrow and Co., 1972, page 13. 2. See Sy Ribakove and Barbara Ribakove, Folkrock: The Bob Dylan Story New York: Dell Publishers, 1966' Anthony Scaduto, Bob Dylan: An Intimate Biography, New York: Grossett and Dunlap, 1972; and Toby Thompson, Positively Main Street: An Unorthodox View of Bob Dylan, New york: Coward-McCann, 1971. 3. Dave Van Ronk and Richard Ellington, eds., The Bosses' Songbook, 2nd edition, New York: Richard Ellington, 1959. 4. Scaduto op. cit., page 112.

5. For a discussion see R. Serge Denisoff, Great Day Coming: Folk Music and the American Left Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1971 and Richard A. Reuss, American Folklore and Left-Wing Politics 1927-1957. (Unpublished Ph.D. thesis) Bloomington: Indiana University, 1971. 6. Stacey Williams liner notes to Bob Dylan Columbia CS 8579. 7. Gil Turner, "Bob Dylan-A New Voice Singing New Songs," Sing Out! 12 (1961, pages 5-7. 8. Nat Hentoff, "The Crackin', Shakin', Breakin' Sounds," in McGregor, op. cit page 163.

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HEY, HEY WOODIE GUTHRIE, I WROTE YOU A SONG 9. Despite Dylan's artistic impact his early albums upon immediate release rarely sold more than 200,000 copies. This was a far cry from his sales in the pop market. 10. Irwin Silber,"An Open Letter to Bob Dylan," Sing Out! 14 (1964), page 23. 11. Paul Wolfe, "The 'New' Dylan,'' Broadside 53 (1964), page 2. 12. See Phil Ochs "An Open Letter From Phil Ochs To Irwin Silber, Paul Wolfe and Joseph E. Levine" Broadside 54 (1964), n.p.n. 13. Ribakove, op. cit., page 60. 14. For a discussion of the Right's relationship to popular music see R. Serge Denisoff, Solid Gold: The Popular Record Industry. New Brunswick: Transaction Books, 1975. 15. Jere Real "Folk Music and Red Tubthumpers," American Opinion 7 (1964), pp. 2324. 16. See David A. Noebel, Rhythm, Riots and Revolution. Tulsa: Christian Crusade Publications, 1966. 17. David A. Noebel, "Columbia Records: Home of the Marxist Minstrels," Christian Crusade March 1967, p. 20. 18. Gary Allen, "That Music: There's More To It Than Meets The Ear," American Opinionl2(1969), pp. 49-62. 19. Scaduto, op. cit., pp. 298-99. 20. Harvey Phillips, "Pssst! I Have a Bootlegged 'Norma' For Only...," New York Times (September 12, 1971), pp. 14-1 to 14-10. 21. Ed Ward, "The Bootleg Blues," Harpers, January, 1974, pp. 35-8. 22. John Morthland, Jerry Hopkins, "Bootleg: The Rock and Roll Liberation Front?" Rolling Stone 51 (February 7, 1970), p. 1. 23. John Carpenter, "Bootleggers Hustle New Dylan Album," The Los Angeles Free Press (December 19, 1969), p. 52. 24. Morthland and Hopkins, op. cit., p. 1. 25. Carpenter, op. cit., p. 52. 26. Greil Marcus, "The Bootleg LP's" in "Records," Rolling Stone 51 (February 7, 1970), p. 36. 27. Morthland and Hopkins, op. cit., p. 7. 28. Jerry Hopkins, "New' Dylan Album Bootlegged In LA," Rolling Stone 42 (September 20, 1969), p. 6.

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POPULAR MUSIC IN SOCIETY 29. Morthland and Hopkins, op. cit., p. 6. 30. Ibid., p. 7. 31. Greil Marcus, "Records," Rolling Stone 47 (November 29, 1969), p. 37. 32. Jann Wenner, "The Rolling Stone Interview: Bob Dylan," Rolling Stone 47 (November 29, 1969), p.29. 33. Scaduto, op. cit., p. 324.

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