Speaker 1: Blood on the Tracks is the production of I Heart
Speaker 1: Radio and Double Elvis. Bob Dylan was a musical genius
Speaker 1: and one of the greatest songwriters of all time. He
Speaker 1: didn't follow leaders. He chased that thin, wild mercury sound.
Speaker 1: He never looked back. Even as the times changed, and
Speaker 1: as the times changed, Bob Dylan changed. He tried on
Speaker 1: and discarded identities like they were mass. He transformed. He
Speaker 1: transfigured in somewhere along the way, the Bob Dylan that
Speaker 1: you thought you knew died. This is his story. Day four, Yes,
Speaker 1: it's day four, Monday, August first, nineteen. This is Dr
Speaker 1: Ed Sailor. Once again, I'm reviewing the progress of the patient.
Speaker 1: Robert Zimmerman, a k a. Bob Dylan. H. Bob is
Speaker 1: still on a fair amount of distress. Fever, dreams and
Speaker 1: moments of severe anxiety are not uncommon after the type
Speaker 1: of distress he experienced. He has mentioned ghosts or apparitions
Speaker 1: a few times in the last twenty four hours as well.
Speaker 1: His physical injuries seemed to be healing just fine. There
Speaker 1: are no problems to really speak of, but he has
Speaker 1: taken to wearing a neck brace. Although it's my professional
Speaker 1: opinion that that is more for mental comfort than it
Speaker 1: is for physical support. He also, in more feverish moments,
Speaker 1: has been talking about running away. I ran away from
Speaker 1: home when I was very young. I told you that,
Speaker 1: Yet the police picked me up. So I did it
Speaker 1: again and again and again. I wanted to be a
Speaker 1: circus hand, a carnival boy, a road bump. But I
Speaker 1: couldn't get out. I couldn't slip the net. Eventually I did, though.
Speaker 1: I guess that's where this need for reinvention came from,
Speaker 1: a desire to get out and make yourself, to become
Speaker 1: someone no one ever thought you could be that you
Speaker 1: never thought you could be. When you break free from
Speaker 1: life and go out and live, you really see what
Speaker 1: it's all about. That's what I did in seventy five.
Speaker 1: I got out and saw the world. Sure, I've been
Speaker 1: to see it many times before, but this time I
Speaker 1: really saw it. I really experienced it, and I was
Speaker 1: the one who left so much blood on the tracks.
Speaker 1: Chapter four, Bob Dylan is rolling thunder. Ye. I'm still
Speaker 1: haunted by these people. There are people I've never even met,
Speaker 1: but they haunt me. I guess I lost myself. And
Speaker 1: what happened when writing that song. Sometimes songs can take
Speaker 1: you over like that. I still see that man slumped
Speaker 1: over a bar, his back all ripped up. You can
Speaker 1: see flesh and bone and blood. This idea of transfiguration
Speaker 1: that I'm always talking about, it's real, you know that, right.
Speaker 1: The Rolling Thunder review was all about that. People ask
Speaker 1: me why I wore masks and white makeup on that tour. Well,
Speaker 1: when a man wears a mask, he's gonna tell you
Speaker 1: the truth. I was living my truth, break free from life.
Speaker 1: I grew up in northern Minnesota. The carnival came and
Speaker 1: went when I was young. I was always captivated by it.
Speaker 1: We all were. I wanted that for this tour, a
Speaker 1: traveling show, a carnival. I wanted to do something I've
Speaker 1: never done before. I wanted to invent for reinvention. The
Speaker 1: tour I had staged the previous year had been huge.
Speaker 1: It was all private jets, arenas and outdoor shows. I
Speaker 1: got out and saw the world. The mid seventies was
Speaker 1: like that. People realized music could be a global industry.
Speaker 1: I just released an album called Blood on the Tracks,
Speaker 1: and I was on a real high in my career.
Speaker 1: But with this tour, I wanted the opposite. I wanted
Speaker 1: to get back down to Earth. So that's what we
Speaker 1: did when we were on the road. I even drove
Speaker 1: the bus most of the time. I had this old
Speaker 1: motor home i'd go around in. It was the antithesis
Speaker 1: of a private jet. It wasn't just me, though, everyone
Speaker 1: was like that. On Rolling Thunder. Roger mcgwinn from The
Speaker 1: Birds went around in this thing called the Green Machine Man.
Speaker 1: I don't even know how that thing started up, let
Speaker 1: alone how it lasted. The whole run, the whole thing
Speaker 1: really felt like I was at the start of my
Speaker 1: career all over again, like I was a new man, reborn.
Speaker 1: I was the happiest I think I've ever been. We
Speaker 1: played all over the country, and our friends came with
Speaker 1: us too. Joni Mitchell shown by is Rambling, Jack Elliott,
Speaker 1: t Bone, Burnett Hell. Even a young Sharon Stone was there,
Speaker 1: at least I like to pretend she was. There was
Speaker 1: one person who summed up the whole thing. Her name
Speaker 1: was Scarlett Rivera. I met her thanks to our old
Speaker 1: friend Destiny. Before the tour, I was being driven around
Speaker 1: Greenwich Village one day with no particular place to go,
Speaker 1: and we passed a woman and I don't know. She
Speaker 1: had a strangeness about her. I wanted to be a
Speaker 1: circuit hint. She had long, flowing red hair, and she
Speaker 1: was dressed like she had been beamed in from another time.
Speaker 1: But I couldn't get out. You know. She was stick thin,
Speaker 1: but she had a weight to her soul. I immediately
Speaker 1: asked the driver to stop the car and jumped out.
Speaker 1: I asked her if she could play the violin she
Speaker 1: was holding, and she said she could, so I asked
Speaker 1: her if I could hear it. The next thing, We're
Speaker 1: in my apartment and she's playing man. She played her
Speaker 1: violin sounded like an old traveler was playing it. It
Speaker 1: was mystical. Go out and live. You really see what
Speaker 1: it's all about. I had been writing a new album,
Speaker 1: but it needed something, something I didn't have. I thought
Speaker 1: that this, the sound of this mystical violin, might be
Speaker 1: what is missing. But I needed to be sure, so
Speaker 1: I tested her. I was due to go to a
Speaker 1: Muddy Waters show at a bar in the village, so
Speaker 1: I asked her if she would tag along. Of course,
Speaker 1: she said, without missing a beat, so we went. I
Speaker 1: took to the stage with Muddy that night. There was
Speaker 1: always a pleasure to play with him. During the show,
Speaker 1: I couldn't stop looking at Scarlett sitting at the bar.
Speaker 1: She was like nothing I'd ever seen before. She didn't
Speaker 1: just look like a normal person, she didn't act like
Speaker 1: one either. She was kind of scary, but fiercely interesting,
Speaker 1: break free from life. After a few songs, I jumped
Speaker 1: onto the microphone and announced to the crowd, I'm going
Speaker 1: to bring my violin player up now. Scarlet's eyes wide
Speaker 1: until they were the size of oranges. Ladies and gentlemen,
Speaker 1: Scarlett Rivera, I said, I didn't know how she'd act
Speaker 1: a desire to get out and make yourself. The bar
Speaker 1: fell silent slowly, everyone started to look where I was looking.
Speaker 1: It was now or never. She jumped up from her stool.
Speaker 1: I thought she might make a break for the exit,
Speaker 1: but her eyes narrowed and she walked directly towards the stage.
Speaker 1: She casually opened her violin case and said, shall we reinvention?
Speaker 1: We kicked into the song with Muddy taking lead. Everybody
Speaker 1: in the band got a solo, and so after a while,
Speaker 1: Muddy nodded to Scarlett to take the spotlight. This is it,
Speaker 1: I thought, let's see what she can do. Scarlett stepped
Speaker 1: into the middle of the stage and burned the damn
Speaker 1: place down. Her violin wasn't even miked up properly, but
Speaker 1: it sounded like a fire tearing through the joint. The
Speaker 1: crowd went crazy. Scarlett had shared the stage with the
Speaker 1: blues legend and held her own. She had passed the test,
Speaker 1: and thank god too. Scarlett ended up playing on that
Speaker 1: album I was making, which turned into a record called Desire.
Speaker 1: I co wrote that album with a friend of mine,
Speaker 1: Jacques Levy. It featured great musicians like Emmy Lou Harris.
Speaker 1: Even Eric Clapton was supposed to be on it, but Scarlett.
Speaker 1: Scarlett made that album. During the recording, I'd already been
Speaker 1: playing the Rolling Thunder toour, and it became obvious that
Speaker 1: Scarlett sound her style, her soul. They were everything the
Speaker 1: tour should be. She embodied its madness. Yet on the
Speaker 1: road there were rumors she kept a snake in a
Speaker 1: box in her dressing room. In fact, a few snakes.
Speaker 1: I don't know about that, but I do know she
Speaker 1: had a whole collection of swords that she carried around.
Speaker 1: They went everywhere with her. Also, I remember one day.
Speaker 1: She was on the bus. We were driving somewhere and
Speaker 1: she was chanting a Santa Rea type verse over and over.
Speaker 1: No one knew what the hell she was saying or
Speaker 1: where it had come from. T Bone Burnett looked unnerved
Speaker 1: by the whole thing, terrified even. He turned to me
Speaker 1: and said, this is the bus to Hell. I couldn't
Speaker 1: stop laughing at him. That's what I did. It turned
Speaker 1: into the best tour we've ever done. I laughed and
Speaker 1: smiled for that whole tour. Thirty five shows that fall
Speaker 1: and another leg in the spring. But you know, like everything,
Speaker 1: that stuff never lasts. And what was up next? Divorce
Speaker 1: and murder? There as a woman now she floats along.
Speaker 1: She's wearing a uniform, a waitress uniform. It's covered in blood.
Speaker 1: It's soaked right through, it's everywhere. I try to tell her,
Speaker 1: but she can't hear me. The rolling thunder of You
Speaker 1: was so long ago. I wasn't even born yet. There
Speaker 1: was so much drinking on that tour, A lot of
Speaker 1: coke too. I remember one day rambling. Jack Elliott said
Speaker 1: it was suspicious if you weren't on drugs. While on
Speaker 1: that tour. He refused to carry anything in case he
Speaker 1: got busted, so he'd have someone else carry it for him,
Speaker 1: and he'd just before walking out on stage. One night,
Speaker 1: Bruce Springsteen showed up, except he wasn't the Bruce we
Speaker 1: all know today. Who's this guy at Springfield? I asked
Speaker 1: my bass player Rob Stoner, Sorry, Bruce. My wife Sarah
Speaker 1: had come on that tour too. She had come because
Speaker 1: she was playing a role in the home we were
Speaker 1: making on the road, my attempt at a European art
Speaker 1: house Flip called Ronaldo and Clara. I wanted it to
Speaker 1: be like Trufos, Shoot the Piano Player or Marcel Kanne's
Speaker 1: Children of Paradise. Sam Shepard came to help too. He
Speaker 1: met Joni Mitchell on that tour. That's when she wrote
Speaker 1: that song Coyote. That song stopped us all dead in
Speaker 1: our tracks. Did you know she wrote that one about
Speaker 1: Sam to become someone no one ever thought you could be.
Speaker 1: Joan Bayez was also with us, and in my film too.
Speaker 1: I'd love Joanie. For years we had been called the
Speaker 1: King and Queen of folk, and I guess that was true.
Speaker 1: We've been involved too romantically, you know, back in the
Speaker 1: early days, but it hadn't ended well. Yet one day
Speaker 1: we went to a bar called Gypsy's Place. We were
Speaker 1: all drinking hot toddies, and Joanie disappeared upstairs into an
Speaker 1: apartment or this old traveler women lived. This woman showed
Speaker 1: Janie a pillow that was stuffed with the ashes of
Speaker 1: her dead husband. She said, the pillow was the best
Speaker 1: night's sleep you ever had. She put on one of
Speaker 1: the woman's old dresses and danced back into the bar.
Speaker 1: We had a couple more and then she dragged me
Speaker 1: outside and stood me under a huge oak tree. I
Speaker 1: could tell something is wrong, something important. She looked me
Speaker 1: right in the eyes and said, I've been wanting to
Speaker 1: ask you this for a decade. Okay, before I finished
Speaker 1: that part of the story, I have to fill you
Speaker 1: in on the history between me and Janie. I remember
Speaker 1: seeing her for the first time. She was something else.
Speaker 1: I didn't want to blink. I was worried that if
Speaker 1: I blinked, she wouldn't be there when I opened my eyes.
Speaker 1: She just didn't feel real. Eventually I did. Though. She
Speaker 1: had an unusual way of playing guitar. I could never
Speaker 1: master that. And her voice, my god, what a voice,
Speaker 1: that soprano. It was heart stopping. She did a lot
Speaker 1: for me in those early days. She brought me on
Speaker 1: tour with her. I ran away from home when I
Speaker 1: was very young. Johnny was a big deal then she
Speaker 1: still is, but she was already the queen then, you know.
Speaker 1: She brought me on stage with her, calling me her
Speaker 1: little vagabond. She was even there for me at the
Speaker 1: Newport Folk Festival. That was the summer of sixty three,
Speaker 1: just a few months before the whole world would grow
Speaker 1: a little darker from a most foul murder, and two
Speaker 1: years before Newport grew darker with all that judas nonsense.
Speaker 1: We started to spend time together, and by the summer
Speaker 1: of sixty four we were close. But the truth is
Speaker 1: I wasn't always truthful with Joni, this need for reinvention.
Speaker 1: We'd spent a lot of that summer at Albert Grossman's
Speaker 1: house in Woodstock. Joan was taking a break between tours,
Speaker 1: and I was either writing or riding around on my
Speaker 1: three fifty Triumph, not the bike that get us into
Speaker 1: this mess, but another one. I have sweet moments from
Speaker 1: that time. We talked about our futures, our futures together.
Speaker 1: We talked about maybe having kids one day, and we
Speaker 1: even named one. I think I even proposed again and
Speaker 1: again and again. I was kind of half joking, but
Speaker 1: Joan was the sort of woman you could easily spend
Speaker 1: the rest of your life with. We spent a lot
Speaker 1: of time in a crummy hotel over in Washington Square two.
Speaker 1: It was twelve dollars a night. I wanted to be
Speaker 1: a circuit Hint had no room service and a regular
Speaker 1: clientele of junkies, pushers, alcoholics, and other dubious New York
Speaker 1: riff raff. It was like home to us, though. Joan
Speaker 1: bought me a big black suit jacket with a white
Speaker 1: shirt and crowning glory a pair of cuff links made
Speaker 1: out of lumpy, opaque violet rocks. She wrote about that
Speaker 1: in her song Diamonds and Rust. She wrote about it
Speaker 1: almost word for word, no filter. I love that song
Speaker 1: to be included in something that Joni had written. I mean,
Speaker 1: to this day it still impresses me that you never
Speaker 1: thought you could be. We did a tour together and
Speaker 1: who played the packed houses with grave reviews. But by
Speaker 1: the time we got to England and sixty five things
Speaker 1: weren't so great. I had begun seeing someone else at
Speaker 1: the same time Sarah, the woman who had become my wife.
Speaker 1: I never wanted to hurt Jonie, so I kept the
Speaker 1: two apart, couldn't slip the net. Sure that was the
Speaker 1: wrong decision, but at the time I felt like I
Speaker 1: was protecting the people I loved. I don't know. I
Speaker 1: don't expect you to understand. It all came to a
Speaker 1: head at the Royal Albert Hall, the Grandest Venues for
Speaker 1: my betrayal. We were playing a show there at the
Speaker 1: end of that England tour. I got out and saw
Speaker 1: the world. Me and Sarah were in this little dressing
Speaker 1: room before the show, and all of a sudden, there's
Speaker 1: a loud rap at the door. Sarah, still jet lags,
Speaker 1: slowly got up and opened the door with a tire yawn.
Speaker 1: Who's standing on the other side, Joanie clutching a huge
Speaker 1: present must have been for my birthday. I felt the
Speaker 1: color drained from my face. I mean I actually felt it,
Speaker 1: but I couldn't get out. Joanie had never seen Sarah before,
Speaker 1: not knowing of her existence until this moment. Sarah, not
Speaker 1: recognizing her, took the gift and politely said thanks. Joan
Speaker 1: couldn't even bear to look at me as the door closed.
Speaker 1: It's all over now, Baby Blue, was the final song
Speaker 1: that night. I could barely get the words out. Back
Speaker 1: to the story I was telling you under that old
Speaker 1: oak tree with Joanie. I've been wanting to ask you
Speaker 1: this for years, she said, and I felt the blood
Speaker 1: drained from my face again, but this time, as I said,
Speaker 1: it was a decade later, a breeze passed over us
Speaker 1: and animated that traveler woman's dress. Why did you never
Speaker 1: tell me about Sarah, she asked. I struggled to answer,
Speaker 1: couldn't slip the net. She looked me dead in the eyes.
Speaker 1: There was pain in there, deep pain. I didn't answer.
Speaker 1: We just stood in silence, painful silence. It's because I'm
Speaker 1: too political and you lied too much, she said, before
Speaker 1: smiling one of the saddest smiles I've ever seen. I
Speaker 1: really saw it, I really experienced it. She walked off
Speaker 1: back to the bar, leaving me under that old oak tree.
Speaker 1: No one had ever said a truer word in my life.
Speaker 1: My marriage was falling apart at this point too, and
Speaker 1: one night Sarah took to the stage and sang the
Speaker 1: song I'd written for her, Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands.
Speaker 1: She dedicated it to Joan. By the time it came
Speaker 1: to book the second leg of the tour, I invited
Speaker 1: Joanie to play the entire run, but she declined my invitation.
Speaker 1: I didn't try to convince her otherwise. We'll be right
Speaker 1: back after this word, word word. There's another man now.
Speaker 1: He's walking towards me. His right hand is covering his eye.
Speaker 1: His palm is pressed right over it. Slowly he takes
Speaker 1: it away and there's there's nothing there. It's just an
Speaker 1: empty socket. You know. I've always loved boxing right the
Speaker 1: beast from Hibbing Sugar, Ray Zimmerm. That's what I would
Speaker 1: call myself in the ring. I've even got a gym
Speaker 1: in Santa Monica. Not many people know that. There's pictures
Speaker 1: of Muddy Waters and those British bad boys, the rolling
Speaker 1: stones on the wall. Boxing has always been a passion
Speaker 1: of mine. You give me a boxer's name, and I
Speaker 1: can give you his record, just like that. Boom oh.
Speaker 1: Mancini thirty four fights, nine wins, twenty three knockouts, five losses.
Speaker 1: Manny Pacquiao two fights, wins, knockouts, thirty nine eight losses.
Speaker 1: I met him once he was a great fighter. But
Speaker 1: there's one boxer I'll always forever be linked with, Ruben
Speaker 1: Carter desired. I became involved in Reuben's story ten years
Speaker 1: after he was convicted of murder. Someone had given me
Speaker 1: his autobiography and I was hooked on his story, hooked
Speaker 1: on the injustice of it all. You really see what
Speaker 1: it's all about about. I wrote the song Hurricane about
Speaker 1: him and what happened. So what happened is a tale
Speaker 1: that is a lot like a boxing match. I guess
Speaker 1: he was knocked down time and time again, but like
Speaker 1: all fighters, he got back up. I admired that if
Speaker 1: you don't know the story, then allow me to be
Speaker 1: your narrator for the evening. Are you sitting comfortably well? Good,
Speaker 1: give me a bell. Round one. It's Muggie and Patterson,
Speaker 1: New Jersey. Despite being two thirty in the morning, it's
Speaker 1: July n s there's these two men. They enter a
Speaker 1: place called the Lafayette Bar and grill. It's unusual because
Speaker 1: they're black. Black folks stayed away from that bar. Hell,
Speaker 1: most people stayed away from that bar. It was a dump,
Speaker 1: but it wasn't friendly to people of color, so much
Speaker 1: so that the bartender Jim Oliver slings a bottle at
Speaker 1: the two men as they enter, just because they're black.
Speaker 1: It would be the last thing he did on this earth.
Speaker 1: A shotgun pellet severs his spinal cord moments later. Within seconds,
Speaker 1: the two men are spraying bullets into the Lafayette. Some
Speaker 1: bullets are coming from a shotgun, others from a pistol.
Speaker 1: A woman called Hazel Tennis, who stopped into the bar
Speaker 1: after her waitressing shift, jumps off for a stool and
Speaker 1: tries to run, but the bullets catch her, knock her
Speaker 1: to the floor and she starts bleeding out right away,
Speaker 1: so much blood. Two other guys are having a conversation
Speaker 1: at the bar there. Next one dies instantly. He doesn't
Speaker 1: even have time to get off his stool. The other
Speaker 1: turns his head at both the right and wrong moment.
Speaker 1: A bullet passes through his eye and explodes out of
Speaker 1: his forehead. He's not dead, but he passes out. Blood
Speaker 1: stains the wall, the bar, the floor, and the ceiling
Speaker 1: of the bar. So much blood, part of an eyeball
Speaker 1: comes to rest on the pool table. Silence finally reigns
Speaker 1: down on the bloody scene. Round two, Patty Valentine this
Speaker 1: local woman who I'd go on to meet in person
Speaker 1: in the courtroom by the way. Because a sleep on
Speaker 1: her couch, her TV silent, the grainy picture dancing on
Speaker 1: the wall of her unlit room above the Lafayette, she
Speaker 1: as up to a loud noise gunshots possibly nothing unusual
Speaker 1: there times. She goes to her apartment window and sees
Speaker 1: these two men leaving the Lafayette, one holding a shotgun,
Speaker 1: the other a pistol. They drive off into the night.
Speaker 1: Valentine swiftly heads downstairs into the bar, and upon entry
Speaker 1: she sees Hazel Tannis, her white waitress uniforms turning red.
Speaker 1: This time I really saw it, blood soaked through the
Speaker 1: white cotton, and Valentine screaming least she never has before
Speaker 1: round three later, Ruben Carter, Middleweights wins nineteen knockouts, is
Speaker 1: lying down in the bed of his rented sixty six
Speaker 1: white Dodge Polara. It's been a long night. We've all
Speaker 1: been there, right. He'd been out at a night spot
Speaker 1: and now he was heading home. John Artists, a young
Speaker 1: athlete and Ruben sparring partner, is driving the vehicle. A
Speaker 1: red police light flicks across his eyeline and like a
Speaker 1: silent alarm. It makes him uncomfortable. The lack of an
Speaker 1: actual siren is unnerving even to a man like Ruben Carter,
Speaker 1: who has had more than a few brushes with the
Speaker 1: police due to his skin color. His car has stopped
Speaker 1: for the second time that night. On the first occasion,
Speaker 1: they were told by the police that they were looking
Speaker 1: for two men fitting their description. This time, the officer
Speaker 1: has decided it is them. I couldn't slip the net.
Speaker 1: Within thirty minutes, Reuben is in the hospital where that
Speaker 1: guy who was shot through the eye tells the cops
Speaker 1: he ain't the one. Remember that, the guy that had
Speaker 1: just been shot is telling the cops it ain't Ruben
Speaker 1: Carter and John artists. You really see what it's all about.
Speaker 1: Still they go back to the police station, of course
Speaker 1: they do, and after seventeen hours, both men are released.
Speaker 1: But round four, two men, Alfred Bellow and Arthur Dexter Bradley,
Speaker 1: had been near the Lafayette Bar that night. Bellow was
Speaker 1: on the lookout for Bradley. Bradley was a what do
Speaker 1: you call it, a career criminal. He was apparently trying
Speaker 1: to break into a nearby metal company below grew bored
Speaker 1: of watching Bradley and turns to walk towards the bar
Speaker 1: in search of cigarettes. After several loud noises, he sees
Speaker 1: two men come out of the Lafayette, one carrying a pistol,
Speaker 1: the other a shotgun. One he said was Ruben Carter,
Speaker 1: the other John Artists. They jumped into a white car
Speaker 1: and drove away. Pretty damning testimony, right, well maybe if
Speaker 1: it wasn't for the fact that this testimony came four
Speaker 1: months after the shooting, when the police offered a ten
Speaker 1: thousand dollar reward. Round five, the day after Bellow and
Speaker 1: Bradley came out with that report, John Artist is stopped
Speaker 1: while buying soda. A shotgun appears under his chin, and
Speaker 1: he and Ruben Carter are arrested for triple murder. Do
Speaker 1: you really see what it's all about? The trial is
Speaker 1: a laughing stock. They both go down the final round.
Speaker 1: Almost ten years later, there was a campaign for a retrial.
Speaker 1: I was more than happy to get involved. We played
Speaker 1: a gig at the prison where Reuben was being held.
Speaker 1: Do you know what struck me the most when I
Speaker 1: met him? It was only a small thing, but it
Speaker 1: chilled me to my bones. I couldn't stop thinking about
Speaker 1: his prison number. On his shirt, he had the number four,
Speaker 1: five four seven two in black type. I couldn't stop
Speaker 1: thinking how he had gone from the number one contender
Speaker 1: to number four or five four seven to for reinvention.
Speaker 1: We played another show for Reuben Madison Square Garden between
Speaker 1: rolling thunder legs. Any day now I shall be released,
Speaker 1: right wrong? It was all for nothing. In the retrial,
Speaker 1: they found him guilty again, but I couldn't get out
Speaker 1: of it. Wasn't until the nine teen eighties he finally
Speaker 1: got free. Man. They took all that from him. I mean,
Speaker 1: they literally stole his time. How do you recover from
Speaker 1: something like that? When you leave something like that and
Speaker 1: you come out of the other side, how can you
Speaker 1: reinvent yourself from such a broken place? Someone told me.
Speaker 1: In the mid nineties, he was arrested again when Toronto
Speaker 1: police thought he'd sold drugs to an undercover officer. How
Speaker 1: long have I been singing about this ship? How long
Speaker 1: will the world be like? This makes you wonder will
Speaker 1: it ever change? The Atlanta courtroom was hot. It was
Speaker 1: the middle of July nine. Bob Dylan slouched in the
Speaker 1: witness stand and watched a ceiling fans spin round and round.
Speaker 1: Mr Dilon, the prosecuting attorney, ingrad, Pivnic asked, or should
Speaker 1: that be Mr Zimmerman? She smiled. Dylan sat up, rubbed
Speaker 1: his nose, and finally looked at Pivnic properly for the
Speaker 1: first time. Sorry, what was the question? I was asking
Speaker 1: about your wealth? Pivnic responded, How much money have you
Speaker 1: made from the song Hurricane? The song from the The
Speaker 1: attorney sentence tailed off. She checked her notes, pausing for
Speaker 1: dramatic effect, her eyes scanning the page. In the courtroom
Speaker 1: silence from the gold selling album Desire, she finally said.
Speaker 1: Dylan took off his a v her sunglasses for the
Speaker 1: first time and asked, you mean my treasure on Earth?
Speaker 1: I suppose, the attorney said, but Dylan didn't continue. There
Speaker 1: was silence. Once again. Pivnic, with growing impatience, directed her
Speaker 1: next line at both Dylan and the courtroom at large.
Speaker 1: In a case like this, defamation, invasion of privacy, unauthorized
Speaker 1: publication of a name, it is only fair that my
Speaker 1: client receives what is owned. She motioned to her client,
Speaker 1: who sat behind a dark wooden table no more than
Speaker 1: a few feet away from her. Her client was Patricia
Speaker 1: and Valentine a k a. Patty Valentine, the witness to
Speaker 1: the aftermath of the shooting at the Lafayette that landed
Speaker 1: Reuben Carter in prison. Dylan's eyes drifted back to the ceiling.
Speaker 1: Fan Pivnic carried on, I would assume you've made quite
Speaker 1: a lot a big song like that, a song that's
Speaker 1: been on the radio, one that you've played live, and
Speaker 1: that was on a successful album. In the song, you
Speaker 1: clearly imply my client has something to do with this
Speaker 1: heinous crime, which I might add, was committed by a
Speaker 1: man according to a court of law, by a jury
Speaker 1: of your peers, that you yourself are defending. Dylan put
Speaker 1: his shades back on. Why are you defending a criminal?
Speaker 1: Pivnic asked, the question fell on deaf ears. She picked
Speaker 1: up a sheet of paper from the table in front
Speaker 1: of Patty Valentine. I was reading the lyrics to the
Speaker 1: song Hurricane, and there's a fool mentioned. Who exactly is
Speaker 1: the fool you speak of? Dylan sat upright in a flash,
Speaker 1: suddenly engaged. He drew in close to the courtroom spindly
Speaker 1: microphone and said, whoever Satan gave power to whoever was
Speaker 1: blind to the truth, it was living by his own truth.
Speaker 1: That's who the fool is. For the first time that day,
Speaker 1: Pivnic was at a loss for words. Five days later,
Speaker 1: the Washington Post published Bob Dylan's comments on Satan at
Speaker 1: the very same time that it was revealed that he
Speaker 1: had joined an evangelical Christian movement called the Vineyard Christian Fellowship.
Speaker 1: Dylan's private embrace of Christianity had gone public. What started
Speaker 1: that day in print would go on to give birth
Speaker 1: to the next Bob Dylan. But while Dylan was moving
Speaker 1: on and once again becoming someone knew like a slow
Speaker 1: train coming, the same could not be said for Patty Valentine,
Speaker 1: who was continuing her struggle to shake off the events
Speaker 1: of nineteen sixty six, and the first thing she did
Speaker 1: after her defamation trial against Dylan fell apart was to
Speaker 1: drop Valentine as her last name. She moved from New
Speaker 1: Jersey to Florida and sought out the quiet life. Years later,
Speaker 1: in she met some friends for an evening out. They
Speaker 1: were old friends she used to know from back in
Speaker 1: her time in New Jersey. As they walk to the
Speaker 1: Port St. Lucy Movie Theater, they passed a bar. Inside
Speaker 1: was loud and hot. Condensation frosted the part of the
Speaker 1: window not taken up by the red knee on bar sign.
Speaker 1: She stole a glimpse inside two guys shooting pool. She
Speaker 1: had been hiding her anxiety well, but now old memories
Speaker 1: began to bubble to the surface. She barely talked to
Speaker 1: her friends about the movie they were about to watch.
Speaker 1: Inside the pitch Black Theater, Patty and her friends sat
Speaker 1: waiting the moments later, the giant's screen was filled with
Speaker 1: the image of Denzel Washington, who within the year would
Speaker 1: win the Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance
Speaker 1: as boxer Ruben Carter. Denzel's eyes dazzled as he stared
Speaker 1: into the eyes of a young friend and asked, do
Speaker 1: you believe I killed those people? His friend replied, I
Speaker 1: know you didn't. And there was a moment of silence
Speaker 1: in the St. Lucy Theater, and then someone in the
Speaker 1: little row broke that silence with a steel, hard voice.
Speaker 1: I know you did. The voice was Patty's. Sitting next
Speaker 1: to her was James Lawless, a retired police officer who
Speaker 1: lived less than two blocks in the Lafayette bar. He
Speaker 1: was the man who spoke to Muhammad Ali when the
Speaker 1: Greatest of All Times showed up with a quarter million
Speaker 1: dollars in cash in a suitcase for Hurricane Carter's bail.
Speaker 1: Also in her group was Patty's lifelong friend, her roommate,
Speaker 1: who lived with her above the bar at the time
Speaker 1: of the murders. Her name was not public knowledge, nor
Speaker 1: will it ever be. On the night of the murders,
Speaker 1: she was visiting her mother out of town. If she
Speaker 1: had been home, there's a strong chance that she and
Speaker 1: Patty would have been downstairs playing pool at the very
Speaker 1: moment the two men entered the bar brandishing firearms. When
Speaker 1: Patty was confronted by herself on the screen, played by
Speaker 1: Pipa Pear, three, her friends broke the silence once again,
Speaker 1: this time with laughter. The on screen version of Patty
Speaker 1: looked gaunt and pale, like a junkie with no home.
Speaker 1: In the theater, Patty laughed the loudest before declaring, I
Speaker 1: hope I looked better than that. Now she was bluffing.
Speaker 1: Her laughter couldn't hide the years of trauma she'd endured
Speaker 1: since renting the room above the Lafayette. The sound of
Speaker 1: the gunshots from under her floorboards, the bodies lying motionless,
Speaker 1: the sleepless nights that followed, and there was so much
Speaker 1: blood then, and every time she looked back, it was
Speaker 1: all still there. The Blood on the Tracks. Blood on
Speaker 1: the Tracks produced by Double Elvis in partnership with I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. It's hosted an executive producer by me Jake Brennan,
Speaker 1: also executive produced by Brady Sather. Zeth Lundie is lead
Speaker 1: editor and producer. This episode was written by Ben Burrow,
Speaker 1: Story and copy editing by Pat Healy. Mixing and sound
Speaker 1: designed by Colin Fleming. Additional music and score elements by
Speaker 1: Ryan Spreaker. This episode feature Chris Anzeloni is Bob Dylan.
Speaker 1: Sources for this episode are available at double Elvis dot
Speaker 1: com on the Blood in the Tracks series page. Follow
Speaker 1: Double Elvis on Instagram at double Elvis and on Twitch
Speaker 1: at s Grace Sland Talks Need You Talk to Me
Speaker 1: per Usual on Instagram and Twitter at Disgrace Land, Pond
Speaker 1: Rock and Wood or Dad