WEBVTT - Bob Dylan Is Rolling Thunder (A Bob Dylan Story, Chapter 4) 0:00:00.080 --> 0:00:02.280 Blood on the Tracks is the production of I Heart 0:00:02.360 --> 0:00:06.800 Radio and Double Elvis. Bob Dylan was a musical genius 0:00:06.840 --> 0:00:09.680 and one of the greatest songwriters of all time. He 0:00:09.760 --> 0:00:13.920 didn't follow leaders. He chased that thin, wild mercury sound. 0:00:14.480 --> 0:00:17.520 He never looked back. Even as the times changed, and 0:00:17.600 --> 0:00:21.680 as the times changed, Bob Dylan changed. He tried on 0:00:21.800 --> 0:00:25.960 and discarded identities like they were mass. He transformed. He 0:00:26.000 --> 0:00:30.120 transfigured in somewhere along the way, the Bob Dylan that 0:00:30.160 --> 0:00:42.920 you thought you knew died. This is his story. Day four, Yes, 0:00:43.400 --> 0:00:50.040 it's day four, Monday, August first, nineteen. This is Dr 0:00:50.440 --> 0:00:53.640 Ed Sailor. Once again, I'm reviewing the progress of the patient. 0:00:54.120 --> 0:00:57.920 Robert Zimmerman, a k a. Bob Dylan. H. Bob is 0:00:57.920 --> 0:01:01.120 still on a fair amount of distress. Fever, dreams and 0:01:01.280 --> 0:01:04.959 moments of severe anxiety are not uncommon after the type 0:01:05.000 --> 0:01:09.679 of distress he experienced. He has mentioned ghosts or apparitions 0:01:09.680 --> 0:01:12.160 a few times in the last twenty four hours as well. 0:01:12.760 --> 0:01:16.080 His physical injuries seemed to be healing just fine. There 0:01:16.080 --> 0:01:18.600 are no problems to really speak of, but he has 0:01:18.640 --> 0:01:21.520 taken to wearing a neck brace. Although it's my professional 0:01:21.560 --> 0:01:24.640 opinion that that is more for mental comfort than it 0:01:24.760 --> 0:01:28.920 is for physical support. He also, in more feverish moments, 0:01:29.440 --> 0:01:39.800 has been talking about running away. I ran away from 0:01:39.840 --> 0:01:42.039 home when I was very young. I told you that, 0:01:42.120 --> 0:01:45.840 Yet the police picked me up. So I did it 0:01:45.880 --> 0:01:49.480 again and again and again. I wanted to be a 0:01:49.520 --> 0:01:54.480 circus hand, a carnival boy, a road bump. But I 0:01:54.480 --> 0:01:59.360 couldn't get out. I couldn't slip the net. Eventually I did, though. 0:02:00.920 --> 0:02:04.400 I guess that's where this need for reinvention came from, 0:02:04.400 --> 0:02:07.120 a desire to get out and make yourself, to become 0:02:07.200 --> 0:02:09.720 someone no one ever thought you could be that you 0:02:09.800 --> 0:02:13.440 never thought you could be. When you break free from 0:02:13.480 --> 0:02:16.320 life and go out and live, you really see what 0:02:16.400 --> 0:02:19.919 it's all about. That's what I did in seventy five. 0:02:20.360 --> 0:02:23.560 I got out and saw the world. Sure, I've been 0:02:23.600 --> 0:02:26.000 to see it many times before, but this time I 0:02:26.040 --> 0:02:29.400 really saw it. I really experienced it, and I was 0:02:29.440 --> 0:02:32.680 the one who left so much blood on the tracks. 0:02:53.520 --> 0:03:11.840 Chapter four, Bob Dylan is rolling thunder. Ye. I'm still 0:03:11.880 --> 0:03:15.839 haunted by these people. There are people I've never even met, 0:03:15.919 --> 0:03:20.560 but they haunt me. I guess I lost myself. And 0:03:20.600 --> 0:03:24.320 what happened when writing that song. Sometimes songs can take 0:03:24.360 --> 0:03:28.359 you over like that. I still see that man slumped 0:03:28.360 --> 0:03:32.360 over a bar, his back all ripped up. You can 0:03:32.400 --> 0:03:41.280 see flesh and bone and blood. This idea of transfiguration 0:03:41.320 --> 0:03:44.560 that I'm always talking about, it's real, you know that, right. 0:03:46.360 --> 0:03:50.160 The Rolling Thunder review was all about that. People ask 0:03:50.240 --> 0:03:54.120 me why I wore masks and white makeup on that tour. Well, 0:03:55.280 --> 0:03:57.400 when a man wears a mask, he's gonna tell you 0:03:57.440 --> 0:04:02.400 the truth. I was living my truth, break free from life. 0:04:03.680 --> 0:04:07.480 I grew up in northern Minnesota. The carnival came and 0:04:07.520 --> 0:04:11.040 went when I was young. I was always captivated by it. 0:04:12.160 --> 0:04:16.000 We all were. I wanted that for this tour, a 0:04:16.040 --> 0:04:20.240 traveling show, a carnival. I wanted to do something I've 0:04:20.240 --> 0:04:26.719 never done before. I wanted to invent for reinvention. The 0:04:26.800 --> 0:04:29.080 tour I had staged the previous year had been huge. 0:04:29.640 --> 0:04:33.240 It was all private jets, arenas and outdoor shows. I 0:04:33.279 --> 0:04:37.320 got out and saw the world. The mid seventies was 0:04:37.400 --> 0:04:40.800 like that. People realized music could be a global industry. 0:04:41.960 --> 0:04:45.400 I just released an album called Blood on the Tracks, 0:04:47.240 --> 0:04:49.080 and I was on a real high in my career. 0:04:49.200 --> 0:04:53.920 But with this tour, I wanted the opposite. I wanted 0:04:53.960 --> 0:04:55.880 to get back down to Earth. So that's what we 0:04:55.920 --> 0:04:58.960 did when we were on the road. I even drove 0:04:58.960 --> 0:05:01.640 the bus most of the time. I had this old 0:05:01.680 --> 0:05:04.960 motor home i'd go around in. It was the antithesis 0:05:05.040 --> 0:05:10.599 of a private jet. It wasn't just me, though, everyone 0:05:10.720 --> 0:05:13.680 was like that. On Rolling Thunder. Roger mcgwinn from The 0:05:13.680 --> 0:05:17.200 Birds went around in this thing called the Green Machine Man. 0:05:18.000 --> 0:05:19.880 I don't even know how that thing started up, let 0:05:19.960 --> 0:05:23.960 alone how it lasted. The whole run, the whole thing 0:05:24.000 --> 0:05:25.760 really felt like I was at the start of my 0:05:25.880 --> 0:05:29.760 career all over again, like I was a new man, reborn. 0:05:30.960 --> 0:05:34.279 I was the happiest I think I've ever been. We 0:05:34.360 --> 0:05:36.919 played all over the country, and our friends came with 0:05:37.040 --> 0:05:41.920 us too. Joni Mitchell shown by is Rambling, Jack Elliott, 0:05:42.560 --> 0:05:47.120 t Bone, Burnett Hell. Even a young Sharon Stone was there, 0:05:48.040 --> 0:05:51.520 at least I like to pretend she was. There was 0:05:51.560 --> 0:05:54.360 one person who summed up the whole thing. Her name 0:05:54.360 --> 0:05:57.600 was Scarlett Rivera. I met her thanks to our old 0:05:57.600 --> 0:06:02.599 friend Destiny. Before the tour, I was being driven around 0:06:02.680 --> 0:06:05.120 Greenwich Village one day with no particular place to go, 0:06:05.240 --> 0:06:08.719 and we passed a woman and I don't know. She 0:06:08.800 --> 0:06:11.080 had a strangeness about her. I wanted to be a 0:06:11.080 --> 0:06:15.320 circuit hint. She had long, flowing red hair, and she 0:06:15.400 --> 0:06:17.760 was dressed like she had been beamed in from another time. 0:06:18.160 --> 0:06:22.080 But I couldn't get out. You know. She was stick thin, 0:06:22.640 --> 0:06:26.359 but she had a weight to her soul. I immediately 0:06:26.360 --> 0:06:28.320 asked the driver to stop the car and jumped out. 0:06:29.120 --> 0:06:30.680 I asked her if she could play the violin she 0:06:30.720 --> 0:06:32.960 was holding, and she said she could, so I asked 0:06:32.960 --> 0:06:36.320 her if I could hear it. The next thing, We're 0:06:36.320 --> 0:06:41.320 in my apartment and she's playing man. She played her 0:06:41.440 --> 0:06:44.640 violin sounded like an old traveler was playing it. It 0:06:44.680 --> 0:06:47.560 was mystical. Go out and live. You really see what 0:06:47.640 --> 0:06:51.560 it's all about. I had been writing a new album, 0:06:51.680 --> 0:06:56.320 but it needed something, something I didn't have. I thought 0:06:56.360 --> 0:06:59.719 that this, the sound of this mystical violin, might be 0:06:59.760 --> 0:07:03.600 what is missing. But I needed to be sure, so 0:07:04.000 --> 0:07:06.960 I tested her. I was due to go to a 0:07:07.040 --> 0:07:09.440 Muddy Waters show at a bar in the village, so 0:07:09.520 --> 0:07:12.320 I asked her if she would tag along. Of course, 0:07:12.320 --> 0:07:17.240 she said, without missing a beat, so we went. I 0:07:17.320 --> 0:07:20.080 took to the stage with Muddy that night. There was 0:07:20.120 --> 0:07:23.040 always a pleasure to play with him. During the show, 0:07:23.080 --> 0:07:25.280 I couldn't stop looking at Scarlett sitting at the bar. 0:07:25.960 --> 0:07:29.600 She was like nothing I'd ever seen before. She didn't 0:07:29.600 --> 0:07:32.640 just look like a normal person, she didn't act like 0:07:32.680 --> 0:07:37.320 one either. She was kind of scary, but fiercely interesting, 0:07:37.640 --> 0:07:42.200 break free from life. After a few songs, I jumped 0:07:42.200 --> 0:07:45.040 onto the microphone and announced to the crowd, I'm going 0:07:45.080 --> 0:07:48.920 to bring my violin player up now. Scarlet's eyes wide 0:07:49.000 --> 0:07:52.760 until they were the size of oranges. Ladies and gentlemen, 0:07:52.960 --> 0:07:56.120 Scarlett Rivera, I said, I didn't know how she'd act 0:07:56.640 --> 0:08:00.800 a desire to get out and make yourself. The bar 0:08:00.920 --> 0:08:04.640 fell silent slowly, everyone started to look where I was looking. 0:08:05.400 --> 0:08:08.400 It was now or never. She jumped up from her stool. 0:08:09.440 --> 0:08:11.160 I thought she might make a break for the exit, 0:08:11.200 --> 0:08:14.800 but her eyes narrowed and she walked directly towards the stage. 0:08:15.840 --> 0:08:20.520 She casually opened her violin case and said, shall we reinvention? 0:08:22.560 --> 0:08:25.920 We kicked into the song with Muddy taking lead. Everybody 0:08:25.920 --> 0:08:28.000 in the band got a solo, and so after a while, 0:08:28.120 --> 0:08:32.160 Muddy nodded to Scarlett to take the spotlight. This is it, 0:08:32.320 --> 0:08:37.360 I thought, let's see what she can do. Scarlett stepped 0:08:37.360 --> 0:08:39.160 into the middle of the stage and burned the damn 0:08:39.200 --> 0:08:45.120 place down. Her violin wasn't even miked up properly, but 0:08:45.160 --> 0:08:48.560 it sounded like a fire tearing through the joint. The 0:08:48.600 --> 0:08:52.160 crowd went crazy. Scarlett had shared the stage with the 0:08:52.160 --> 0:08:55.920 blues legend and held her own. She had passed the test, 0:08:57.120 --> 0:09:00.240 and thank god too. Scarlett ended up playing on that 0:09:00.320 --> 0:09:03.160 album I was making, which turned into a record called Desire. 0:09:04.080 --> 0:09:05.800 I co wrote that album with a friend of mine, 0:09:06.160 --> 0:09:11.200 Jacques Levy. It featured great musicians like Emmy Lou Harris. 0:09:11.600 --> 0:09:14.760 Even Eric Clapton was supposed to be on it, but Scarlett. 0:09:15.640 --> 0:09:19.240 Scarlett made that album. During the recording, I'd already been 0:09:19.240 --> 0:09:21.960 playing the Rolling Thunder toour, and it became obvious that 0:09:22.040 --> 0:09:26.560 Scarlett sound her style, her soul. They were everything the 0:09:26.600 --> 0:09:33.960 tour should be. She embodied its madness. Yet on the 0:09:34.040 --> 0:09:35.880 road there were rumors she kept a snake in a 0:09:35.960 --> 0:09:38.960 box in her dressing room. In fact, a few snakes. 0:09:40.400 --> 0:09:42.440 I don't know about that, but I do know she 0:09:42.480 --> 0:09:44.800 had a whole collection of swords that she carried around. 0:09:45.240 --> 0:09:48.800 They went everywhere with her. Also, I remember one day. 0:09:48.840 --> 0:09:51.880 She was on the bus. We were driving somewhere and 0:09:52.240 --> 0:09:55.280 she was chanting a Santa Rea type verse over and over. 0:09:56.440 --> 0:09:58.240 No one knew what the hell she was saying or 0:09:58.520 --> 0:10:02.440 where it had come from. T Bone Burnett looked unnerved 0:10:02.440 --> 0:10:06.319 by the whole thing, terrified even. He turned to me 0:10:06.360 --> 0:10:10.280 and said, this is the bus to Hell. I couldn't 0:10:10.280 --> 0:10:14.600 stop laughing at him. That's what I did. It turned 0:10:14.600 --> 0:10:17.320 into the best tour we've ever done. I laughed and 0:10:17.360 --> 0:10:22.120 smiled for that whole tour. Thirty five shows that fall 0:10:22.200 --> 0:10:26.480 and another leg in the spring. But you know, like everything, 0:10:26.760 --> 0:10:31.440 that stuff never lasts. And what was up next? Divorce 0:10:31.679 --> 0:11:02.360 and murder? There as a woman now she floats along. 0:11:03.040 --> 0:11:07.000 She's wearing a uniform, a waitress uniform. It's covered in blood. 0:11:07.400 --> 0:11:11.880 It's soaked right through, it's everywhere. I try to tell her, 0:11:11.920 --> 0:11:18.000 but she can't hear me. The rolling thunder of You 0:11:18.200 --> 0:11:22.720 was so long ago. I wasn't even born yet. There 0:11:22.800 --> 0:11:25.040 was so much drinking on that tour, A lot of 0:11:25.080 --> 0:11:29.079 coke too. I remember one day rambling. Jack Elliott said 0:11:29.120 --> 0:11:31.280 it was suspicious if you weren't on drugs. While on 0:11:31.360 --> 0:11:34.920 that tour. He refused to carry anything in case he 0:11:35.000 --> 0:11:37.880 got busted, so he'd have someone else carry it for him, 0:11:37.880 --> 0:11:43.199 and he'd just before walking out on stage. One night, 0:11:43.200 --> 0:11:46.240 Bruce Springsteen showed up, except he wasn't the Bruce we 0:11:46.320 --> 0:11:50.160 all know today. Who's this guy at Springfield? I asked 0:11:50.160 --> 0:11:55.480 my bass player Rob Stoner, Sorry, Bruce. My wife Sarah 0:11:55.480 --> 0:11:58.640 had come on that tour too. She had come because 0:11:58.679 --> 0:12:00.559 she was playing a role in the home we were 0:12:00.559 --> 0:12:04.040 making on the road, my attempt at a European art 0:12:04.080 --> 0:12:08.080 house Flip called Ronaldo and Clara. I wanted it to 0:12:08.080 --> 0:12:12.040 be like Trufos, Shoot the Piano Player or Marcel Kanne's 0:12:12.160 --> 0:12:17.400 Children of Paradise. Sam Shepard came to help too. He 0:12:17.480 --> 0:12:20.839 met Joni Mitchell on that tour. That's when she wrote 0:12:20.840 --> 0:12:24.400 that song Coyote. That song stopped us all dead in 0:12:24.400 --> 0:12:27.120 our tracks. Did you know she wrote that one about 0:12:27.120 --> 0:12:29.960 Sam to become someone no one ever thought you could be. 0:12:31.360 --> 0:12:34.280 Joan Bayez was also with us, and in my film too. 0:12:35.040 --> 0:12:38.079 I'd love Joanie. For years we had been called the 0:12:38.160 --> 0:12:41.320 King and Queen of folk, and I guess that was true. 0:12:42.200 --> 0:12:45.880 We've been involved too romantically, you know, back in the 0:12:45.880 --> 0:12:51.640 early days, but it hadn't ended well. Yet one day 0:12:51.679 --> 0:12:55.240 we went to a bar called Gypsy's Place. We were 0:12:55.240 --> 0:12:59.120 all drinking hot toddies, and Joanie disappeared upstairs into an 0:12:59.160 --> 0:13:03.559 apartment or this old traveler women lived. This woman showed 0:13:03.640 --> 0:13:05.720 Janie a pillow that was stuffed with the ashes of 0:13:05.720 --> 0:13:08.640 her dead husband. She said, the pillow was the best 0:13:08.720 --> 0:13:11.959 night's sleep you ever had. She put on one of 0:13:11.960 --> 0:13:14.320 the woman's old dresses and danced back into the bar. 0:13:15.640 --> 0:13:17.400 We had a couple more and then she dragged me 0:13:17.400 --> 0:13:21.079 outside and stood me under a huge oak tree. I 0:13:21.120 --> 0:13:24.440 could tell something is wrong, something important. She looked me 0:13:24.520 --> 0:13:27.320 right in the eyes and said, I've been wanting to 0:13:27.360 --> 0:13:31.880 ask you this for a decade. Okay, before I finished 0:13:31.920 --> 0:13:33.840 that part of the story, I have to fill you 0:13:33.880 --> 0:13:38.800 in on the history between me and Janie. I remember 0:13:38.840 --> 0:13:41.440 seeing her for the first time. She was something else. 0:13:42.280 --> 0:13:45.000 I didn't want to blink. I was worried that if 0:13:45.000 --> 0:13:47.360 I blinked, she wouldn't be there when I opened my eyes. 0:13:48.440 --> 0:13:53.440 She just didn't feel real. Eventually I did. Though. She 0:13:53.520 --> 0:13:56.440 had an unusual way of playing guitar. I could never 0:13:56.480 --> 0:14:00.439 master that. And her voice, my god, what a voice, 0:14:00.760 --> 0:14:04.760 that soprano. It was heart stopping. She did a lot 0:14:04.800 --> 0:14:06.960 for me in those early days. She brought me on 0:14:07.000 --> 0:14:08.920 tour with her. I ran away from home when I 0:14:08.960 --> 0:14:13.360 was very young. Johnny was a big deal then she 0:14:13.440 --> 0:14:16.720 still is, but she was already the queen then, you know. 0:14:17.720 --> 0:14:20.160 She brought me on stage with her, calling me her 0:14:20.200 --> 0:14:23.360 little vagabond. She was even there for me at the 0:14:23.400 --> 0:14:27.120 Newport Folk Festival. That was the summer of sixty three, 0:14:27.640 --> 0:14:29.680 just a few months before the whole world would grow 0:14:29.760 --> 0:14:33.600 a little darker from a most foul murder, and two 0:14:33.680 --> 0:14:37.040 years before Newport grew darker with all that judas nonsense. 0:14:38.120 --> 0:14:40.600 We started to spend time together, and by the summer 0:14:40.640 --> 0:14:43.280 of sixty four we were close. But the truth is 0:14:44.200 --> 0:14:47.400 I wasn't always truthful with Joni, this need for reinvention. 0:14:49.200 --> 0:14:51.600 We'd spent a lot of that summer at Albert Grossman's 0:14:51.600 --> 0:14:55.240 house in Woodstock. Joan was taking a break between tours, 0:14:55.280 --> 0:14:57.520 and I was either writing or riding around on my 0:14:57.600 --> 0:15:00.640 three fifty Triumph, not the bike that get us into 0:15:00.640 --> 0:15:04.160 this mess, but another one. I have sweet moments from 0:15:04.160 --> 0:15:07.520 that time. We talked about our futures, our futures together. 0:15:08.240 --> 0:15:10.720 We talked about maybe having kids one day, and we 0:15:10.840 --> 0:15:14.960 even named one. I think I even proposed again and 0:15:15.120 --> 0:15:19.200 again and again. I was kind of half joking, but 0:15:19.720 --> 0:15:21.680 Joan was the sort of woman you could easily spend 0:15:21.680 --> 0:15:25.240 the rest of your life with. We spent a lot 0:15:25.280 --> 0:15:28.040 of time in a crummy hotel over in Washington Square two. 0:15:29.040 --> 0:15:31.040 It was twelve dollars a night. I wanted to be 0:15:31.080 --> 0:15:35.320 a circuit Hint had no room service and a regular 0:15:35.360 --> 0:15:39.560 clientele of junkies, pushers, alcoholics, and other dubious New York 0:15:39.640 --> 0:15:43.200 riff raff. It was like home to us, though. Joan 0:15:43.280 --> 0:15:45.480 bought me a big black suit jacket with a white 0:15:45.480 --> 0:15:49.160 shirt and crowning glory a pair of cuff links made 0:15:49.160 --> 0:15:53.960 out of lumpy, opaque violet rocks. She wrote about that 0:15:54.000 --> 0:15:56.920 in her song Diamonds and Rust. She wrote about it 0:15:57.040 --> 0:16:00.320 almost word for word, no filter. I love that song 0:16:01.000 --> 0:16:03.960 to be included in something that Joni had written. I mean, 0:16:04.160 --> 0:16:06.480 to this day it still impresses me that you never 0:16:06.520 --> 0:16:10.120 thought you could be. We did a tour together and 0:16:10.120 --> 0:16:13.680 who played the packed houses with grave reviews. But by 0:16:13.720 --> 0:16:15.960 the time we got to England and sixty five things 0:16:15.960 --> 0:16:18.960 weren't so great. I had begun seeing someone else at 0:16:18.960 --> 0:16:22.680 the same time Sarah, the woman who had become my wife. 0:16:23.880 --> 0:16:25.800 I never wanted to hurt Jonie, so I kept the 0:16:25.840 --> 0:16:29.920 two apart, couldn't slip the net. Sure that was the 0:16:29.960 --> 0:16:32.520 wrong decision, but at the time I felt like I 0:16:32.560 --> 0:16:35.440 was protecting the people I loved. I don't know. I 0:16:35.440 --> 0:16:38.440 don't expect you to understand. It all came to a 0:16:38.480 --> 0:16:41.800 head at the Royal Albert Hall, the Grandest Venues for 0:16:41.920 --> 0:16:45.400 my betrayal. We were playing a show there at the 0:16:45.480 --> 0:16:47.760 end of that England tour. I got out and saw 0:16:47.840 --> 0:16:52.360 the world. Me and Sarah were in this little dressing 0:16:52.440 --> 0:16:54.520 room before the show, and all of a sudden, there's 0:16:54.560 --> 0:16:58.080 a loud rap at the door. Sarah, still jet lags, 0:16:58.080 --> 0:17:00.400 slowly got up and opened the door with a tire yawn. 0:17:01.520 --> 0:17:06.320 Who's standing on the other side, Joanie clutching a huge 0:17:06.320 --> 0:17:09.760 present must have been for my birthday. I felt the 0:17:09.800 --> 0:17:13.360 color drained from my face. I mean I actually felt it, 0:17:13.560 --> 0:17:18.000 but I couldn't get out. Joanie had never seen Sarah before, 0:17:18.080 --> 0:17:21.720 not knowing of her existence until this moment. Sarah, not 0:17:21.800 --> 0:17:26.359 recognizing her, took the gift and politely said thanks. Joan 0:17:26.400 --> 0:17:28.479 couldn't even bear to look at me as the door closed. 0:17:30.000 --> 0:17:32.600 It's all over now, Baby Blue, was the final song 0:17:32.680 --> 0:17:37.880 that night. I could barely get the words out. Back 0:17:37.920 --> 0:17:40.320 to the story I was telling you under that old 0:17:40.320 --> 0:17:44.719 oak tree with Joanie. I've been wanting to ask you 0:17:44.760 --> 0:17:47.480 this for years, she said, and I felt the blood 0:17:47.520 --> 0:17:50.600 drained from my face again, but this time, as I said, 0:17:50.640 --> 0:17:54.479 it was a decade later, a breeze passed over us 0:17:54.480 --> 0:17:57.880 and animated that traveler woman's dress. Why did you never 0:17:57.920 --> 0:18:00.840 tell me about Sarah, she asked. I struggled to answer, 0:18:01.160 --> 0:18:05.160 couldn't slip the net. She looked me dead in the eyes. 0:18:06.000 --> 0:18:10.040 There was pain in there, deep pain. I didn't answer. 0:18:11.119 --> 0:18:16.400 We just stood in silence, painful silence. It's because I'm 0:18:16.400 --> 0:18:19.520 too political and you lied too much, she said, before 0:18:19.560 --> 0:18:22.840 smiling one of the saddest smiles I've ever seen. I 0:18:22.880 --> 0:18:27.920 really saw it, I really experienced it. She walked off 0:18:27.960 --> 0:18:30.840 back to the bar, leaving me under that old oak tree. 0:18:32.000 --> 0:18:34.119 No one had ever said a truer word in my life. 0:18:35.080 --> 0:18:37.639 My marriage was falling apart at this point too, and 0:18:38.040 --> 0:18:40.240 one night Sarah took to the stage and sang the 0:18:40.280 --> 0:18:43.679 song I'd written for her, Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands. 0:18:44.560 --> 0:18:48.640 She dedicated it to Joan. By the time it came 0:18:48.680 --> 0:18:51.480 to book the second leg of the tour, I invited 0:18:51.520 --> 0:18:54.800 Joanie to play the entire run, but she declined my invitation. 0:18:56.119 --> 0:19:02.119 I didn't try to convince her otherwise. We'll be right 0:19:02.160 --> 0:19:12.840 back after this word, word word. There's another man now. 0:19:14.280 --> 0:19:17.680 He's walking towards me. His right hand is covering his eye. 0:19:18.720 --> 0:19:22.320 His palm is pressed right over it. Slowly he takes 0:19:22.359 --> 0:19:27.119 it away and there's there's nothing there. It's just an 0:19:27.160 --> 0:19:35.800 empty socket. You know. I've always loved boxing right the 0:19:35.880 --> 0:19:39.480 beast from Hibbing Sugar, Ray Zimmerm. That's what I would 0:19:39.520 --> 0:19:44.480 call myself in the ring. I've even got a gym 0:19:44.520 --> 0:19:47.800 in Santa Monica. Not many people know that. There's pictures 0:19:47.800 --> 0:19:50.280 of Muddy Waters and those British bad boys, the rolling 0:19:50.320 --> 0:19:54.080 stones on the wall. Boxing has always been a passion 0:19:54.119 --> 0:19:56.840 of mine. You give me a boxer's name, and I 0:19:56.880 --> 0:20:00.080 can give you his record, just like that. Boom oh. 0:20:00.200 --> 0:20:05.600 Mancini thirty four fights, nine wins, twenty three knockouts, five losses. 0:20:06.200 --> 0:20:14.440 Manny Pacquiao two fights, wins, knockouts, thirty nine eight losses. 0:20:15.560 --> 0:20:19.119 I met him once he was a great fighter. But 0:20:20.320 --> 0:20:23.520 there's one boxer I'll always forever be linked with, Ruben 0:20:23.560 --> 0:20:28.720 Carter desired. I became involved in Reuben's story ten years 0:20:28.720 --> 0:20:31.879 after he was convicted of murder. Someone had given me 0:20:31.920 --> 0:20:34.840 his autobiography and I was hooked on his story, hooked 0:20:34.880 --> 0:20:37.040 on the injustice of it all. You really see what 0:20:37.080 --> 0:20:41.720 it's all about about. I wrote the song Hurricane about 0:20:41.800 --> 0:20:45.439 him and what happened. So what happened is a tale 0:20:45.440 --> 0:20:47.479 that is a lot like a boxing match. I guess 0:20:48.440 --> 0:20:50.919 he was knocked down time and time again, but like 0:20:51.000 --> 0:20:55.400 all fighters, he got back up. I admired that if 0:20:55.440 --> 0:20:57.679 you don't know the story, then allow me to be 0:20:57.720 --> 0:21:01.800 your narrator for the evening. Are you sitting comfortably well? Good, 0:21:02.560 --> 0:21:08.640 give me a bell. Round one. It's Muggie and Patterson, 0:21:08.720 --> 0:21:12.440 New Jersey. Despite being two thirty in the morning, it's 0:21:12.520 --> 0:21:17.439 July n s there's these two men. They enter a 0:21:17.480 --> 0:21:21.879 place called the Lafayette Bar and grill. It's unusual because 0:21:22.040 --> 0:21:25.840 they're black. Black folks stayed away from that bar. Hell, 0:21:26.560 --> 0:21:29.960 most people stayed away from that bar. It was a dump, 0:21:30.760 --> 0:21:33.920 but it wasn't friendly to people of color, so much 0:21:33.960 --> 0:21:37.000 so that the bartender Jim Oliver slings a bottle at 0:21:37.000 --> 0:21:39.439 the two men as they enter, just because they're black. 0:21:40.200 --> 0:21:42.000 It would be the last thing he did on this earth. 0:21:43.080 --> 0:21:48.080 A shotgun pellet severs his spinal cord moments later. Within seconds, 0:21:48.080 --> 0:21:51.240 the two men are spraying bullets into the Lafayette. Some 0:21:51.280 --> 0:21:54.040 bullets are coming from a shotgun, others from a pistol. 0:21:54.920 --> 0:21:57.920 A woman called Hazel Tennis, who stopped into the bar 0:21:58.000 --> 0:22:00.600 after her waitressing shift, jumps off for a stool and 0:22:00.600 --> 0:22:03.879 tries to run, but the bullets catch her, knock her 0:22:03.880 --> 0:22:06.040 to the floor and she starts bleeding out right away, 0:22:06.280 --> 0:22:11.480 so much blood. Two other guys are having a conversation 0:22:11.520 --> 0:22:16.560 at the bar there. Next one dies instantly. He doesn't 0:22:16.600 --> 0:22:18.840 even have time to get off his stool. The other 0:22:18.880 --> 0:22:21.159 turns his head at both the right and wrong moment. 0:22:21.640 --> 0:22:23.879 A bullet passes through his eye and explodes out of 0:22:23.920 --> 0:22:28.439 his forehead. He's not dead, but he passes out. Blood 0:22:28.480 --> 0:22:32.080 stains the wall, the bar, the floor, and the ceiling 0:22:32.119 --> 0:22:36.840 of the bar. So much blood, part of an eyeball 0:22:36.920 --> 0:22:40.520 comes to rest on the pool table. Silence finally reigns 0:22:40.600 --> 0:22:47.439 down on the bloody scene. Round two, Patty Valentine this 0:22:47.560 --> 0:22:50.119 local woman who I'd go on to meet in person 0:22:50.160 --> 0:22:52.320 in the courtroom by the way. Because a sleep on 0:22:52.359 --> 0:22:56.159 her couch, her TV silent, the grainy picture dancing on 0:22:56.200 --> 0:22:59.680 the wall of her unlit room above the Lafayette, she 0:23:00.000 --> 0:23:04.160 as up to a loud noise gunshots possibly nothing unusual 0:23:04.200 --> 0:23:08.480 there times. She goes to her apartment window and sees 0:23:08.520 --> 0:23:11.760 these two men leaving the Lafayette, one holding a shotgun, 0:23:11.880 --> 0:23:14.600 the other a pistol. They drive off into the night. 0:23:15.520 --> 0:23:19.240 Valentine swiftly heads downstairs into the bar, and upon entry 0:23:19.320 --> 0:23:23.480 she sees Hazel Tannis, her white waitress uniforms turning red. 0:23:23.880 --> 0:23:27.679 This time I really saw it, blood soaked through the 0:23:27.680 --> 0:23:31.000 white cotton, and Valentine screaming least she never has before 0:23:33.560 --> 0:23:42.560 round three later, Ruben Carter, Middleweights wins nineteen knockouts, is 0:23:42.640 --> 0:23:44.840 lying down in the bed of his rented sixty six 0:23:44.880 --> 0:23:49.240 white Dodge Polara. It's been a long night. We've all 0:23:49.280 --> 0:23:51.800 been there, right. He'd been out at a night spot 0:23:51.840 --> 0:23:55.440 and now he was heading home. John Artists, a young 0:23:55.520 --> 0:24:00.040 athlete and Ruben sparring partner, is driving the vehicle. A 0:24:00.080 --> 0:24:02.919 red police light flicks across his eyeline and like a 0:24:02.960 --> 0:24:06.880 silent alarm. It makes him uncomfortable. The lack of an 0:24:06.880 --> 0:24:09.960 actual siren is unnerving even to a man like Ruben Carter, 0:24:10.359 --> 0:24:12.199 who has had more than a few brushes with the 0:24:12.200 --> 0:24:16.240 police due to his skin color. His car has stopped 0:24:16.280 --> 0:24:18.880 for the second time that night. On the first occasion, 0:24:18.880 --> 0:24:20.720 they were told by the police that they were looking 0:24:20.720 --> 0:24:24.320 for two men fitting their description. This time, the officer 0:24:24.359 --> 0:24:27.200 has decided it is them. I couldn't slip the net. 0:24:29.000 --> 0:24:31.359 Within thirty minutes, Reuben is in the hospital where that 0:24:31.400 --> 0:24:33.560 guy who was shot through the eye tells the cops 0:24:33.600 --> 0:24:36.959 he ain't the one. Remember that, the guy that had 0:24:37.000 --> 0:24:39.639 just been shot is telling the cops it ain't Ruben 0:24:39.680 --> 0:24:43.480 Carter and John artists. You really see what it's all about. 0:24:45.200 --> 0:24:47.560 Still they go back to the police station, of course 0:24:47.600 --> 0:24:50.760 they do, and after seventeen hours, both men are released. 0:24:50.800 --> 0:24:57.640 But round four, two men, Alfred Bellow and Arthur Dexter Bradley, 0:24:57.680 --> 0:25:01.080 had been near the Lafayette Bar that night. Bellow was 0:25:01.119 --> 0:25:04.119 on the lookout for Bradley. Bradley was a what do 0:25:04.160 --> 0:25:07.800 you call it, a career criminal. He was apparently trying 0:25:07.800 --> 0:25:11.800 to break into a nearby metal company below grew bored 0:25:11.800 --> 0:25:14.200 of watching Bradley and turns to walk towards the bar 0:25:14.280 --> 0:25:18.440 in search of cigarettes. After several loud noises, he sees 0:25:18.440 --> 0:25:21.200 two men come out of the Lafayette, one carrying a pistol, 0:25:21.359 --> 0:25:25.120 the other a shotgun. One he said was Ruben Carter, 0:25:25.680 --> 0:25:28.760 the other John Artists. They jumped into a white car 0:25:28.800 --> 0:25:33.520 and drove away. Pretty damning testimony, right, well maybe if 0:25:33.560 --> 0:25:35.680 it wasn't for the fact that this testimony came four 0:25:35.720 --> 0:25:38.600 months after the shooting, when the police offered a ten 0:25:38.640 --> 0:25:45.560 thousand dollar reward. Round five, the day after Bellow and 0:25:45.560 --> 0:25:50.320 Bradley came out with that report, John Artist is stopped 0:25:50.320 --> 0:25:54.000 while buying soda. A shotgun appears under his chin, and 0:25:54.240 --> 0:25:57.080 he and Ruben Carter are arrested for triple murder. Do 0:25:57.200 --> 0:26:01.760 you really see what it's all about? The trial is 0:26:01.800 --> 0:26:07.200 a laughing stock. They both go down the final round. 0:26:08.080 --> 0:26:11.240 Almost ten years later, there was a campaign for a retrial. 0:26:12.200 --> 0:26:14.879 I was more than happy to get involved. We played 0:26:14.880 --> 0:26:16.960 a gig at the prison where Reuben was being held. 0:26:17.920 --> 0:26:19.359 Do you know what struck me the most when I 0:26:19.400 --> 0:26:22.000 met him? It was only a small thing, but it 0:26:22.080 --> 0:26:25.240 chilled me to my bones. I couldn't stop thinking about 0:26:25.240 --> 0:26:28.800