WEBVTT - Jonathan Taplin 0:00:08.600 --> 0:00:12.840 Welcome, welcome, welcome back, But Bob left that's podcast. My 0:00:13.000 --> 0:00:18.480 guest today is music manager, film producer, educator Jonathan Taplin, 0:00:18.480 --> 0:00:22.200 who's got a brand new book, The Magic Years. Scenes 0:00:22.400 --> 0:00:25.919 from a Rock and Roll Life. Jonathan. Great to have 0:00:26.040 --> 0:00:28.960 you here. Good to be here, Bob. Now, I notice 0:00:29.000 --> 0:00:32.120 on your website you say John. Are you Johnny? You Jonathan? 0:00:33.280 --> 0:00:36.720 John is fine by the way you're going through life. 0:00:36.720 --> 0:00:38.880 You know, usually when you're a little kid, you're Johnny, 0:00:39.320 --> 0:00:41.680 and then at some point you become Jonathan. So I'm 0:00:41.720 --> 0:00:46.239 just interested what people normally call you. My friends call 0:00:46.320 --> 0:00:49.560 me John, okay John that I will call you John. 0:00:49.840 --> 0:00:52.680 So how does a teenager end up being the road 0:00:52.760 --> 0:00:57.880 manager from major musical acts. I was a fan of 0:00:57.960 --> 0:01:04.600 Bob Dylan and three sixty four UM. In the summer 0:01:04.640 --> 0:01:07.800 of nine, I had graduated from high school and was 0:01:07.840 --> 0:01:12.440 headed to Princeton and I got a b in my 0:01:12.480 --> 0:01:14.880 bonnet that I would go to the Newport Folk Festival. 0:01:15.920 --> 0:01:19.119 And my brother had a friend named Paul Clayton, who 0:01:19.200 --> 0:01:22.920 was a a friend of Bob Dylan's, was an important 0:01:22.959 --> 0:01:27.800 Ethne musicologist, and he got me a backstage pass at Newport, 0:01:28.440 --> 0:01:30.560 and then he introduced me to a band called the 0:01:30.640 --> 0:01:35.440 Jim Question Jug Band. Uh had a singer named Jeff Muldar, 0:01:36.120 --> 0:01:40.120 and they needed a road manager. And their road manager 0:01:40.280 --> 0:01:44.920 their real manager was Albert Grossman, and Albert Grossman happened 0:01:44.920 --> 0:01:49.000 to manage Bob Dylan, Peter Paul and Mary Paul, Butterfield 0:01:49.000 --> 0:01:53.960 Blues Band, Odetta, pretty much all the important people in 0:01:54.000 --> 0:01:59.520 the folkustic business. So they introduced me to Albert. He 0:01:59.720 --> 0:02:05.680 hired me, and then on a whim on a Saturday afternoon, 0:02:06.720 --> 0:02:12.400 Bob Dylan decided that he would play electric music at 0:02:12.400 --> 0:02:17.959 the Newport Folk Festival. And Mulda and I had been 0:02:18.000 --> 0:02:24.160 watching the Butterfield bluespan do a a workshop and Alan Lomax, 0:02:24.200 --> 0:02:29.240 who was a very famous at the musicologist, tried to 0:02:29.360 --> 0:02:34.880 unplug the electricity from the Butterfield Blues Band, and so 0:02:35.120 --> 0:02:38.440 Muldar told this story to all the artists in the 0:02:38.520 --> 0:02:43.720 Grossman circle in the artists tent afterwards, and Dylan, I think, 0:02:43.840 --> 0:02:46.560 just decided on the spur of the moment, well, hell, 0:02:46.639 --> 0:02:51.320 I'll play electric two. And so they quickly threw together 0:02:52.400 --> 0:02:56.880 a band made up of the Butterfield Route Land Rhythm 0:02:56.919 --> 0:03:01.360 Section and Mike Bluefield and brought in Cooper from New 0:03:01.440 --> 0:03:07.679 York and rehearsed for a few minutes, and then on 0:03:07.720 --> 0:03:14.400 Sunday night came out and played and the reaction was explosive, 0:03:14.520 --> 0:03:23.120 to say the least, um the folk fans. Visually, Dylan 0:03:23.200 --> 0:03:28.800 came out in black leather jacket, a bright orange shirt, 0:03:29.080 --> 0:03:33.600 tight pants, English rock and roll boots, and and it 0:03:33.760 --> 0:03:38.400 was not the blue work shirt Bob they had all expected. 0:03:39.240 --> 0:03:42.680 And then they launched into Maggie's farm. And when Maggie's 0:03:42.720 --> 0:03:46.200 Farm was over, it was just like silent. And then 0:03:46.360 --> 0:03:52.120 eventually people started booing and it went downhill from there. 0:03:52.960 --> 0:03:57.640 And uh so, you know, I was witnesses something, and 0:03:57.960 --> 0:04:01.720 I don't think at the time I really realized how 0:04:01.760 --> 0:04:05.280 important it was, what a breakpoint it was in the 0:04:05.360 --> 0:04:08.880 history of rock and roll. All I knew was I 0:04:09.000 --> 0:04:14.600 like the music. Um, I like Bob's direction. I had 0:04:14.640 --> 0:04:21.760 loved like a rolling Stone on the radio. And uh so, eventually, 0:04:21.760 --> 0:04:25.520 over the years I got closer to that as being 0:04:25.560 --> 0:04:28.560 part of the Grossman family, so to speak. So you're 0:04:28.600 --> 0:04:31.479 at this transcendent rock and roll moment, not that you 0:04:31.520 --> 0:04:34.080 were aware that it was so important. How do you 0:04:34.160 --> 0:04:37.480 end up becoming a road manager Albert Grossman seemed to 0:04:37.520 --> 0:04:40.960 like to having college kids be the road managers or 0:04:41.120 --> 0:04:46.080 or college educated man. John Cook, who was Janice's road manager, 0:04:46.120 --> 0:04:51.080 had graduated from Harvard, you know, a son of Alistair Cook. Uh, 0:04:51.200 --> 0:04:55.239 I don't know. He liked people with a certain way 0:04:55.279 --> 0:05:00.400 of acting, and so uh. I worked for the Question 0:05:00.480 --> 0:05:03.400 Jug band for a year before you get there. Before 0:05:03.400 --> 0:05:07.159 you get there, but you were literally just starting college. 0:05:07.800 --> 0:05:11.520 Was there anybody else in your position? I was. I 0:05:11.560 --> 0:05:17.880 would go on the weekends to do concerts because that's 0:05:17.880 --> 0:05:20.520 the way the concert scene was working. Yeah. I guess 0:05:20.520 --> 0:05:23.159 what I'm saying is for those of us who were fans, 0:05:23.240 --> 0:05:26.600 it seems kind of amazing that someone could walk off 0:05:26.640 --> 0:05:31.080 the street less than twenty years old suddenly have this 0:05:31.160 --> 0:05:36.000 amazing job. And the other thing is, you know you 0:05:36.080 --> 0:05:38.320 in your personality In your book, you were saying you 0:05:38.360 --> 0:05:42.320 were somewhat alienated individual. But I certainly know what it 0:05:42.320 --> 0:05:44.880 takes to be a movie producer. One has to ask 0:05:44.920 --> 0:05:47.920 to what degree you put yourself in the mix and 0:05:48.279 --> 0:05:52.560 asked for that job. Well, I I did ask for 0:05:52.600 --> 0:05:55.839 the job. I wanted. I want very much to be 0:05:56.000 --> 0:05:59.960 part of that world. I didn't know that I could 0:06:00.120 --> 0:06:04.440 a living out of it, but I wanted desperately to 0:06:04.600 --> 0:06:08.880 be I mean, Dylan was to me the most important 0:06:09.680 --> 0:06:16.039 star in the world. Uh he was. He defined what 0:06:16.160 --> 0:06:18.440 a great artist was to me, and I wanted to 0:06:18.480 --> 0:06:20.840 be close to that. It took me a few years 0:06:20.880 --> 0:06:23.120 to get there. I mean, I had to go through 0:06:23.160 --> 0:06:26.320 other bands. I worked for Question, and then I worked 0:06:26.320 --> 0:06:28.479 for Judy Collins, and then I did a little work 0:06:28.480 --> 0:06:33.120 for Jennis Choplin. And then eventually the band which had 0:06:33.160 --> 0:06:36.480 been the Hawks became a group, and then I became 0:06:36.560 --> 0:06:41.000 their tour manager. And then eventually Bob decided and he 0:06:41.080 --> 0:06:44.000 wanted to go out and start playing again, and I 0:06:44.120 --> 0:06:46.440 took them to the Isle of Wight, and so, I 0:06:46.440 --> 0:06:50.280 mean it was a progression. It wasn't immediate, but I 0:06:50.320 --> 0:06:53.920 I made a living all through college to working on 0:06:53.960 --> 0:07:01.000 the weekends, and then once I graduated. Literally, you're there 0:07:01.400 --> 0:07:05.440 at the Newport Folks Festival, your backstage of the backstage pass. 0:07:06.440 --> 0:07:09.600 How do you literally get the job road managing Jim Question? 0:07:10.240 --> 0:07:13.160 Do you send a letter? Do you call Albert? Does 0:07:13.200 --> 0:07:17.760 he tap you? What happens? I a friend of theirs, 0:07:18.560 --> 0:07:22.680 said Paul Clayton. He said, this is John Taplin he's 0:07:22.760 --> 0:07:26.600 a the brother one of my best friends, Randy Taplin. 0:07:26.960 --> 0:07:31.440 He's a good guy. And and Jeff Muldart said, well, 0:07:31.480 --> 0:07:36.200 we need somebody slept this equipment around all weekend, and 0:07:36.240 --> 0:07:40.160 I said, I'll do it. And then so then Muldar 0:07:40.280 --> 0:07:43.440 took me over to meet Albert and I think I 0:07:43.520 --> 0:07:48.040 probably got paid hundred dollars for the weekend. You know, 0:07:48.240 --> 0:07:52.960 it wasn't big money, and that was it. And then 0:07:53.760 --> 0:08:00.560 once that was over, then I was inside the Grossman sir, yeah, 0:08:00.600 --> 0:08:04.520 you've passed the test. So Jonathan Jim Queskin was famously 0:08:04.520 --> 0:08:07.200 a member of the Mel Lineman family. Do you have 0:08:07.280 --> 0:08:13.880 any experience with that? Only peripherally, I mean, obviously the 0:08:13.960 --> 0:08:21.200 mail Lineman kind of cooperative in Roxbury went a little 0:08:21.280 --> 0:08:29.280 crazy start using LC and uh so Mel had dropped 0:08:29.320 --> 0:08:31.679 out of the band by the time I was starting 0:08:31.680 --> 0:08:34.520 to work with them. He was not involved in the 0:08:34.600 --> 0:08:39.200 Question Jug band. He had become a a guru. Okay, 0:08:39.240 --> 0:08:42.680 so you do the Question Jug band. Your next act 0:08:42.920 --> 0:08:50.079 is Judy Collins. Okay, at the time she was a 0:08:50.840 --> 0:08:53.520 quite admired lady. What was it like being a young 0:08:53.600 --> 0:08:57.120 man working with Judy Collins? Well, she had a huge 0:08:57.280 --> 0:09:00.520 fan base. You know, she had done Sue's and that 0:09:00.720 --> 0:09:05.160 Leonard Cohen song and it had been very popular. Um, 0:09:05.280 --> 0:09:11.720 we would play you know, three thousand seats Hall's college concerts, 0:09:11.840 --> 0:09:16.120 things like that. She had a very small group. She 0:09:16.200 --> 0:09:21.720 had a bass player, Bill Lee, who was Spike Lee's father, 0:09:22.480 --> 0:09:26.880 and a piano player named Paul Harris. And you know, 0:09:27.000 --> 0:09:30.599 we just take a plane on Thursday night, get to 0:09:30.640 --> 0:09:34.040 a college town, play a college concert on Friday, player 0:09:34.040 --> 0:09:38.560 another one on Saturday, and come on on Sunday. So 0:09:38.679 --> 0:09:41.880 how close did you get to Judy Collins herself? Well, 0:09:42.240 --> 0:09:45.040 I mean as close as anybody could get. I mean 0:09:45.120 --> 0:09:50.040 she she had a very personal life. She was having 0:09:50.080 --> 0:09:55.320 a romance with Steven Stills at the time. Uh. We 0:09:55.400 --> 0:09:57.720 traveled all over the country for a year and a half. 0:09:58.120 --> 0:10:00.920 I mean we had some good times and we had 0:10:00.960 --> 0:10:06.160 some bad times. Okay, how do you manage being a 0:10:06.200 --> 0:10:10.440 tour manager while you're going to Princeton at the same time. Well, 0:10:10.520 --> 0:10:13.079 I don't know, Bob, I don't know how old you are, 0:10:13.200 --> 0:10:19.719 But in in the sixties you could skip a lot 0:10:19.760 --> 0:10:21.959 of classes and still get a good grade if you 0:10:22.000 --> 0:10:26.520 could write a good paper. Um, So I mean, I 0:10:26.559 --> 0:10:29.600 don't I my roommates used to think I didn't take 0:10:29.640 --> 0:10:33.360 my college life very seriously. But I did graduate and 0:10:33.400 --> 0:10:37.920 get my degree, and so that's that's what matters. And 0:10:37.760 --> 0:10:42.000 I ran in some good professors, and so I mean 0:10:43.559 --> 0:10:47.840 it was a very loose time. Okay. So if I 0:10:47.880 --> 0:10:50.000 talked to the other students at Princeton at the time, 0:10:50.000 --> 0:10:52.439 would they say, oh, yeah, that's the enigma, that guy's 0:10:52.480 --> 0:10:58.680 really never around doing his own thing. That would be true. Okay. 0:10:58.880 --> 0:11:04.200 So what was Albert rousemidlike? He was amazing. I mean, 0:11:04.600 --> 0:11:08.080 for a lot of people were kind of intimidated by him. 0:11:08.200 --> 0:11:14.240 I somehow got on his good side right off the bat. Uh. 0:11:14.280 --> 0:11:18.319 He would He had a very different view from most managers, 0:11:18.559 --> 0:11:23.560 which was that you actually shouldn't do a lot of 0:11:23.720 --> 0:11:30.400 public appearances. In other words, he turned down almost every 0:11:30.440 --> 0:11:35.440 television show appearance that was offered to Bob Dylan. Uh. 0:11:35.760 --> 0:11:38.880 He turned down everything for the band until finally Ed 0:11:38.960 --> 0:11:43.640 Sullivan offered them to come on and then we took that, 0:11:44.000 --> 0:11:47.960 you know. So, I mean Albert's thought was most artists 0:11:48.040 --> 0:11:51.160 are out there too much and and you gotta have 0:11:51.240 --> 0:11:55.360 a little mystery to you. And the second thing about 0:11:55.360 --> 0:12:00.400 Albert was he believed that if if if you had 0:12:00.440 --> 0:12:03.880 signed a bad record contract when you were really young 0:12:05.000 --> 0:12:10.880 and somehow now you've gotten really good, then he should 0:12:10.920 --> 0:12:14.319 be able to go in and completely renegotiate that contract 0:12:14.400 --> 0:12:19.320 with the record company. And he did that regularly. Used 0:12:19.320 --> 0:12:25.000 to drive Moaston or you know Oskar men and crazy, 0:12:25.080 --> 0:12:27.720 but he did it all the time. So what was 0:12:27.760 --> 0:12:33.040 his negotiating style. We'll go on strike, we just won't 0:12:33.040 --> 0:12:37.120 show up at the studio. You may have him my 0:12:37.360 --> 0:12:41.640 artists with a really bad royalty rate, but you're not 0:12:41.679 --> 0:12:46.120 gonna have any output. So what good is it doing you? 0:12:47.840 --> 0:12:50.680 And was he a raver or he was he quiet 0:12:50.720 --> 0:12:57.480 and intense? No, he could. He could scream at people. Uh, 0:12:57.760 --> 0:13:00.640 if he got really angry, he would. He could be 0:13:00.800 --> 0:13:05.720 very intimidated. I'd see him throw people out of a room, 0:13:05.760 --> 0:13:11.240 you know. So you know he's he's unfortunately no longer 0:13:11.280 --> 0:13:14.720 with us, and he has a certain reputation. Would you 0:13:14.760 --> 0:13:18.480 consider him, based on your experience, to be a great manager. Yes, 0:13:19.040 --> 0:13:24.120 I'd consider him to me maybe the greatest manager. And 0:13:24.160 --> 0:13:26.120 if you can amplify that a little bit, well, I 0:13:26.480 --> 0:13:28.960 think even David Geffen would probably tell you that he 0:13:29.080 --> 0:13:34.360 learned an awful lot from Albert Grossman. Uh And you know, 0:13:34.480 --> 0:13:37.800 people could argue that maybe David Geffen was the best 0:13:38.120 --> 0:13:43.360 manager for a while. Uh So, I mean he was 0:13:43.600 --> 0:13:48.080 incredibly protective of his artists, and the artist felt that 0:13:48.200 --> 0:13:52.280 protection and in that sense, and he never made you 0:13:52.360 --> 0:13:58.880 do stupid stuff, you know, I mean, never me anybody, 0:13:59.000 --> 0:14:02.000 uh dress a certain way or anything. I mean you 0:14:02.080 --> 0:14:08.160 think of all the stories of Marvin Gay rebelling against 0:14:08.240 --> 0:14:12.839 Motown because they wanted him to dress in certain costumes 0:14:12.840 --> 0:14:14.800 and stuff like that and he didn't want to do it. 0:14:15.520 --> 0:14:20.240 Albert never got into that. Okay. When Albert get involved 0:14:20.240 --> 0:14:23.360 in the music, were only the business, only the business. 0:14:23.920 --> 0:14:28.600 He felt that the artist's job was make the music 0:14:28.720 --> 0:14:31.520 and decide what he wanted to do, and his job 0:14:31.640 --> 0:14:34.720 was just to protect the artists and make sure that 0:14:35.400 --> 0:14:38.600 he got treated fairly. Now, you were in the belly 0:14:38.680 --> 0:14:45.360 of the beast, and then Dylan Jettison, Albert Todd Rundwyn 0:14:45.440 --> 0:14:51.320 did too. What's your viewpoint on those situations? Well, Bob 0:14:52.640 --> 0:14:56.280 leaving Albert had more to deal with the dispute over publishing. 0:14:58.800 --> 0:15:03.200 Albert from the beginning it had owned half of Bob's publishing, 0:15:04.480 --> 0:15:08.480 and Bob didn't think that was fair, and he thought 0:15:08.520 --> 0:15:13.200 he was paying Albert too much money. And Albert, though 0:15:13.280 --> 0:15:17.200 willing to renegotiate any artists contract for the record company, 0:15:17.320 --> 0:15:22.240 was not willing to renegotiate his publishing contract with Bob, 0:15:22.360 --> 0:15:26.720 and so it came to a split. Uh. But then 0:15:28.360 --> 0:15:38.400 almost eight months after that, Jannis Joplin died accidentally, UH, 0:15:38.440 --> 0:15:44.400 of an overdose. And Albert had really invested a lot 0:15:44.440 --> 0:15:51.360 of emotion, heart love into Janis's career, and that really 0:15:51.480 --> 0:15:56.080 killed him. And you know, I just watched him pull back. 0:15:56.120 --> 0:16:01.520 He stopped going into Manhattan, UH, stopped going into the 0:16:01.600 --> 0:16:06.280 office and and just spent all his time in Woodstock. 0:16:07.560 --> 0:16:12.200 Um started building a restaurant called the Bear and of 0:16:12.320 --> 0:16:16.080 recording studio, and it was like, I don't have anything 0:16:16.120 --> 0:16:19.720 to do with this business. Is is too cruel. And 0:16:19.800 --> 0:16:24.160 yet you know, he started spending more time on his 0:16:24.320 --> 0:16:29.680 restaurant than he did on the music business. Okay, So 0:16:29.840 --> 0:16:31.960 when you would be on the road with his acts, 0:16:32.240 --> 0:16:34.160 would you ever get a call from him about this 0:16:34.240 --> 0:16:35.920 and that? Or you were pretty much on your own. 0:16:36.880 --> 0:16:42.200 I was on my own until a critical moment. For instance, 0:16:42.240 --> 0:16:45.680 I mean the story I tell him the book about 0:16:45.760 --> 0:16:49.880 the band's debut at winter Land, right, so that would 0:16:49.880 --> 0:16:52.440 be a moment where Albert would come out on the 0:16:52.520 --> 0:16:59.120 road to be there. And so when Robbie Robertson got 0:16:59.160 --> 0:17:02.120 a hundred and re fever and couldn't keep anything in 0:17:02.200 --> 0:17:05.160 his stomach the day before we were to have our 0:17:05.240 --> 0:17:11.199 debut at winter Land, Albert was there, and Albert was 0:17:11.240 --> 0:17:14.600 the one said we're not going to cancel, and Bill 0:17:14.640 --> 0:17:18.880 Graham was saying, well, I'll get a hypotensis, and so 0:17:20.119 --> 0:17:25.760 they they brought in a hypnotsus and he put Robbie 0:17:25.760 --> 0:17:31.080 in a trance and he told him your stomach will 0:17:31.119 --> 0:17:34.400 feel as calm as a mountain lake, and your head 0:17:34.560 --> 0:17:37.560 will feel like the north wind is blowing on, and 0:17:37.600 --> 0:17:41.240 your legs will feel like springs. And he brought him 0:17:41.240 --> 0:17:43.680 out of the trance and he said, whenever you hear 0:17:43.720 --> 0:17:49.600 the word grow, all those feelings will expand. And so 0:17:50.720 --> 0:17:54.080 Robbie looked around and he felt his head and he 0:17:54.119 --> 0:17:58.280 didn't feel feverish. And Levan said, let's go play some 0:17:58.400 --> 0:18:02.200 rock and roll, and so literally the opening act had 0:18:02.200 --> 0:18:04.399 already gone off the stage, and we got in a 0:18:04.520 --> 0:18:10.320 car and police escort to Winterland got on, played the 0:18:10.359 --> 0:18:14.400 gig and when Robbie came off, he said to Richard Manuel, 0:18:14.480 --> 0:18:17.959 the piano player who the hyperness side, put him right 0:18:18.000 --> 0:18:21.480 behind the speakers, so he had a sightline to Robbie, 0:18:22.359 --> 0:18:24.919 but he was much closer to Richard Manuel. And Robbie 0:18:24.960 --> 0:18:28.480 said to Richard, wasn't that weird? Between every song this 0:18:28.560 --> 0:18:32.000 guy was yelling grow? And of course Richard said, well, 0:18:32.040 --> 0:18:35.679 I never heard a word. So somehow they gotten on 0:18:35.760 --> 0:18:42.119 a frequency together. Okay, so eventually you graduate from Princeton, 0:18:42.560 --> 0:18:45.919 and granted it's a few decades back, but don't you 0:18:45.960 --> 0:18:48.080 say to yourself, well, now it's really my life that 0:18:48.200 --> 0:18:50.160 I want to, you know, set the world on fire. 0:18:50.760 --> 0:18:52.439 You don't really want to be a road manager at 0:18:52.440 --> 0:18:55.720 that point? What's going through your head? No, I was 0:18:55.760 --> 0:18:59.359 having too much fun. I was in Woodstock in nine 0:18:59.440 --> 0:19:03.400 when I grab do it. It was by this time 0:19:03.440 --> 0:19:07.040 I was getting paid a decent amount of money. I 0:19:07.119 --> 0:19:11.320 had a crew of five people that I was managing. 0:19:12.280 --> 0:19:15.199 I had a bunch of musicians in the band that 0:19:15.280 --> 0:19:20.120 I loved and who were making extraordinary music every night. 0:19:20.680 --> 0:19:24.520 And we're on the road a lot. In six nine 0:19:25.280 --> 0:19:28.119 we went to the Woodstock Festival. We went to the 0:19:28.160 --> 0:19:31.720 Isle of Wight with Bob Dylan. I mean, what's not 0:19:31.880 --> 0:19:36.640 to like? Meet the Beatles, you know? I mean? Now, 0:19:36.680 --> 0:19:40.280 I stayed with it for two or three years, and 0:19:40.320 --> 0:19:45.320 then eventually, Uh, most of the artists I cared about 0:19:45.400 --> 0:19:49.199 after I produced the contract for Bangladesh, most of them 0:19:49.200 --> 0:19:53.640 had stopped working, and so I went out to California 0:19:53.680 --> 0:19:59.120 and started making movies and that was different. Okay, let's 0:19:59.119 --> 0:20:02.440 go back to the musical era. How do you end 0:20:02.520 --> 0:20:09.800 up being involved with the band? So? Uh, I was producing. 0:20:10.440 --> 0:20:15.880 I was working for Judy Collins, and Harold Levinthal, who 0:20:15.960 --> 0:20:21.680 was another important manager at that time, decided to stage 0:20:22.080 --> 0:20:28.480 a memorial concert for Woody Guthrie, who had finally died 0:20:28.520 --> 0:20:33.000 after many years of of being in hunting, having hunting 0:20:33.119 --> 0:20:40.160 in his career. And so Harold got Bob and leave 0:20:40.240 --> 0:20:42.919 On and the Hawks as they were known to be 0:20:43.040 --> 0:20:45.720 part of that concert. And Judy was part of the concert. 0:20:45.880 --> 0:20:52.080 And so I was the stage manager for that. And 0:20:52.480 --> 0:20:57.760 so the mysterious Bob Dylan and the Hawks, who had 0:20:57.800 --> 0:21:01.439 been out of sight of everybody since Bob had had 0:21:01.480 --> 0:21:07.240 an accident in the nine six, show up in suits 0:21:07.240 --> 0:21:13.879 with beards and hats and play three amazing what he 0:21:13.960 --> 0:21:17.480 got three songs in this concert. And when it was 0:21:17.560 --> 0:21:25.640 all over, Robbie said to me, because Albert had introduced 0:21:25.680 --> 0:21:32.159 me to Robbie when backstage and told me that I 0:21:32.240 --> 0:21:39.040 had worked for Question and everything, and Robbie said, we're 0:21:39.119 --> 0:21:43.400 thinking of recording our own album and going on the road. 0:21:43.760 --> 0:21:47.080 Would you like to be our tour manager? And I said, 0:21:47.640 --> 0:21:52.800 of course. And so they went off and did music 0:21:52.840 --> 0:21:58.760 from Big Pink. But then Rick Danko drove his car 0:21:58.880 --> 0:22:01.720 off the road into a ditch and broke his neck, 0:22:02.320 --> 0:22:06.399 and so they didn't go out on the road um 0:22:06.440 --> 0:22:12.960 after Big Pink, and that kind of increased their aura. 0:22:13.320 --> 0:22:17.320 They were like, mysterious, who are these people? Nobody's ever 0:22:17.359 --> 0:22:22.480 seen them on stage? And then I took them out 0:22:22.640 --> 0:22:26.800 to California to do the second album at Sammy Davis 0:22:26.880 --> 0:22:31.440 Junior's house, and then after that we did Winner Land 0:22:31.480 --> 0:22:38.400 and then then we were on the road for two years. Okay, 0:22:38.400 --> 0:22:41.040 when they were doing the basement tapes, when they were 0:22:41.119 --> 0:22:44.040 doing the first album, were you around? Are you on 0:22:44.080 --> 0:22:46.400 the road with other people? I was on the road 0:22:46.440 --> 0:22:49.960 with Judy Collins at that time. Okay, sent you that 0:22:50.040 --> 0:22:53.320 personal experience with these people and the people alive, tending 0:22:53.320 --> 0:22:57.240 not to talk, and everybody's dead. Hey, how serious was 0:22:57.320 --> 0:23:01.320 Bob Dylan's motorcycle accident? It was serious. I don't think 0:23:01.320 --> 0:23:04.560 it was. I don't think he he almost killed himself, 0:23:04.560 --> 0:23:13.040 but he hurt himself badly. And you know, honestly, the 0:23:13.160 --> 0:23:20.040 sixties six tour it was pretty crazy in terms of 0:23:21.040 --> 0:23:26.200 that same kind of angry booing and all that nonsense 0:23:26.280 --> 0:23:32.040 that was going on. Uh, and Bob was probably taking 0:23:32.040 --> 0:23:37.000 a fair amount of and fetlemen and uh, I mean 0:23:37.040 --> 0:23:41.119 he told Robert Shelton, the New York Times reporter after 0:23:41.160 --> 0:23:44.400 the accident, that he'd been up for three days when 0:23:44.400 --> 0:23:49.440 he had the accident. So that tells you something. Um, 0:23:49.480 --> 0:23:53.920 So I think he needed to stop. And if that 0:23:55.119 --> 0:24:00.760 was the Almighty telling him watch yourself, maybe that was it. 0:24:01.720 --> 0:24:05.000 But he certainly did slow down, and and then he 0:24:05.080 --> 0:24:10.400 had three kids and four years and started painting and 0:24:10.440 --> 0:24:14.520 then started slowly getting back to making music with the 0:24:14.560 --> 0:24:19.080 band and in Big Pink in the Basement tapes. Okay, 0:24:19.080 --> 0:24:23.240 he's famous for obfiscating tall tales, even the movie about 0:24:23.240 --> 0:24:25.840 the Rolling Thunder review even at Sharon Stone in it. 0:24:26.600 --> 0:24:28.880 So one on one, what was what has been your 0:24:28.880 --> 0:24:33.840 experience with him he was great. I mean I was 0:24:33.920 --> 0:24:40.000 not around on the sixty six tour, which was evidently 0:24:40.160 --> 0:24:45.879 very stressful, so my experiences with him were great. He 0:24:45.920 --> 0:24:48.000 would come out with the band in the summer of 0:24:48.080 --> 0:24:53.000 sixty nine just as a secret special guest artists a 0:24:53.040 --> 0:24:57.120 lot of the time, and so he was very low 0:24:57.200 --> 0:25:01.000 key at that point. Um when we went to the 0:25:01.040 --> 0:25:05.040 Isle of Wight, he was all business. He wanted to 0:25:05.680 --> 0:25:08.080 he wanted to make a great impression. I mean, I 0:25:08.119 --> 0:25:11.880 think the last time he had been in England, uh, 0:25:12.119 --> 0:25:14.520 he had been at Albert Hall and there had been 0:25:14.560 --> 0:25:18.840 a lot of booing, and so he wanted the show 0:25:18.880 --> 0:25:22.679 to be great. And of course, as I say in 0:25:22.720 --> 0:25:26.359 the book, you know, we rented a house on the 0:25:26.359 --> 0:25:30.320 Isle of Wight and set up a rehearsal studio, and 0:25:31.240 --> 0:25:33.919 the night before the gig, the Beatles showed up in 0:25:34.000 --> 0:25:39.199 a helicopter. No, no Paul, but but John, George and 0:25:39.280 --> 0:25:45.040 Ringo and their wives and but instead of you know, jamming, 0:25:45.160 --> 0:25:49.640 Bob want to rehearse and the Beatles hung in there 0:25:50.119 --> 0:25:55.159 and then then eventually everybody started playing you know, rockabilly, 0:25:55.200 --> 0:25:59.560 which was the kind of common genre that leave On 0:25:59.760 --> 0:26:03.639 and John Lennon both knew were you pinching yourself or 0:26:03.680 --> 0:26:06.119 who you ja did at that? I was pinching myself. 0:26:07.440 --> 0:26:11.040 My other one of my other roadies said, oh my god, 0:26:11.440 --> 0:26:14.919 if if we'd had a recorder going, that would have 0:26:14.960 --> 0:26:19.560 been historic. Course, it would have changed it too, if 0:26:19.560 --> 0:26:22.080 we'd had a recorder going, of course. So I mean 0:26:22.119 --> 0:26:24.800 the people I know who work with Bob Dylan today, 0:26:24.840 --> 0:26:28.040 there's a lot of levels of interference in between them 0:26:28.119 --> 0:26:32.480 and Bob. And Bob is uh, let's say, not nonverbal, 0:26:32.600 --> 0:26:36.760 but uh doesn't utter a lot of words. So was 0:26:36.800 --> 0:26:39.159 that your experience with him or was it more of 0:26:39.200 --> 0:26:43.879 a friend experience? No? He he was fairly quiet. He 0:26:44.280 --> 0:26:47.960 doesn't talk a lot. Um. I mean I had a 0:26:48.000 --> 0:26:54.280 few kind of just fun evenings in Woodstock of playing music. 0:26:55.080 --> 0:27:01.560 There was always interesting, um you know what's sucking before 0:27:01.640 --> 0:27:05.600 the Woodstock Festival was very kind of low key. Nobody 0:27:05.640 --> 0:27:09.000 really knew about it and and would so there were 0:27:09.200 --> 0:27:12.840 but A. Grossman had a lot of his musicians living there. 0:27:13.520 --> 0:27:16.160 The jug band was living there, The Butterfield Blues Band 0:27:16.200 --> 0:27:19.800 was living there. Janice was spending a lot of time there. 0:27:19.880 --> 0:27:23.400 The band was there, Bob was there, Peter Yarrow was there. 0:27:23.520 --> 0:27:26.080 I mean it was. It was like a music town, 0:27:27.040 --> 0:27:30.000 but it was a very low key music town. So 0:27:30.119 --> 0:27:36.560 there was a kind of nice late night play, some 0:27:37.480 --> 0:27:40.440 acoustic music stuff that went on, and Bob was very 0:27:40.440 --> 0:27:44.160 good at that. He knew a lot of old songs. Okay, 0:27:44.600 --> 0:27:48.080 now you're working with the band to what did we 0:27:48.160 --> 0:27:50.760 are you if at all involved in the creative level? 0:27:52.560 --> 0:27:56.440 I was not. I was involved in the creative level 0:27:56.560 --> 0:28:00.320 in the sense of when an album was on, I 0:28:00.480 --> 0:28:07.240 helped Robbie do the album covers. I'm a big photography 0:28:07.280 --> 0:28:10.320 collector and so I spent a lot of time on 0:28:10.720 --> 0:28:15.560 trying to find new photographers and so that was part 0:28:15.600 --> 0:28:19.240 of my job. But really my job was to make 0:28:19.280 --> 0:28:25.320 sure that the tours were booked and that that the 0:28:25.320 --> 0:28:28.640 the tours went off. Well, you know, Rick Danko had 0:28:28.680 --> 0:28:32.240 a written on the back of one of his road cases, 0:28:32.320 --> 0:28:38.800 don't bring the entertainer down, and and that's the key. 0:28:38.920 --> 0:28:41.160 You know, the road crew has to make it as 0:28:41.240 --> 0:28:47.400 easy for the musicians to do what they do as possible. Okay, 0:28:47.480 --> 0:28:51.240 we look at the band's career, Uh, first album amazing, 0:28:51.320 --> 0:28:54.120 I believe the second album is even better. Third album 0:28:54.200 --> 0:28:56.240 really good. And then it starts to go downhill, and 0:28:56.240 --> 0:28:59.800 then the band ultimately dissolved. Why do you think that 0:29:00.160 --> 0:29:12.160 they couldn't sustain the mojo? Unfortunately drugs, I mean, uh, 0:29:12.600 --> 0:29:16.920 Richard was a big drinker, and it got worse. He 0:29:17.040 --> 0:29:23.960 became a day drinker. Rick was. There was no white 0:29:23.960 --> 0:29:25.760 powder that you could put in front of him that 0:29:25.840 --> 0:29:30.520 he wouldn't consume as much as he could. And leave On, 0:29:32.360 --> 0:29:35.600 you know, took a lot of valium and eventually started 0:29:36.960 --> 0:29:42.520 playing with arolin. And it was sad, you know it 0:29:42.680 --> 0:29:47.160 just but this is a story of a lot of bands, 0:29:48.000 --> 0:29:52.680