Dylan - Chronicles, Volume One

LOU LEVY, top man of Leeds Music Publishing company, took me up in a taxi to the Pythian Temple on West 70th Street to show me the pocket sized recording studio where Bill Haley and His Comets had recorded Rock Around the Clockthen down to Jack Dempseys restaurant on 58th and Broadway, where we sat down in a red leather upholstered booth facing the front window.

Lou introduced me to Jack Dempsey, the great boxer. Jack shook his fist at me.

You look too light for a heavyweight kid, youll have to put on a few pounds. Youre gonna have to dress a little finer, look a little sharpernot that youll need much in the way of clothes when youre in the ringdont be afraid of hitting somebody too hard.

Hes not a boxer, Jack, hes a songwriter and well be publishing his songs.

Oh, yeah, well I hope to hear em some of these days. Good luck to you, kid.

Outside the wind was blowing, straggling cloud wisps, snow whirling in the red lanterned streets, city types scuffling around, bundled upsalesmen in rabbit fur earmuffs hawking gimmicks, chestnut vendors, steam rising out of manholes.

None of it seemed important. I had just signed a contract with Leeds Music giving it the right to publish my songs, not that there was any great deal to hammer out. I hadnt written much yet. Lou had advanced me a hundred dollars against future royalties to sign the paper and that was fine with me.

John Hammond, who had brought me to Columbia Records, had taken me over to see Lou, asked him to look after me. Hammond had only heard two of my original compositions, but he had a premonition that there would be more.

Back at Lous office, I opened my guitar case, took the guitar out and began fingering the strings. The room was clutteredboxes of sheet music stacked up, recording dates of artists posted on bulletin boards, black lacquered discs, acetates with white labels scrambled around, signed photos of entertainers, glossy portraitsJerry Vale, Al Martino, The Andrews Sisters (Lou was married to one of them), Nat King Cole, Patti Page, The Crew Cutsa couple of console reel-to-reel tape recorders, big dark brown wooden desk full of hodgepodge. Lou had put a microphone on the desk in front of me and plugged the cord into one of the tape recorders, all the while chomping on a big exotic stogie.

Johns got high hopes for you, Lou said.

John was John Hammond, the great talent scout and discoverer of monumental artists, imposing figures in the history of recorded musicBillie Holiday, Teddy Wilson, Charlie Christian, Cab Calloway, Benny Goodman, Count Basie, Lionel Hampton. Artists who had created music that resonated through American life. He had brought it all to the public eye. Hammond had even conducted the last recording sessions of Bessie Smith. He was legendary, pure American aristocracy. His mother was an original Vanderbilt, and John had been raised in the upper world, in comfort and easebut he wasnt satisfied and had followed his own hearts love, music, preferably the ringing rhythm of hot jazz, spirituals and blueswhich he endorsed and defended with his life. No one could block his way, and he didnt have time to waste. I could hardly believe myself awake when sitting in his office, him signing me to Columbia Records was so unbelievable. It would have sounded like a made-up thing.

Columbia was one of the first and foremost labels in the country and for me to even get my foot in the door was serious. For starters, folk music was considered junky, second rate and only released on small labels. Big-time record companies were strictly for the elite, for music that was sanitized and pasteurized. Someone like myself would never be allowed in except under extraordinary circumstances. But John was an extraordinary man. He didnt make schoolboy records or record schoolboy artists. He had vision and foresight, had seen and heard me, felt my thoughts and had faith in the things to come. He explained that he saw me as someone in the long line of a tradition, the tradition of blues, jazz and folk and not as some newfangled wunderkind on the cutting edge. Not that there was any cutting edge. Things were pretty sleepy on the Americana music scene in the late 50s and early 60s. Popular radio was sort of at a standstill and filled with empty pleasantries. It was years before The Beatles, The Who or The Rolling Stones would breathe new life and excitement into it. What I was playing at the time were hard-lipped folk songs with fire and brimstone servings, and you didnt need to take polls to know that they didnt match up with anything on the radio, didnt lend themselves to commercialism, but John told me that these things werent high on his list and he understood all the implications of what I did.

I understand sincerity, is what he said. John spoke with a rough, coarse attitude, yet had an appreciative twinkle in his eye.

Recently he had brought Pete Seeger to the label. He didnt discover Pete, though. Pete had been around for years. Hed been in the popular folk group The Weavers, but had been blacklisted during the McCarthy era and had a hard time, but he never stopped working. Hammond was defiant when he spoke about Seeger, that Petes ancestors had come over on the Mayflower, that his relatives had fought the Battle of Bunker Hill, for Christsake. Can you imagine those sons of bitches blacklisting him? They should be tarred and feathered.

Im gonna give you all the facts, he said to me. Youre a talented young man. If you can focus and control that talent, youll be fine. Im gonna bring you in and Im gonna record you. Well see what happens.

And that was good enough for me. He put a contract in front of me, the standard one, and I signed it right then and there, didnt get absorbed into detailsdidnt need a lawyer, advisor or anybody looking over my shoulder. I would have gladly signed whatever form he put in front of me.

He looked at the calendar, picked out a date for me to start recording, pointed to it and circled it, told me what time to come in and to think about what I wanted to play. Then he called in Billy James, the head of publicity at the label, told Billy to write some promo stuff on me, personal stuff for a press release.

Billy dressed Ivy League like he could have come out of Yalemedium height, crisp black hair. He looked like hed never been stoned a day in his life, never been in any kind of trouble. I strolled into his office, sat down opposite his desk, and he tried to get me to cough up some facts, like I was supposed to give them to him straight and square. He took out a notepad and pencil and asked me where I was from. I told him I was from Illinois and he wrote it down. He asked me if I ever did any other work and I told him that I had a dozen jobs, drove a bakery truck once. He wrote that down and asked me if there was anything else. I said Id worked construction and he asked me where.