Anthony Scaduto - The Dylan Tapes: Friends, Players, and Lovers Talkin Early Bob Dylan

Anthony Scaduto

Edited by Stephanie Trudeau

University of Minnesota Press

Minneapolis

London

Copyright 2022 by Stephanie Trudeau

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Published by the University of Minnesota Press

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ISBN 978-1-4529-6196-5 (epub)

ISBN 978-1-5179-0815-7 (hc)

ISBN 978-1-5179-0816-4 (pb)

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To Michael

Stephanie Trudeau

Stephanie Trudeau

Stephanie Trudeau

A NTHONY S CADUTO WAS AN AVID READER with wide-ranging interests. He wrote poetry and short stories, but his idol was Frank Lloyd Wright. Tony wanted to become an architect. He enrolled in engineering classes at Brooklyn College, but his life took a different direction at a holiday party when a family friend suggested he forget college and architecture and take up his offer of a real job as a copyboy at the New York Post. Tony would make money and he could write. Within a couple of years, he had been promoted from copyboy to a police reporter covering accidents, crimes, and general mayhem in Brooklyn.

From the mid-1950s through the 1960s, the New York Post carried bylines by some of New York Citys best writers: Pete Hamill, James Wexler, and Nora Ephron, who told the editors, Scaduto can write. Give him feature story assignments. By the late 1950s the Mafia was becoming big news and Scaduto was asked to cover it. He told me he got the assignment because he grew up in an Italian neighborhood in Brooklyn and his last name ended with a vowel. He became the Mafia expert for the Post and his coverage earned him the nickname Tough Tony.

Tony also loved music and begged to cover the rock-and-roll sensation Elvis Presley. The Mafia expert staked his claim as the Posts pop music authority. At the time, pop music was broad, encompassing folk, blues, and rock and roll. The early 1960s was the era of the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and Bob Dylan. Tony had written a paperback on the Beatles, then a hardcover publisher, Grosset & Dunlap, asked him to write a serious book on a pop music figure. The editor suggested the albino blues guitarist Johnny Winter. Tony said the only subject worth considering was Bob Dylan.

No one had written a biography of Bob Dylan, and Tony decided to take the same approach he did for the feature stories he wrote for the New York Post: extensive research and comprehensive interviews. He tracked down Dylans friends from high school, including Echo Helstrom, Dylans high school girlfriend who inspired Girl from the North Country. Tony spoke to Dylans second great love, Suze Rotolo, the girl described in Boots of Spanish Leather and who appeared with him on the cover of Dylans second album, The Freewheelin Bob Dylan. Then Tony talked to Echos and Suzes mothers. One interview led to another. Joan Baez, Dylans many mentors and fellow musicians, and the women who mothered the young Bobby Dylan all spoke to Scaduto. He captured their stories as well as their rhythms and colloquialisms. He gave expression to the authentic sounds and voices of subjects like Gerdes Folk City club owner, Mike Porco, who paid for Dylans membership in the musicians union, and the folklorist Izzy Young, who let Dylan read and learn from his huge collection of folk songs, records, and publications and who produced Dylans first concert.

Lots of people spoke to Tony and, finally, Bob Dylan spoke to him. Dylan kept refusing to be interviewed until A. J. Weberman, a Dylanologist who would rummage through Dylans garbage looking for information, told Dylan, Scaduto is writing a real expos on you. Dylan called Tony early one Sunday morning and asked, What are you writing? I aint never done nothing to be exposed about. Tonys response: Talk to me and Ill let you see my manuscript. Dylan read the unfinished manuscript, made corrections of facts, and then sat for an interview. In the end, he said, I like your book. Thats the weird thing about it.

While Tony was interviewing sources and writing the biography, Dylan, his wife, and their children were ensconced in a brownstone he owned on MacDougal Street in Greenwich Village. Dylans children were enrolled at the Little Red School House, a nearby progressive private school. Many of the interview subjects concurred with Tony that Dylan seemed to be in a good place. Dylan discussed his many projects with Tony, his potential books, films, and songwriting.

After more than twenty years in journalism, Tony left the New York Post to pursue a freelance writing career and to complete his Dylan biography. Tony published Bob Dylan: An Intimate Biography in 1971. It was the first serious biography of Bob Dylanactually, the first serious book about any pop music figure.

Widely acclaimed by both critics and fans, this book is still considered one of the first authoritative biographies of Dylan. A paperback edition with updated material and an expanded discography that included unreleased recordings was published in 1973. Tonys book was translated into Italian, French, Spanish, German, Slovenian, Swedish, and Japanese. Fifty years on, new generations of readers are discovering Tonys Dylan biography, and although it is out of print in book form, it is available electronically.

I met Tony in 1972 on a blind date that worked. We fell in love. Ive never been a fan of biographies. I devour detective novels. I wasnt even a big Dylan fan. My heart and soul belonged to John Lennon, but I had listened to Dylans songs as the backdrop to both the civil rights and Vietnam War protests. I graduated from high school in 1966 and college in 1969, so Dylans songs were the anthems of my generation. I loved Dylans transition to rock and now there were three bad boys sharing my affections: Dylan, Lennon, and Jagger.

I wasnt dying to read Tonys book but I was in love with the guy, so I thought I should, at least, make the attempt, and I was blown away. Scaduto captured the atmosphere, the emotions, and all the craziness of the 1960s. He also illuminated the life of a giant musical artist, Bob Dylan. Reading his book, I was there again, in that time. Quite an accomplishment for a former New York Post police reporter and feature writer.

Scaduto captured a cultural and political era, seen through the life of Bob Dylan. He did so by using a prime journalistic technique: the interview. Scadutos narrative skills allowed the voices of all the friends, lovers, mentors, and colleagues to tell the story of the life and accomplishments of Bob Dylan. Just before Tony died, he discovered all his interview tapes in our basement. Anthony Scadutos basement tapes comprise more than thirty-six hours of conversations with Dylan, Joan Baez, Echo Helstrom, Suze Rotolo, John Hammond Sr., Phil Ochs, Izzy Young, Mike Porco, and so on. This book presents the raw material of audio files transcribed to the written word. The voices jump off the page, each person urgently revealing and talking of his or her time with Bob Dylan. They spoke directly to Anthony Scaduto and now they speak to you.