From "Ohio" to "Bonn" and Bringing It All Back Home With Bob
Plus Irma joins the Stones with time on her side.
Greg Mitchell is the author of more than a dozen books (see link) and now writer/director of three award-winning films aired via PBS, including “Atomic Cover-up” and “Memorial Day Massacre” which are still up at PBS.org. Before all that, he was a longtime editor of the legendary Crawdaddy. You can still subscribe to this newsletter for free.
Okay, no big theme today, just a few highlights.
First, the sound is a little rough, but Neil Young, just starting a tour with Crazy Horse, played “Ohio” today—on the 54th anniversary of the murders, as college presidents today seem okay with calling out police or National Guard to their campuses—at New Orleans’ JazzFest.
Next, you may recall a few days ago I offered a profile of Allen Toussaint with a selection of his songs recorded by fellow New Orleans artists. One was Irma Thomas, of course. On Thursday the Rolling Stones, at the Jazzfest, welcomed her on stage to sing with Mick the song she cut in 1964 which they borrowed for their own “Time Is On Side.”
Irma’s original:
Next, quite thrilled that film I co-produced a few years back, on the global political/social/cultural influence of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, is getting a screening on Monday for the 200th anniversary of the epic work—in Bonn, at the museum in the house where he was born, no less! Below a tribute to the film by Bill Moyers, which includes excerpts and trailer. And here’s link to the companion book I wrote with director Kerry Candaele.
Finally, the greatest photographer of Bob Dylan amid his mid-1960s electric emergence, Daniel Kramer, has passed away. In 1967 I bought the first book with his collection of Dylan pics, but he is most famous for his covers for “Bringing It All Back Home” and “Highway 61 Revisited.” Below the cover for the former along with photo you have never seen of Bob with Sally Grossman with no other (carefully assembled) objects. And here’s a lengthy collection of everything you’d possibly want to know about that photo shoot.
And he took this for Bob’s early novel “Tarantula,” this time with wife Sarah, never used.
It’s a Dog’s Life
“We are accustomed to think of ourselves as an emancipated people; we say that we are democratic, liberty-loving, free of prejudices and hatred. This is the melting-pot, the seat of a great human experiment. Beautiful words, full of noble, idealistic sentiment. Actually we are a vulgar, pushing mob whose passions are easily mobilized by demagogues, newspaper men, religious quacks, agitators and such like. To call this a society of free peoples is blasphemous. What have we to offer the world beside the superabundant loot which we recklessly plunder from the earth under the maniacal delusion that this insane activity represents progress and enlightenment? The land of opportunity has become the land of senseless sweat and struggle. The goal of all our striving has long been forgotten. We no longer wish to succor the oppressed and homeless; there is no room in this great, empty land for those who, like our forefathers before us, now seek a place of refuge. Millions of men and women are, or were until very recently, on relief, condemned like guinea pigs to a life of forced idleness. The world meanwhile looks to us with a desperation such as it has never known before. Where is the democratic spirit? Where are the leaders?”
― Henry Miller, The Air-Conditioned Nightmare
Heady times: Your inclusion of "Everything you'd possibly want to know" of the Dylan and Sally Grossman shoot for Bob's Bringing It All Back album cover is a masterpiece. Loved all the "inside" details (props used, etc.), camera tech and your own conversation with photographer Daniel Kramer. This long, long read brightened my day! Much appreciation to you.