MPR’s Chris Roberts reports on ‘Bob Dylan's American Journey: 1956-1966’ exhibit at Weisman Art Museum. Roberts interviews curator Colleen Sheey about the collection of Dylan artifacts. Roberts also talks with longtime Dinkytown musicians “Spider” John Koerner and Tony Glover about their reflections of time with Bobby Zimmerman when he lived in Minneapolis.
Segment includes music clips.
CHRIS ROBERTS: Bob Dylan was about 18 years old when he laid down this rendition of When I Got Troubles on a Hibbing High School friend's tape recorder. The sound wavers, but you can hear an artist discovering his voice.
[BOB DYLAN, "WHEN I GOT TROUBLES"] Well, I got trouble, trouble's on mind. My. Yep, when I got trouble, trouble's on my mind.
Dylan has been quoted as saying an artist should always be in a state of becoming. The Wiseman Show covers the period when Dylan evolved from a clean-cut Hibbing teen with an electric guitar, to a somber folk singer with a Martin acoustic, to a wild-haired, 20-something provocateur, again, strapped with a Stratocaster.
The exhibition is called Bob Dylan's American Journey, 1956 to 1966. You might name the sections that delve into Dylan's Minnesota years after one of his albums, Bringing It All Back Home. Curator Colleen Sheehy predicts that even somewhat knowledgeable Dylan fans might be surprised by how his time here molded him as an artist.
COLLEEN SHEEHY: The exhibition is an opportunity for us all just to admit flat out that a genius came from Minnesota and has affected really the whole world.
CHRIS ROBERTS: The bulk of the show was put together by Experience Music Project, an interactive museum in Seattle. It contains some 200 Dylan artifacts, including playbills, posters, manuscripts, clothes, instruments, and photos. There are listening and video booths and a complete audio tour. Sheehy added the Hibbing and Dinkytown exhibits to elevate Dylan's original identity as Robert Zimmerman in the telling of his story.
COLLEEN SHEEHY: One of the things we wanted to do with the materials we added was to really show Bobby Zimmerman as a human being, as a teenager growing up, kind of making it up as he goes along, becoming enthralled with rock and roll, and having relationships with all these people. He wasn't an isolated young man.
CHRIS ROBERTS: Sheehy traveled to Northern Minnesota and looked up old friends and acquaintances of the Zimmerman family. She gathered photos and other items to reconstruct the Hibbing of Dylan's youth. The Hibbing Library and Zimmy's Restaurant in downtown Hibbing, which has its own collection of Dylan memorabilia, also contributed to the show. Sheehy obtained her favorite exhibit from Dylan's former high school English teacher, B.J. Rolfzen. It's an essay Dylan wrote on John Steinbeck's novel, The Grapes of Wrath.
COLLEEN SHEEHY: When I first saw this, I just thought, oh, that is like the Rosetta Stone. It explains him.
CHRIS ROBERTS: Sheehy finds unmistakable similarities between protagonist Tom Joad's uprooted life and the nomadic existence of folk singer Woody Guthrie, who would later become Dylan's hero.
COLLEEN SHEEHY: So it was like it all came together. And it explained how he could move on, come down to Minneapolis, be told about Woody Guthrie, and then just be completely fixated on Woody Guthrie. Because he had this background in American literature.
CHRIS ROBERTS: When Dylan did come down to Minneapolis as a student at the U and newcomer to the blossoming folk scene in Dinkytown, he met up with several musicians who would later become legends in their own right, people such as Spider John Koerner and Tony Glover, who, along with the late Dave Ray, formed the now revered folk blues trio Koerner, Ray and Glover. They have their own exhibit in the Dinkytown section of the show. The three befriended Dylan right at the beginning of his musical ascension. They shared booze, smokes, songs, and apparently, instruments.
JOHN KOERNER: This guitar here, it looks like my old guitar.
[LAUGHTER]
COLLEEN SHEEHY: Maybe it is.
CHRIS ROBERTS: Despite what John Koerner remembers, the sign on the Plexiglas case says the guitar belonged to Dylan, in his Dinkytown days.
[BOB DYLAN, "I WAS YOUNG WHEN I LEFT HOME"] I was young when I left home. But I been out a-ramblin' round. And I never wrote a letter to my home.
"I Was Young When I Left Home" is a song Tony Glover helped Dylan record in Minneapolis, in late 1961. Both Koerner and Glover say when they met Dylan, there was nothing remarkable about the future icon.
TONY GLOVER: He was like one of 10, 20 people that were pretty much doing the same thing. And he was, he was OK, nothing special. When I first met him, he was just one of the guys.
JOHN KOERNER: All kinds of things were happening, a lot of partying and a lot of developing the music, and all that kind of stuff. We didn't know what Dylan was going to become at that time, of course. And I'm sure he didn't either, really.
CHRIS ROBERTS: Was he a nice guy?
[LAUGHTER]
TONY GLOVER: He had a chip on his shoulders, kind of arrogant. He had short hair, and I didn't do too well with that at the time because I had long hair. And I didn't trust people with short hair.
JOHN KOERNER: I got along just fine with him. But I know there were people that liked him and people that didn't like him. Like Tony said, he had a little edge to him. But I didn't have any problem with it.
TONY GLOVER: And after we got to know each other a little better, we got along fine. There was no problem. It was just the initial impression was that he was this arrogant, I'm a hot shot kind of attitude. My understanding was there was two factions. There was people who were like Dave Ray and people like Dylan. And if you like the one, you didn't like the other. Is that true, John, do you remember that?
JOHN KOERNER: No, I don't. But it might be true anyway. To me, I would say it was quite apparent that he had the knack in songwriting and in performing. He had an attitude and the knack. And I think he stuck out somewhat that way.
CHRIS ROBERTS: Koerner and Glover's recollections reinforce Colleen Sheehy's understanding of the early '60s Minneapolis folk scene. She says it was one not only of sharing and camaraderie, but of artists jostling for position and attention.
COLLEEN SHEEHY: It was a very competitive environment that prepared Dylan to go to New York. And he could hold his own with the people out in the village because he had gone through a baptism in Hibbing and Dinkytown.
CHRIS ROBERTS: Historically, there's been a tension in the relationship between Dylan and his native state. When he first arrived in New York in the early '60s, Dylan disavowed his Minnesota roots. He said he was an orphan, raised in carnivals. In his own aloof way, he appears to be warming up to Minnesota again, while Minnesotans have always been almost overly eager to embrace him. Spider John Koerner, Tony Glover, and Colleen Sheehy all agree that Dylan's hesitance to show Minnesota pride fits his personality.
JOHN KOERNER: It doesn't surprise me that he tried to separate himself from the state. He tried to separate himself from anything he felt like, to make his own deal.
TONY GLOVER: He's from Minnesota. He's from New York. He's from California. He's from New Mexico. He's been to a lot of places, and they're all part of what he does, who he is.
COLLEEN SHEEHY: There's this ambivalence where, oh, he moved away. He doesn't shout out to us when he's here in concert. Screw him, we don't like him either. I don't care if he ever sets foot in Minnesota again. I am fine with the fact that he has released 44 albums. I can live with those for the rest of my life. That's enough for me. I don't feel like we need to have that acknowledgment.
CHRIS ROBERTS: For Sheehy, there's one thing people will have to acknowledge when they visit the Wiseman. It's that Bob Dylan, of Hibbing, Minnesota, is an artist of major significance, worthy of a museum exhibition.
COLLEEN SHEEHY: He has been the subject of conversation, argument, and controversy for 45 years.
CHRIS ROBERTS: Sheehy says she can't think of another artist in any field who's generated as much discussion. I'm Chris Roberts, Minnesota Public Radio News.
[BOB DYLAN, "DINK'S SONG"] If I had wings, like Noah's dove, I'd fly the river to the one I love. Fare thee well, my honey, fare thee well. I had a man who was long and tall, moved his body like a cannonball. Fare thee well, my honey, fare thee well.
Remember one evening, it was drizzling rain. And round my heart, I felt an aching pain. Fare thee well, my honey, fare the well. Once I wore my apron low. Couldn't keep you away from my door. Fare thee well, my honey.
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