Bringing It All Back Home: Cover Posers

Unfortunately poor enlargement of the glass clown collage on the wall over the mantel (to the left) on the Bringing It All Back Home album cover. It was made for Bernard Paturel by Bob Dylan himself, from broken glass about to be discarded.

Paturel ran the Café Espresso in Woodstock, where Dylan and his friends would often gather.

Bob Dylan also had a workroom above the Café.

Dylan’s old Woodstock friend Bernard Paturel – to whom Dylan had given a loosely specified job in order to prevent Paturel from having to go and work for IBM – summed up Dylan’s omnifaceted nature better than anyone before or since, with his ineffable aphorism, “There are so many sides to Bob Dylan, he’s round.”

'Mrs. Paturel, whose husband is no longer living, recalls Dylan as a quiet and shy young man who would sheepishly ask permission to try out new material on his hosts. In the winter of 1963-64, the space above the café became the birthplace of songs that later would appear on the album "Another Side of Bob Dylan," including "My Back Pages" and "It Ain't Me Babe"

"We never thought of him as somebody really special," Mrs. Paturel said. "He was just part of our lives. It's awesome when you think about it in retrospect. ... But back then, he was just Bob Dylan who stayed above the café."'

Bob Dylan was photographed in his workroom above the Café Espresso (and with friends like John Sebastian in the Café), Woodstock, 1964, by Douglas R. Gilbert.

Gnaoua. No. 1. Spring 1964. Tangier; printed in Belgium: Ira Cohen, 1964. 0436-0761

Ira Cohen (1935 – 2011) was an American poet, publisher, photographer and filmmaker. Cohen lived in Morocco and in New York City in the 1960s. In Tangier Cohen edited and published Gnaoua, a literary magazine devoted to exorcism and Beat-era writings (prose and poetry), introducing the work of William S. Burroughs, Ian Sommerville, Brion Gysin, Harold Norse, Allen Ginsberg, Michael McClure, J. Sheeper [Irving Rosenthal], Jack Smith, Marc Schleifer, Mohammed Ben Abdullah Yussufi, J. Weir, Stuart Gordon, Tatiana, Alfred Jarry, Gnaoua Song, and Rosalind.

Irving Rosenthal edited Big Table, no. 1 and introduced Cohen to Jack Smith. The portfolio of Smith’s work in Gnaoua presents images from his notorious film “Flaming Creatures” (1963) in which Rosenthal appears. Marc Schleifer (later Prof. S. Abdullah Schleifer) edited the first 4 issues of Kulchur during which time he was married to Marian Zazella, who appeared in the photographs of Smith’s The Beautiful Book. Rosalind was Cohen’s then-girlfriend; at the suggestion of Brion Gysin she wrote The Hashish Cookbook. It was published in 1966 under the pseudonym Panama Rose.

Cohen also produced Jilala, field recordings of trance music by a sect of Moroccan dervishes. Gnaoua musicians generally refers to people who also practice healing rituals, with apparent ties to pre-Islamic African animism rites. In Moroccan popular culture, Gnauoas, through their ceremonies, are considered to be experts in the magical treatment of scorpion stings and psychic disorders. They heal diseases by the use of colors, condensed cultural imagery, perfumes and fright.

Gnaouas play deeply hypnotic trance music, marked by low-toned, rhythmic sintir melodies, call-and-response singing, hand clapping and cymbals called krakeb (plural of karkaba). Gnawa ceremonies use music and dance to evoke ancestral saints who can drive out evil, cure psychological ills, or remedy scorpion stings.

"Gnaoua seems to have a place of prominence. It presides over the the scene from the mantelpiece, and, along with Sally Grossman's red dress is the focal point of color for the composition. It is a powerful symbol for an album in which Dylan would distance himself from the folk scene and the protest songs of yore and strike out in a new and more personal direction."

Ira Cohen's Gnaoua magazine is available online.

Lord Buckley. The Best of Lord Buckley. New York City: Crestview, CRV-801 (mono), 1963.

The Nazz -- Gettysburg address -- The hip gahn -- Jonah and the whale -- Marc Anthony's funeral oration -- Nero.

Recorded in 1951 in Los Angeles; featuring material previously issued by Vaya Records (VLP-10-1715) on two Vaya 10" LPs in 1955.

Seen in the centre of the mantelpiece.

"Lord Buckley (Richard Myrle Buckley; 1906 – 1960) was a stage performer, recording artist, monologist, and poet/comic, who in the 1940s and 50s created a character that was, according to the New York Times, “an unlikely persona ... part English royalty, part Dizzy Gillespie” Michael Packenham, writing in the Baltimore Sun, described him as “a magnificent stand-up comedian... Buckley's work, his very presence, projected the sense that life's most immortal truths lie in the inextricable weaving together of love and irony -- affection for all humanity married to laughter.”

See Bob Dylan's Roots for information about Lord Buckley, Bob Dylan, Black Cross and Hezekiah Jones.

Another Side of Bob Dylan is the fourth studio album by Bob Dylan, released on 8 August 1964 by Columbia Records.

"The songs are insanely honest, not meanin t twist any heads an written only for the reason that i myself me alone wanted and needed t write them."

Bob Dylan performed the entirety of Another Side of Bob Dylan as he had previous records – solo. In addition to his usual acoustic guitar and harmonica, Dylan provides piano on one selection, "Black Crow Blues".

Sing Out! editor Irwin Silber complained that Dylan had "somehow lost touch with people" and was caught up in "the paraphernalia of fame".

Central position.

Life was not always a tragedy

This was the God Jehovah.
It was a vast comet and
is now the planet Jupiter.
The Greeks called it Zeus.
The Egyptians called it
Amen. In ancient days it
passed close to the earth
and massacred mankind
in world-wide holocausts,
floods and earth-quakes.

Published by Earth Company, 237 East 5th Street New York, New York 10003.

Seen middle left, near the harmonica.

Is this a different outfit to the Earth Society then at East 12th Street in the East Village?

The Earth Company saw its mission as protecting earth from collisions with comets and planets. Their pamphlet interprets Immanuel Velikovsky’s notion that life on earth was so deeply affected by near-collisions of Venus with Jupiter and Mars that the impressions and interpretations of observers found their way into myths and semi-historical documents of peoples of many cultures. The pamphlet also claims that the Ark of the Covenant is a representation of a comet, which is what the white shape in the center of the pamphlet cover is intended to represent.

Impressions (Musical group), and Johnny Pate. Keep on Pushing. New York: ABC, 1964.

Seen just below centre.

"Keep On Pushing is an album by American soul music group the Impressions, released in 1964. It was the biggest album of their career, reaching the top ten on both the Billboard Pop and R&B Album charts, peaking at #8 and #4, respectively. It produced five Pop and R&B top 40 hit singles, two of which, ("Amen" and the title track), hit the Billboard pop top ten, and a third of which, "Talking About My Baby", came close, peaking at #12."

Another link between Bob Dylan and The Impressions is that Bob Dylan covered the song 'People Get Ready' 4 times.

Johnson, Robert. King of the Delta Blues Singers. (Thesaurus of classic jazz), [New York]: Columbia, 1961.

Recorded in San Antonio and Dallas, Texas, 1936-1937.

Crossroads Blues 2:28
Terraplane Blues 2:58
Come On In My Kitchen 2:46
Walking Blues 2:28
Last Fair Deal Gown Down 2:38
32-20 Blues 2:50
Kindhearted Woman Blues 2:50
If I Had Possession Over Judgement Day 2:34
Preaching Blues 2:50
When You Got A Good Friend 2:35
Rambling On My Mind 2:49
Stones In My Passway 2:25
Traveling Riverside Blues 2:43
Milkcow's Calf Blues 2:14
Me And The Devil Blues 2:30
Hellhound On My Trail 2:36

Seen just below centre.

Weill, Kurt, Bertolt Brecht, Georg Kaiser, Lotte Lenya, and Roger Bean. Lotte Lenya sings Berlin theater songs of Kurt Weill. [New York]: Columbia Records, 1960? KL 5056.

Sung in German; Alabama-Song in English. Texts by Bert Brecht and Georg Kaiser, program notes and German texts, with English translations. Sung by Lotte Lenya, with orchestral accompaniment ; Roger Bean, conductor. Recorded 5-7 July 1955, in the Friedrich-Ebert-Halle, Harburg-Hamburg. Painting on front cover by Saul Bolasni.

Die Dreigroschenoper
A1 Moritat
A2 Barbara-Song
A3 Seeräuber-Jenny
Aufstieg Und Fall Der Stadt Mahagonny
A4 Havanna-Lied
A5 Alabama-Song
A6 Wie Man Sich Bettet
Happy End
B1 Bilbao-Song
B2 Surabaya-Johnny
B3 Was Die Herren Matrosen Sagen (Tango)
Das Berliner Requiem
B4 Vom Ertrunkenen Mädchen
Der Silbersee
B5 Lied Der Fennimore
B6 Cäsars Tod

To be found lower centre.

Von Schmidt, Eric. The Folk Blues of Eric Von Schmidt. Bergenfield, N.J.: Prestige (FL 14005), 1963.

Crow Jane.
Gulf Coast blues.
Brave Wolfe.
Junco partner.
De Kalb blues.
Lolita.
Champagne don't hurt me baby.
Buffalo skinners.
Jack o' diamonds.
He was a friend of mine.
Cocoa Beach blues.
Down on me.
Titanic.

"Eric Von Schmidt (1931 – 2007) was an American singer-songwriter. Von Schmidt is widely (and erroneously) credited as the author of the song, "Baby, Let Me Follow You Down", which was for years a staple of Bob Dylan's musical catalogue. In a spoken introduction to the song on his 1962 self-titled debut album, Dylan jokingly mentioned that he first "heard" the song from "Ric von Schmidt" and told of meeting him "in the green pastures of Harvard University." In fact, von Schmidt had adapted the song from Blind Boy Fuller and credited Reverend Gary Davis as author of "three-quarters" of the song. In 1979, he co-wrote a book of the same name about the Cambridge scene. In 1963, Eric von Schmidt and Richard Fariña recorded in London's Dobell's Jazz Record store, with Bob Dylan on harmonica."

J'suis d'accord / Oh oh cheri / Tous les garcons et les filles / Il est parti un jour / Françoise Hardy

Vinyl 7" EP
Vogue EPL 7967
France 1962

Lower left.

Françoise Hardy Wikipedia entry.

for françoise hardy

at the seine's edge a giant shadow of notre dame seeks t' grab my foot sorbonne students whirl by on thin bicycles swirlin' lifelike colors of leather spin the breeze yawns food far from the bellies of erhard meetin' johnson piles of lovers fishing kissing lay themselves on their books. boats. old men clothed in curly mustaches float on the benches blankets of tourists in bright red nylon shirts with straw hats of ambassadors ...

-Bob Dylan (1964 - liner notes to Another Side of Bob Dylan)

Yiqing, Richard Wilhelm, and Cary F. Baynes. The I Ching; or, Book of Changes. (Bollingen Series XIX) [New York]: Pantheon Books, [1962, ©1950].

The Richard Wilhelm translation rendered into English by Cary F. Baynes. Foreword by C.G. Jung. One-volume. (The 1950 edition was in two volumes.)

"More than just a translation, Richard Wilhelm's I Ching is a profound introduction to the Chinese world-view. The I Ching (Yi Jing) is recognized by both Confucians and Taoists as a foundational work, and Wilhelm shows why. He separates his work into three books. The first book is about the hexagrams--the meanings of the lines and Wilhelm's extensive comments. The second presents two early commentaries that interpret the wisdom of the divinatory text, also with Wilhelm's helpful notes. And the third book takes us back to the hexagrams for more detailed commentary from both ancient Chinese thinkers and Wilhelm. Wilhelm is able to offer such enormous assistance because he spent the better part of a decade in China studying under classically trained scholars. His love for the work is thus as broad as his understanding. The I Ching was originally used for divination, kind of like palm reading or interpreting the stars. It differs from simple prognostication, however, in that it demands us, as diviners, to cultivate an understanding of the world and ourselves. Without this understanding, the text is useless, hence the value of the commentaries, particularly Wilhelm's. This version is not without its biases, of course--it is a European's understanding of the I Ching, through a late-Qing dynasty Confucian perspective, translated into English by a Jungian psychoanalyst. Nonetheless, it succeeds like no other." -- Brian Bruya

Visible on the album cover photograph, but only an unrecognisable corner, the object is clear in this picture.

Lower left.

Clockwise from the top.

Joan Baez and Bob Dylan. Photograph by Daniel Kramer. Unknown date and location. Possibly early 1965?

Unknown photograph of Bob Dylan and police.

Allen Ginsberg in a top hat.

Bob Dylan at the piano, Bringing it All Back Home recording sessions. January, 1965. Daniel Kramer in his book, “Bob Dylan: A Portrait of the Artist’s Early Years” remembered:

“Between takes, Dylan would work individually with the musicians until he was satisfied with what was happening. He was patient with them and they were patient with him. His method of working, the certainty of what he wanted kept things moving. He would listen to the playbacks in the control booth, discuss what was happening with Tom Wilson, and move on to the next number. If he tried something that didn’t go well, he would put if off for another session. In this way, he never bogged down — he just kept on going.”

The girl massaging Dylan's scalp is the filmmaker and performance artist Barbara Rubin.

Bob Dylan in a top hat, Philadelphia, October 10 1964 - another photograph which must be by Daniel Kramer? (Attributions to October 12 1964 are wrong.)

Daniel Kramer: "The first Dylan concert I photographed was in Philadelphia. Someone had given Bob a top hat and he wore it throughout the trip. I thought it was perfect on him."

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Bringing It All Back Home: Cover Posers

The Cover

Minutiae

Back cover

Sally Grossman