Joan Baez, Kris Kristofferson and more on what Bob Dylan is like

“The band was off taking part in ping pong or playing cards after which within the morning he’d name them in and so they’d reduce a masterpiece. My reminiscence is getting actually crappy. After I attempt to consider the names of particular person songs, I can’t, however once I consider the entire thing it was like being allowed to look at Michelangelo work. I acquired to satisfy his spouse and children and so they had been pleasant, however I by no means spoke to Bob. I used to be too scared. I met him later via Johnny Money as a result of they had been actually shut. That was an actual assembly of the giants.”

Mavis Staples

To advertise a tour celebrating her seventy fifth birthday in 2014, the gospel singer shared a shocking perception into her relationship with a sure curly-haired cutie: 

“Bob Dylan and I turned very shut. He was just a bit folks singer after we first met, a median child, however he knew The Staples Singers. He requested me to marry him however I advised him I wasn’t sufficiently old. Neither of my sisters was married so I couldn’t bounce the gun. I did like Bobby, he was actual cute along with his curly hair. I admired him a lot for his writing. I assumed he was a genius.”

Jakob Dylan 

A singer-songwriter in his personal proper, Jakob was Dylan’s fourth youngster with Sara Lownds. In 2020 to advertise his documentary Echo within the Canyon he spoke to Massive Concern, not about his father particularly however concerning the music revolution of the Nineteen Sixties: 

“That is the appearance of poetry in music, which makes issues limitless. You don’t need to make sense, you don’t need to have an agenda, you might simply categorical regardless of the hell you needed to. These songs require you as a listener to take part, they require you to concentrate – or not listen, simply be hypnotised by the phrases. However it’s a must to take part.” 

He went on to say {that a} music revolution doesn’t essentially end in any real-world change… 

“I’ve by no means actually seen music change society in any sort of impactful approach. It has the phantasm of doing so. And I feel the phantasm is sufficient to preserve you at it. Typically music is simply there to entertain individuals and allow them to really feel higher for 3 and a half minutes. The social affect of this music, how actual was it anyway? What change did it actually convey upon individuals? I didn’t stay in that point, I’m all the time cautious and just a little bit cautious of these scenes and actions.” 

Giovanni Ribisi 

Actor and director Ribisi could also be finest often called Phoebe’s brother in Buddies. However he additionally starred within the 2003 opus Masked and Nameless, written by and starring Bob Dylan. He advised us concerning the expertise a number of years later: 

“Oh man. I’d heard there was one other individual he’d finished a film with on a special movie who was actually excited and did the film to have the ability to work with him. And the primary day they began taking pictures he exhibits up and he launches right into a dialog with Bob, and Bob turned to him and stated, ‘I don’t want any extra man buddies.’ So I heard this story which was considerably intimidating for me, so I feel, ‘I’m simply going to go there and preserve to myself and do the most effective job I can do.’ And I did. However it was pleasing, this voyeuristic factor. We shared a trailer with two rooms. I used to be in a single and he was within the different. He had his guitar and he was taking part in music in there and I might put my ear up towards the wall. He doesn’t learn about that, I don’t even assume he would keep in mind me. However that was particular for me.”

Robbie Robertson 

When Bob Dylan brought about controversy by going electrical, The Band was behind him with Robertson on lead guitar, as he recalled three years earlier than his loss of life in 2023: 

“Bob Dylan heard us and requested us to return and hook up with him. And that was being a part of a musical revolution. I used to be making music that was the voice of a era. Taking part in these electrical exhibits with Bob Dylan within the 60s, I did assume on the time I’d by no means heard of anyone doing this type of factor earlier than. Somebody on the dimensions that he was – the king of folks music, the voice, the man that would write songs that brought about armies to affix collectively – all of the sudden altering every thing and stepping into a special route. And the way in which that individuals reacted; we acquired booed everywhere in the world. And whereas it was taking place, a part of it you might snicker at, and a part of it you might cry. However for us, it was about saying, ‘You realize what? This music we’re making, it’s actually good.’ And we didn’t change, the world modified. The world got here spherical to us.” 

Bruce Hornsby

Hornsby seems on Dylan’s 1990 album Beneath the Purple Sky. A few years in the past he advised us how that got here to be simply the way in which it’s: 

“I didn’t wish to be tardy to the session. Dylan walks in and he introduces himself to everybody. Then takes a bunch of paper out of assorted pockets, places all these items of paper with numerous bits of lyrics written on them on a desk. It’s proper in entrance of the place his mic is positioned. He came visiting to me and stated, ‘Hey Bruce, come right here, let me educate you a tune.’ He taught it to me [Born in Time] and I taught it to the remainder of the band. We performed that a number of instances, then took just a little break. The good drummer Kenny Aronoff began taking part in, then Robben Ford, Randy Jackson and I began jamming alongside. Then Bob is available in. He’s standing there, nodding his head listening to us. He goes to the desk, seems to be on the items of paper, picks one, walks to the microphone and begins singing. And that turned TV Talkin’ Tune. Absolute spontaneity.”

Peggy Seeger 

Edward Norton performs Pete Seeger in A Full Unknown. His real-life half-sister Peggy remembered what the people world was like earlier than Dylan arrived on the scene in an interview in 2019: 

“Joan Baez got here for my autograph in 1961, on the Newport [Folk] Competition. We’ve by no means had a correct dialog however I’d have cherished to. I’d love to do a live performance together with her however she’s too excessive up for me. She’s the people goddess of America. Dylan needed our autograph too, in Minnesota, when he was nonetheless a pupil carrying a tie and carrying just a little briefcase. Two years later, after we went again to Minnesota, Bob Zimmerman had turn into Bob Dylan. And the promoter stated, ‘Do not forget that humorous little man who adopted you round a few years in the past…’” 

Todd Haynes 

Will Timothée Chalamet’s efficiency eclipse the six actors who performed Dylan in I’m Not There in 2007? That movie’s director defined why musicians are ripe for the biopic therapy: 

“I feel it has a lot to do with the large footprint that these artists made. In every case they conjure up a really particular time and place. Musically and culturally they mirrored the contradictions and potentialities and specificities of the instances wherein they lived. They encourage an even bigger story than simply the music itself, although the music is the place it begins.”

Larry ‘Ratso’ Sloman

Author and musician Sloman entered Dylan’s orbit across the time of the Rolling Thunder Revue within the mid-70s as he remembered in 2019: 

“After I first did a chunk on Bob for Rolling Stone about Blood on the Tracks, he favored it a lot he invited me out on the Rolling Thunder tour to cowl it. I realised that others look upon these individuals as demigods, and so they’re simply regular human beings, the identical foibles and wishes and insecurities as all of us have. In all probability the larger you’re the extra insecurities. I discovered that the way in which to work together with Bob is to deal with him like a standard human being. In reality, generally I might even make enjoyable of him in a good-natured approach.”   

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