Bob Dylan's 1966 Motorcycle Crash - Real or Fake?

I watched the No Direction Home DVD again last night. Near the end is the statement that after he returned from England he got into a near fatal motorcycle accident which put his career on hold for a while. I always took this to be the truth. The last half of the movie does a good job of showing how crazy his life must have been at that point with the folk music types calling him a traitor, concerts where he was booed continuously during the electric portions and the press asking the most inane questions. I did a quick Google search and I was surprised to find that some people think he faked it or at the least it was not as severe as what was said at the time. After watching the movie, I almost believe the faked crash stories as the pressures on him at the time must have been unbelievable. I also see how he used to say early in his career he was raised in Gallup, New Mexico among other things so he had a history of playing with the truth. So what do people on this forum think: Real or fake?

 

He may have fallen off, but I don't think it was anywhere near as bad as they claimed. Didn't they say he almost died? He probably scraped his knee. I think it was a convenient excuse for a much needed, and well deserved, rest.

 

I dont think the accident was nearly as bad as they would have you believe. The down time gave Dylan a break from the "fans", the media, and probably most importantly, the drugs.

 

Heylin (in "Behind the Shades") reckons that he merely suffered whiplash and some associated contusions, and maintains that statements as to the crash being "near fatal" were made up for the purpose of allowing Bob to disappear for a while.

What I find interesting about the crash is that a lot of people see it as a demarcation between "Dylan the genius" and "Dylan the underachiever". Yet John Wesley Harding appeared after the crash, and we know that he recorded what became The Basement Tapes during the following year, so it's clear that this is a false demarcation. It's all part of the mythology I suppose.

 

It conveniently got him out of the back-breaking touring schedule thet Albert Grossman had contracted him to. I suspect that it saved his life, not to mention a LOT of lawsuits. I always thought it interesting that the Beatles got off the touring merry-go-round at the same time. They didn't have to fake anything, Just give Brian the word as a united front. Albert seems to have been a bit rougher on his charges, continuing to contract away their lives.
Not a bad result.

 

what drugs was he taking?

 

I've heard some talk that the bike accident was a cover for Dylan going out of the public eye to kick heroin.

 

Bob's was certainly not as bad as Richard Farina's.
Wonder if Bob thought this to be a good story for himself - only with Bob surviving a crash.
IIRC, Farina's crash was in the spring of 1966.

Deke

 

Exactly, and he got out of a big tour as well.

 

Amphetamines, mainly, if we are to believe Heylin. Heylin did speculate however that Dylan was using heroin at least some of the time; this might account for the fact that during the acoustic part of his shows, he tended to play slowly and dreamily, whereas during the electric set he was (by all accounts) jumping around on the stage (when presumably he had had some speed).

 

I'm not sure of the exact date of Farina's death, but Dylan learned of his death during the tour (he also learned of his friend Paul Clayton's death when he had arrived in Australia in April).

 

April 30, 1966. The day his book was published and on the 21st birthday of his wife Mimi (sister of Joan Baez).

 

Watching the "Eat The Document" outtake with Lennon in the back of the taxi, I'd say heroin definitely played a part.

 

We'll never know for sure. Just like we'll never know for sure if Paul McCartney really did die back in 1966. He might have, you know.

 

Count me in with the camp that believes that he really did crash his cycle, but that it was less severe than reported and that he needed time to chill out.

PRIOR to watching the "No Direction Home" biopic, I thought the cycle crash was a complete fabrication, but after thinking more about just how young Dylan was at the time of the crash and just how much pressure he was under, it actually seems more plausible to me that the crash was real.

 

Based on the books, interviews, etc most theorize that Dylan absolutely did crash his motorbike. The severity is in question, but not the actual event. However all one needs to do is look at the Italian press conference in No Direction Home to realize that Dylan leading up to his crash was not a well person at this point.

By most accounts, and even video (the begining of Eat The Document) Dylan was into hard drugs, add the whirl wind lifestyle, travel, business pressures from Grossman, and the creative pressure of his own achievment in the previous 18 months its only logical that he was due to "crash".

How much is related to the physical motorcylce crash, and how much was a mental breakdown/recovery will be debated forever. Scorcesse (sp) could have asked, and when the movie concluded I was blown away but left wondering why he never eve asked the question. Bob ain't saying at this point, and Sara would probably be the only other party that could tell the story. She never will.

Cassius

 

I think he did.

 

If McCartney did die in '66, then his replacement was a darn good songwriter, too. Lucky break, wasn't it?

 

Yep, this pretty much sums it up.

BTW, the interviews in No Direction Home were conducted by Dylan's manager Jeff Rosen. He was filming these years before Scorcesse was involved in the project. No Direction Home is very much an authorized biography by the Dylan camp (a very good one though). Scorcesse helped select and assemble the raw materials. I find it interesting that Scorcesse gets so much credit for the documentary, when in a way, Dylan just used the director as another mask for his own project. It's amazing how people's interest picked up when Scorcesse came on board. A very smart move.

Steve

 

Exactly! Sally Grossman is the only person who was there when it happened. She says that Dylan fell off the bike in the driveway and was stunned. There is no police report of any accident and no hospital records of Dylan spending time there. Photographer Barry Feinstein--who took Dylan to buy the motorcycle in question--also doesn't believe the accident story.
Not only did Dylan need the "rest." He needed an excuse to cancel the massive tour that Grossman had booked as a follow-up to the tour he had just returned from. Dylan was supposed to play at Shea Stadium. He also had a book contract (Tarantula), a TV contract (Eat The Document) and, from all accounts, a serious drug dependency problem. The "motorcycle accident" story was concoted as a way out of all Dylan's commitments, and gave him time to clean up his act.