Bob Neuwirth dead at 82

Sad news.

Bob Neuwirth, Folk Singer-Songwriter Who Had Profound Impact on Bob Dylan, Dead at 82

 

Quite the character. RIP.

 

R.I.P.

Bob Neuwirth on Johnny Cash, songwriters, Dylan, Sandy Bull, Indian Neck Folk Fest, CT 1961

 

RIP. Bobby Neu.

 

He also made an album with John Cale, Last Day On Earth.

 

I remember him from Dylan’s Rolling Thunder Review and his role in the misbegotten film epic “Renaldo and Clara.”

 

Rest in Peace

 

In addition to being a scene maker and a huge influence on the times he was an excellent songwriter, as this album from 1991 will attest.
RIP

 

RIP, Bob Neuwirth, who had so much unseen, but much heard impact of music so many of us love.

 

His cover of Alejandro Escovedo’s “Rosalie” is one of the most perfect - and haunting - songs in my life.
RIP Bob.

 

Damn. Rolling Thunder era Dylan is my favorite and Bob Neuwirth was a key part of that circus.

 

I found him annoying as a member of the RTR. But he did write some cool Dylan lyrics.

RIP

 

I actually saw Neuwirth open for Alejandro in 1997 at SXSW. I was curious to hear what he was up to, but honestly nothing really stuck with me about his set. It was pretty low key.

 

Lotta years of hard livin'... still made it to 82. RIP.

SECTION TWO

 

Neuwirth at the Gaslight 1967

filmed by DA Pennebaker

 

He spent some time as Jim Morrison's "babysitter". He was brought in by Rothchild in an effort to curb Morrison's drinking. Of course it didn't work and the Doors wound up having to deal to two drunks instead of one.

 

The below is stolen from the old Patti Smith listserv:

Clinton Heylin, in From the Velvets to the Voidoids, writes about Patti's first encounter with Bob Neuwirth in late summer of 1969:

It was professional friend-of-the-famous Bobby Neuwirth who was Smith's next mentor. They met in the lobby of the Chelsea—inevitably. Neuwirth asked her where she had learnt to walk the way she did. She admitted it had been from watching Don Pennebaker's cinéma-vérité study of Dylan's 1965 UK tour, Don't Look Back. Neuwirth, Dylan's regular sidekick in those days, cracked up.

PATTI SMITH: He said, 'Come here, what do you have in that notebook?' I said, 'Nothing,' and I was really acting tough but I was instantly and totally in love...Bobby looked in my book and asked me who wrote that stuff and I told him I did...I think he immediately recognized something in me that I didn't even recognize in myself, and he took me under his wing.
I was writing a lot of poetry then, a real rhythmic kind of poetry...He really loved the poetry. To me he was a real hot ****. Don't Look Back and all that...I thought he was the classiest, sexiest guy. It was 1970 and the guy had dark glasses...Bobby started me out...tried to inspire me with the poetry. He built up my confidence. Treated me like a prodigy. He'd say, 'Don't treat Patti Lee like a groupie, she's a poet.' I never got laid because people don't think that poets ****. He taught me how to drink tequila, too. I got in my rock & roll period then 'cause I was hanging around his friends.

 

This video was Neuwirth's project during that Doors gig, shot and edited by him.

 

They performed live together in 1994, with the Soldier String Quartet. I was at the Amsterdam show. Longest Cale concert ever - 31 songs!

John Cale setlists - Amsterdam 1994-05-20

 

R.I.P.

 

Neuwirth is missing (he's not there) in the 2019 Scorsese remake of the footage. But so is Dylan's ex-wife.

He's great in Renaldo & Clara, though, as well as Don't Look Back.

 

I think BN was part of Timothy Leary's Cambridge experiments, if you can tell from this, 1964:

 

There were definitely more strings to Neuwirth’s bow than at first met the eye.

RIP.

 

Thank you for the music. RIP.