Dylan's 1965 BBC acoustic performance might well have been an electric one - a tantalising glimpse

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by NumberEight, Nov 11, 2022.

  1. NumberEight

    NumberEight Came too late and stayed too long Thread Starter

    The book accompanying the 35-CD set John Mayall - The First Generation 1965-1974 includes the following intriguing snippet. While most of it is well known, the last paragraph (and Hughie Flint's comment) is new to me:

    Meanwhile, Bob Dylan was in town, preparing for a tour to be filmed by D.A. Pennebaker. On Tuesday May 4th John was invited to dinner with Dylan, his manager Albert Grossman, Joan Baez and Marianne Faithful [sic]. The following day he travelled with Dylan and Baez to Birmingham for a sold-out appearance at the Town Hall. On Wednesday May 12th the Bluesbreakers were booked to back Dylan at a session at the CBS studios in Great Newport Street.

    Dylan was totally unprepared, spending more time drinking Beaujolais and chatting up folk singer Nadia Cattouse than rehearsing the musicians. Eventually, attempts were made to record 'If You Gotta Go, Go Now', all to no avail. Tempers became frayed. Hughie Flint asked Dylan, "You haven't worked much with bands, have you?" Shortly after, the session was abandoned and Dylan and his producer Tom Wilson left.

    Even so, that week's Disc announced, "Bob Dylan has asked the British R&B group John Mayall & The Bluesbreakers to appear on (two BBC television specials) with him. Twelve days later, on Monday May 24, with an audience in the studio waiting for his appearance, Dylan cried off at the very last minute, claiming he was suffering from a viral infection picked up during a brief holiday in Portugal. He was replaced by singer Oscar Brown Jr. Dylan remained in London and eventually taped his two BBC shows on June 1 - but without any guests.

    I have not seen this documented before. Do any forum members have any more information on this?
     
    Last edited: Nov 11, 2022
  2. ILovethebassclarinet

    ILovethebassclarinet Forum Resident

    Location:
    Great Lakes region
    Oscar Brown, Jr. with Mayall?
    Now that sounds interesting, if tape was rolling...
     
  3. Richard--W

    Richard--W Forum Resident

    Interesting to know these details.
    I have some photos of the BBC gig.
    Forget the name of the photographer, but he sold prints
    several years ago.
     
  4. Man at C&A

    Man at C&A Senior Member

    Location:
    England
    The BBC :realmad:
     
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  5. Michael

    Michael I LOVE WIDE S-T-E-R-E-O!

    a great informative posting...thanks for this. : )
     
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  6. BlueJay

    BlueJay Forum Resident

    Attempts were made to record 'If You Gotta Go, Go Now'. I've read about this before but does anyone know if these 'attempts' resulted in anything which remains preserved on tape? Even a botched recording from this session would be intriguing to hear.
     
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  7. notesfrom

    notesfrom Forum Resident

    Location:
    NC USA
    The part about him being in the hospital after Portugal is apparently true. That was the clincher for the Baez era, as Joan was greeted at Bob's hospital room door by Sara. Per the Positively 4th Street book.
     
  8. Richard--W

    Richard--W Forum Resident

    Yes, I have a dub of the reel. About six minutes.
    It's botched.
     
  9. NumberEight

    NumberEight Came too late and stayed too long Thread Starter

    This is part of it:

     
  10. NumberEight

    NumberEight Came too late and stayed too long Thread Starter

    Don’t thank me: thank John Mayall’s memory, that of his bandmates, and his diligent team of researchers! :)
     
  11. BlueJay

    BlueJay Forum Resident

    Yep, intriguing and tantalizing. Thanks for posting. Clearly Dylan was not taking this seriously. What a shame.
     
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  12. twm

    twm Forum Resident

    Location:
    Wiltshire
    These events have certainly been documented before. I’ll start with the recording session.

    There was a fairly lengthy account of this session in RECORD MIRROR for 22 May 1965 and there have been two articles about it in ISIS, the Bob Dylan magazine (in 2005 and 2007). In addition, the French magazine SALUT LES COPAINS, in its July 1965 issue, carried a report on Dylan’s UK visit that included two photographs taken at the session. In one of these photographs, Eric Clapton, who had recently joined the Bluesbreakers from The Yardbirds, can be seen in the background.

    Technically, the session took place in Levy’s Sound Studio at 73 New Bond Street, not in Gt. Newport St. It was at the back of the building, above the Bunch of Grapes pub, backing on to Dering Street. It was a 40’ x 40’ space, a former art gallery inside of which the (Levy ???) sound engineers had built an acoustic shell. The mixing suite, however, was at 101 New Bond Street, across the road from the entrance to No.73.

    I say ‘technically’ because CBS had taken over Levy’s by then. Levy’s label was Oriole and, when Paul Simon recorded THE PAUL SIMON SONGBOOK in the very same studios a month or two later, they were still using the old paperwork. For example, the tape box label was an ‘Oriole Records Limited’ form with the ‘Oriole’ scratched out.

    The Rik Gunnnel Agency submitted an invoice for £28 for the services of the Bluesbreakers as session musicians. The Gunnel agency had an office in Gerrard Street in Soho.

    Clapton has written that Dylan was much taken with the Mayall/Bluesbreakers’ “Crawling Up A Hill”, a single of which was released in May 1964. It is likely that Dylan heard it when he was in London for his 17 May 1964 concert at Royal Festival Hall. It is just possible that Dylan saw the band in May 1964, as one the U.S. folk mags said he recommended the Marquee Club to anyone visiting London, though the Marquee’s adverts (I was a member) do not show Mayall as appearing there that month; on the other hand, the Marquee back then was in Wardour Street (also in Soho) and, as I recall, the Flamingo club (which I never visited) was just along the street and Mayall was a regular there. Another possibility is that Dylan bought the single in London in 1964; I suggest this possibility because, at a reception in 1965, he was photographed with a record shop owner (his name eludes me for the moment) and, on the back of the Polaroid, Dylan wrote that he bought all his records there.

    Though the liner notes refer (correctly) to the consumption of wine at the session (and its effect on the conduct of the session), that wasn’t the only factor. Clapton has said that, as a blues fanatic, he was not that much interested in Dylan or folkies in general. The music press (and the ‘civilian’ press for that matter) carried a lot about Dylan and folkies at the time. Clapton’s lack of interest (disdain, even) was fuelled by his differences with Paul Samwell-Smith (of The Yardbirds) who was very taken with Dylan. Clapton was evidently not that committed to the session and it is quite possible that this was a view held by the other Bluesbreakers at the session, too.

    There is, as someone noted, a recording that includes a bit of “If You Gotta Go”. The recording came to John Bauldie (who wrote the BOOTLEG SERIES Vol.1 -3 liner notes) apparently through his friendship with the president of the UK branch of the Gary ‘U.S.’ Bonds fan club. It’s a curious tale but there it is. Quite how the latter came by the recording, I have no idea. Marc Bolan once claimed that he had heard four tracks from the session and he thought Mayall had them. Neither Mayall nor the band members have ever mentioned these and, if they existed in anything other than Bolan’s mind, I guess they would have been lost in Mayall’s house fire, back whenever.

    I should add that producer Tom Wilson wanted a recording of "If You Gotta Go" to issue as a Dylan single. To this end, a girl group from Liverpool (called The Poppies, as I recall) were present at the session but there's no evidence that they actually participated in the recordings. Wilson had, in December 1964, 'rocked up' some much earlier Dylan recordings and, when the Levy's session produced nothing of use, he returned to New York and, on 22 May 1965, did the same with a a Dylan recording of the song from January 1965.It was the B-side of the "Mixed Up Confusion" single released in the Benelux countries in August 1967 and on that first Bootleg Series release I mentioned earlier. [Actually, I can't recall off-hand whether they are the same take or different takes but it'll be on-line somewhere and I have to be elsewhere now].

    That's about it. I’ll comment separately on the BBC TV appearance in due course.
     
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  13. Arnold Grove

    Arnold Grove Senior Member

    Location:
    NYC
    Thanks for the details about the session for “If You Gotta Go”.

    One thing though: Did all of the Bluesbreakers participate in the recording session? I presume all of them at that time in 1965 would have been Mayall, Clapton, John McVie, and Hughie Flint.
     
  14. Flaming Torch

    Flaming Torch Forum Resident

    I think Eric was there but not much actually got recorded. Yes Dylan was ill so went to Portugal as you do then came back and did the BBC stuff.

    Still On The Road 1965

    The above site is really good and a true labour of love.
     
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  15. Arnold Grove

    Arnold Grove Senior Member

    Location:
    NYC
    Thanks.

    That link only lists 2 musicians on the recording:
    Bob Dylan (vocal & piano); Hugh Flint (drums).
     
  16. twm

    twm Forum Resident

    Location:
    Wiltshire
    Since my previous post, I have had a look at the RECORD MIRROR article and the two articles in ISIS magazine.

    The session was due to start at 7.30 PM. Dylan was not on time but turned up before 8.00 PM. He started recording at around 8.30 PM and this went on until 10.00 PM, when he listened to the playbacks. After this, Tom Wilson encouraged Dylan to try again, which he did, followed by another playback session. It was after this that Dylan “slipped away”. At the very start, manager Al Grossman said the session would go on until 11.00 PM and this is, more or less, is what happened – pretty standard 3-hour session, which may not have been fruitful but was hardly “abandoned”. .

    Based on the RM article, Dylan made at least five attempts at the song. There were two takes with Dylan at the piano (and the girls were on at least one, if not both, of these but, as I meant to say, not on the extant recording). These two attempts were followed by a driving take with Dylan on guitar. Then there was a bluesy number, which may or may not have been the same song. And, after the first playback, there was the extra take at Wilson’s request. None of these are obvious matches for the recording that Blue Jay posted but you never know.

    The recording is in Paul Cable’s 1978 Dylan tapes book. He spoke to someone at the session, who said it lasted five hours – clearly an exaggeration, though the aforementioned journalist said the recordings filled a large reel.

    I should add that, reading Bolan’s words, he doesn’t actually say that he’d heard the tapes, so he may only have heard about them, most likely from musicians who were there, though.

    _____________________________________________________________________________________​

    As for Dylan wanting the Mayall band to back him, there are a couple of other possibilities:

    [1] “Crawling Up A Hill” was also the opening track on Mayall’s LIVE AT KLOOKS KLEEK album. It was recorded in late 1964 and issued in March 1965, so it is possible that Dylan heard it on this disc.

    [2] I have in my memory that Dylan saw them on a children's television programme around this time but I can't remember where this comes from - a DONT LOOK BACK outtake perhaps.


    Anyway, here’s a link to the Mayall single:



    The chorus is “Life is just a slow train crawling up a hill”. Is that the same ‘slow train’ that finally arrived at Dylan’s station in the late 1970s, one wonders?
     
  17. NumberEight

    NumberEight Came too late and stayed too long Thread Starter

    The clip in question was released on the Clapton documentary Life In Twelve Bars, and shows John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers miming to their Crocodile Walk single:



    Like you, I assume it’s an outtake from Dont Look Back.

    I’m curious as to whether you have any knowledge of the planned Dylan/John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers 24 May 1965 BBC concert. That’s the bit that was new to me.

    If it was called off at the last minute, they surely must have got together again to rehearse. And one wonders (well, I do) what songs would have made it to the set list.

    And of course the Newport explosion could then have taken place two months earlier with a different lineup (and no Like A Rolling Stone).
     
  18. Siegmund

    Siegmund Vinyl Sceptic

    Location:
    Britain, Europe
    By many accounts, Dylan was a complete pain in the rear-end around this period. A shame.
     
  19. twm

    twm Forum Resident

    Location:
    Wiltshire
    Thanks for the reminder about the source of the DLB clip.

    I don’t have the DISC report but the matter has been the subject of some discussion among fans in recent times. I should add that “The Face” (gossip?) column in RECORD MIRROR for 15 May 1965 said that the two shows “may include guest artistes” . Did “The Face” really mean ‘may’ or would the word ‘might’ have been more accurate? Whichever, I love the use of that rather archaic word 'artiste".

    Personally, I doubt very much that the whole thing got much further than a notion in Dylan's mind. Clapton said that Mayall worked them seven days a week (with double shows some days) and fitting it in at relatively short notice would not have been easy. And Rik Gunnell would have wanted a goodly fee for their involvement, in which case the next paragraph may be pertinent.

    David Attenborough, then a very senior executive in BBC Television, has said (and I paraphrase) that they liked the solo folk artist programmes because they were cheap to put on. If Dylan had wanted others on his show, he may have had to pay them and the other additional costs out of his own fee, even if the BBC had agreed.

    I’m pretty sure that the photographer mentioned above was Val Wilmer. She certainly took a lot of photos at the Dylan show, though another (Barry Wentzel ???) took some of Dylan in the BBC canteen, as I recall, so he may have been around snapping, too.. The Wilmer photos were taken, I believe, during the soundcheck-cum-rehearsal, rather than the actual filming.

    In a future post, I'll comment on the Portugal holiday, the illness and the change of recording dates.
     
  20. Percy Song

    Percy Song A Hoity-Toity, High-End Client

    Great to see contributions from the mighty @twm here!

    Small correction - unless I've mis-read the post, and if I have I apologise for my lack of comprehension: The B-side of the "Mixed Up Confusion" singles was actually Take 4 of "Corrina, Corrina" from 26 October, 1962.

    "If You Gotta Go, Go Now" was the A-Side of a Benelux single, backed with "To Ramona". I think.... :)
     
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  21. Flaming Torch

    Flaming Torch Forum Resident

    The slow train opens the liner notes on Highway 61 Revisited
    "On the slow train time does not interfere & at the Arabian crossing waits White Heap"

    I shall dig out the tape/boot that circulates of the session to check that it is Bob on piano and just Hughie Flint on drums.
     
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  22. twm

    twm Forum Resident

    Location:
    Wiltshire
    Correction noted, Percy. Memory plays even more tricks than ever these days. And I actually bought the Benelux "Mixed Up Confusion" single in late 1969 from, as I recall, the 23rd Precinct shop in Bath Street (???) Glasgow. i went along with a list taken from the Greil Marcus article in ROLLING STONE (for me, groundbreaking) and that was the only one on the list that they had. It was about twice the price, maybe a bit less, of the average UK 7" single at the time but you got a picture sleeve. And, about six months earlier, my wife had bought me a hardback copy of the Daniel Kramer photobook from John Smith's in St Vincent Street (???) in Glasgow. Those things and reading about the Isle of Wight concert from afar were what really started the rot, though I had seen Dylan live as far back as 1965.

    ___________________________________________________________________________________________________​


    The 'someone' who Paul Cable spoke to was probably Stanley West, who was a Levy's/Oriole staffer and, as I recall, appears in some of the photos of Dylan at the CBS reception around that time. The reception was not specifically about Dylan but to mark the formal setting up of CBS UK, having taken over Levy's/Oriole the previous year. Goddard Leiberson, the company President, came over and held a big meeting with senior CBS staff members from across Europe, so they all turned up to the reception and had their photos taken with Dylan. He was not only tour at the time but also doing particularly well in the British charts, better than in the USA by a fair margin. Tony Bennett entertained at the reception.

    Leiberson also gave a talk at a separate meeting (to members of a British trade body - I forget which) and lauded the British record industry's recent success in the USA and clearly hoped to gain some benefit from setting up in the UK. This may also been a factor in Tom Wilson coming over to record a single with Dylan. Levy's didn't only have the Oriole label but also had its own pressing plant. Perhaps they hoped to get a Dylan single recorded, to be released in the UK. After all, "If You Gotta Go" certainly got a very positive response from UK audiences on that tour, as I can attest. It did well in the BBC TV programmes, too. Someone from Manfred Mann got a recording of the song from the BBC TV programme (which was transmitted in late June) and recorded their version, which was released as a single in September 1965. It got to #2 in the UK charts, so Wilson's instincts were right.

    ___________________________________________________________________________________________​


    Some time, I'll get on to what happened with Dylan's hospitalisation and the delay in the BBC-TV recording but, first that holiday on the continent, for which we have to go back 12 May 1965 and the session in Levy’s Sound Studios.

    Grossman said that they had to get away at 11.00 PM because they had a 1.00 AM flight to the continent. In 1964, British European Airways had a flight to Lisbon at 01.15 AM, the coach for which left the West London Air Terminal at 00.05 AM. I doubt they would have taken the airline coach service but it gives you an idea of how long it used to take to leave town and be on board a plane and on your way, back then - so different now. If BEA operated this or a similar service in 1965, then it would have been possible to leave the studio in London's West End at 11.00 PM and be at the airport for a 01.15 flight.

    So, if this is what happened, then Dylan would have started his holiday in Portugal on 13 May 1965.

    There is another, later article, apparently by a reporter present in his hotel room, saying that he returned to the Savoy on Sunday, 23 May 1965. Dylan’s landing card, however, was stamped at Heathrow Airport on 22 May 1965 and Dylan himself had filled it in saying he had arrived from Geneva. In 1964 at least, there was a Swissair flight from Geneva that was due in Heathrow at 23.45 PM. Again, if the 1965 Swissair service was the same as that in 1964, then Dylan could well have arrived back to be on British soil late on 22 May 1965 but not been getting to his hotel until 23 May 1965.

    But why come from Switzerland if you been on holiday in Portugal? No real idea. Any thoughts I offer can be no more than speculation, I’m afraid. I can say that, in 1964, there was a mid-afternoon flight from Lisbon on a Saturday but then none until so late that he wouldn't have got into Heathrow until something like 3.00 or 4.00 AM. So, perhaps he took a connecting flight via Geneva, though, without checking more thoroughly, I can't say that would have been the most obvious choice to me. But, really, I doubt anyone really knows the circumstances at this remove.

    In case you're wondering, these night flights back then were often set up for the carriage of mail with passengers just upping the airline revenue.

    _______________________________________________________________________________________________​

    Enough for now. Imminent arrival of visitors.
     
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  23. Percy Song

    Percy Song A Hoity-Toity, High-End Client

    I'll take your memory over mine any day of the week! :)
     
  24. Richard--W

    Richard--W Forum Resident

    Thank you for these informative posts.

    Which concert did you see in 1965?
    I mean which venue?
     
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  25. twm

    twm Forum Resident

    Location:
    Wiltshire
    Royal Albert Hall, 9 May 1965 - penultimate solo concert ever, I think. I got 80 tickets for that concert but that's another story.

    And the next night, 10 May 1965, when Dylan was performing his last solo concert, I was at a club in North London (Cook's Ferry Inn) seeing The Animals - though to be honest, the place was so packed that night, unlike normal, that I mostly saw the tops of their heads. And, because of the size of the crowd, they entered through the windows behind the stage.
     

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