>> watcher response to people who may say you spend 30 pictures and health care industry and now you're writing negatively about it? >> i've heard that before and it's because i did spend that much time in the industry but it was over the last part of my career i was able to see a higher up the corporate ladder i was able to climb, the more i could see them became aware of the practices that they engaged in to get rid of people who were sick, and to meet wall street's expectation. i witnessed it as long in industry if i had known everything anew toward the end of my career. >> wendell potter's book, "deadly spin: an insurance executive speaks out on how corporate pr is killing health care and deceiving americans," speaks out on help corporate pr is killing americans. booktv did a long form interview with mr. potter, which you can walk -- watch at booktv.org. >> princeton university's

history professor sean wilentz explores the historical and cultural influences of bob dylan's songwriting. barnes & noble in new york city hosts a talk that lasts for an hour. >> thank you all for coming out on this very dark and rainy night. it's really great to be here. thank you for that lovely introduction. i'm going to open my water now, better than later. so i've read this book about bob dylan. it is not, contrary to what you may have read, a biography. it is not a biography of bob dylan. there are lots of biographies of bob dylan to suit every inclination. this is not one of them. this is more of a meditation. bob dylan start, his career, that his art primarily. the book had its origins many

decades ago, which you can read about and talk about, but it really got its start about, let's see, just about nine years ago. out of the blue i got a phone call asking me to write something for bob dylan's website about an album he had coming out. and my first reaction was, you know, who the hell are you? i couldn't believe that this was coming my way. once i had established the caller's bona fides, i agree to do it if i like the record. being a bit of a prima donna, i suppose. boy, did i like that record. i really like that record. it was love at first and not before a blue. i sat down and wrote about it in fortunately they liked what i wrote and it was the beginning of a lot more writing about bob dylan, and the beginning of some really beautiful friendships with the people who are in this room, to whom i am indeed very

grateful. a few years back i thought, you become i'm starting to write a lot about this guy. maybe there's enough to add up to vote. that wasn't. there was about 90 pages and stuff. i thought i've got to fill in some things here. so i took on the assignment to myself of filling it in and the result is this book, "bob dylan in america." which as i said is not a biography any particular way at all, although there is biographical material in the. it is more my own meditation about his art, his song, about his connection to american culture. bob dylan is part of a vast circuitry that runs all the way back to the beginnings of american song and continues right to our own day. placing or reconstructing some of the circuits, understanding the web of influence and the

counter influence and dylan's own influence on american life and american culture, that's what i wanted to try to do. it really started with that album which is just full of all kinds of american song. and i thought let's see where my thoughts can take me about this. i decided to be chronological. i wanted to begin at the beginning. that's just the historians have it. and you try to end at least as far as i could to the present. but i wanted to do, i want to go back to the early years, his earlier to try to find something about the influences on his work, then talk about various phases in his career, his early years right up through blonde on blonde. and then a later period which i've called later. and then sort of a dry period followed by what i see as an

interlude in which he recaptured his use at the beginning of the 1990s. and then a more recent work, well, from time at a bike ride through the christmas album last year. the book is divided in that way. but i wanted to go back very, very much, and there were two influences that i felt were particularly important for me to write about. one, and they are fairly obvious to anyone who knows anything about dylan's work. one was the revival and the whole folk music movement that came out of the pocket front of the 1930s and 1940s. and the other was the beat generation, the beat poets. writing about the popular front -- well, there were two questions, to problems. one is the obvious and perhaps mandatory figures to write about in terms of influencing bob dylan were, of course, woody guthrie, above and beyond anyone

else, and pete seeger, and others in that circle of left wing folk singers of the 1940s, in and around the almanac singers and others. the problem, the first problem was how to do that or how to write about that period, given the fact that so many others have written about woody guthrie and bob dylan. i had nothing particularly new to say. i had no new thoughts, what new could i say about this? it's been done. same with pete seeger. i mean, it's been done. so i took a real gamble and i decided i'm going to write about someone who has nothing to do with any of this, but was connected to that world. and so i wrote about aaron and bob gilder already there were murmurs, how could they be related? aside from the fact that aaron hughes folksongs in his own music in the 1940s. two events happen, two things

happened in my research. one, i remember that after 9/11, after the terrorist attacks went to look back on the road that october, he started playing kind of a cold order before his concert, he started playing snatches out of rodeo. this was in a sense his public response to 9/11 he played some polka music. interesting. then i ran across i in the bookn koplan, i ran across a review in 1934 in "the daily worker" of a performance that aaron copland gave at a local columnist musical club. the reviews written by one coral sands. coral sands his real name was charles seeger. pete seeger's dad. charles and ruth crawford seeger used to take young pete to this club to listen to aaron copeland. the chapter at that -- although

it's not a study of direct influence by any means, it's a study about bob dylan's art in part came out of the whole assembly, a whole country of cultural forces that came to the floor in the 1930s and 1940s. and that one income in one part was epitomizes like willie guthrie and pete seeger but in another was epitomizes i aaron copland, and they were connected. if you buy that chapter you'll buy the rest of the book. i don't mean by it financially. i mean intellectually. there was a second problem with aaron copland announce how to get from a chapter on aaron copland to get to a chapter on alex gensler. i could do without but it was going to get a real far. but, in fact, this is where cultural circuits come into play. i came across a cultural circuit, in fact it's deeper

than what i write about. but i came across a cultural circuit and the tide began chapter to. and let me start the reading by reading that section. talk about aaron copland any earlier chapter about his movie music among other things. aaron copland his first important musical project after billy the kid, was to write the score in 1939 for a film by the innovative director lewis milestone made from john steinbeck's novella about hardluck migrant workers in california of mice and men. koplan have been trying to break into the work since 97 but was still don't kno know it as a composer of modernist art music and hence was considered too difficult for american moviegoers. thanks in part to scoop -- good friend, and inspired in part by thomson samore, copland finally got his foot in the door can

receive a steinbeck assignment have produced a score in his new style of imposed simplicity. a style that was very much the forefront of his work in the 1940s. although without the obvious borrowing from folk music or cowboy songs. the field one prays as did copland's adaptation of modernist techniques, including daringly for the time dissidents, dissidents in a film score. we are not talking about -- were talking about hollywood. to his scores wide open. the following year copland's music for of mice and men earned him to a academy award nomination the national award for review over. late one night in 1940, jack not yet out of high school saw milestone film possibly in his hometown of lowell, massachusetts, but most likely in new york, times square. and left the theater.

the movie as well as the ghostly aftermath stuck with him, particularly it's rackety opening scene carried along by aaron copland's dramatic music. 15 years later, he described in the 54th course of his large collection of poems mexico city blues. once i went to a movie at midnight, 1940. mice and men thinning of the. the red box cars one by on the screen. yes, sir, life finally gets tired of living. 20 years after he wrote those lines on a crisp, scarlet november afternoon at edson cemetery, bob dylan and allen ginsberg visited his grave. trailed by a photographer, a film crew and various others, including the young playwright

sam shepard it is a wonderful picture of all that. gilad had performed the night before at the university of lowell on a tour of new england. to throw together to build new friends and old including ginsberg which called itself a rolling thunder review. ginsburg who had become excited when the tour buses reached the city met up with some of his relatives and try to emerge dylan's entourage. shepherd who joined the troupe to write the screenplay for a movie, due to record in his travelogue the names of real live lowell sites described in the legend. carol wax vote in name -- revolver in his fictional character. but at the cemetery ginsburg decided not from the pros but from poetry out of mexico city blues.

including 54th course. invoking specters, fatigue, mortality, mexico, and john steinbeck's boxcar america while he and dylan contemplated carol wax headstone. and when dylan included footage of the event in the film that he made in and about the thunder tour, yet another complicated cultural circuit closed thinking tailbacks listening to copland and watching steinbeck's of mice and men in 1940 with the same trend it's great -- at kerouac's grave. so from there on we talk more about allen ginsberg and bob dylan which is a very interesting complicated artistic and personal friendship. and a want to read more out of this chapter because again, coincidences, things that i never would have imagined were

true, were true. and i think had a lot to our understanding of what was going on at the time and thinking -- and something about bob dylan's culture. i begin with the movie, another movie. there's a lot about movies in your. a very wonderful movie. vap bakers cinema film about dylan's concert tours in england in 1965 don't look back includes several scenes of dylan and his entourage in his suite at london's hotel. in one of them killing squads on the floor and saw his work, he converses with jack's old mate darryl ataturk relocated to england and who suggested they get together and i will turn you onto some things. okay. are there any poets like allen ginsberg around, man, bob dylan. nothing like that, he replies.

now, dylan's response takes up a few more lines which i'll skip over but he was very annoyed. i just don't want to hear anybody like that though. and it's no wonder dylan was annoyed because dominic had accused him of plagiarism for stating his version of a song called patriot game. the fact that he had stolen the melody from an old tune never particularly crossed his mind. and there's a famous scene where he and donovan are -- well, never mind. donovan does not come out better for the exchange. but meanwhile, dylan was going to be one thing and one thing only, and that was to your allen ginsberg or tree or something like it. as it happened, unknown to dylan and its -- allen ginsberg had just flown to london from prague. ejected by czech authorities as

a corrupter of youth. so many people who thought that alan was a corrupt of youth. but the czech authorities were to believe it. he was 39 years old at the time, and boy, oh, boy, this was not what they had in mind. he was now a year shy of 40. a week after amassing of 100,000 students in prague with rock bands blaring had proclaimed him the king of may as part of the revival of the annual festival that the con is suppressed for 20 years. those of you who know ginsberg's work will know the wonderful poem which describes not simply the scene of his being persecuted in prague, run around by various police agents, but of the flight from prague to london. that was in may 1965. but nobody knew that at the hotel. allen and burt had just been thrown out of prague and deported to london.

in the movies next scene, shot according to the transcript of the film the following day, all is calm in the hotel room. and they're out of the blue, only fleetingly on camera is allen ginsberg, seeded and chatting softly with dylan. there's a wonderful picture of both in the book. the sequence is utterly gratuitous, spooky and its timing given what has just happened on screen. dylan ask for ginsberg and all of a sudden there he was. simulate conjured up out of the vapors. but, in fact, thanks to the prague officials, kenny baker confers no no been any i didn't ginsberg was coming the night that dylan brought up his name with adams. and important moment indeed lower, and that is an important moment, the story of ginsburg dejection from prague, march

with an iconic moment in dylan's career although explaining all the in the film would've taken the focus off of dylan and would've taken too long. instead, the camera records the friendships and makes possible a clever piece of image making joining singer as poet in the same documentary frame with the poet as cultural hero. so there's much more about allen ginsberg and bob dylan right today that ginsberg died. the next night dylan was playing a concert in canada and perform what he said, he announced to the crowd, you know he doesn't talk a lot to the crowd, but he did talk to continue dedicating his performance of desolation row to allen ginsberg because it was allen ginsberg's favorite song. right to the end they were very, very tight. okay.

well, we move on to the section about dylan's early career. and i talk to someone about repeatedly about the immense concerts i attend. i use that not come in part to go by so myself into work or my perceptions in the book but also as a kind of plumbline from which i then land and look out over other aspects of dylan's career. but one of those events was a concert that he gave on halloween night in 1964 at philharmonic hall. which my father, was very tough growing up where i grew up. my dead friend eighth street bookshop in greenwich village. and was right in the center of the bead world, i had a father who got me free tickets to bob dylan concert was 13 years old. my father gave me my first copy of blonde on blonde. how do you rebel from that? [laughter] you become a princeton professor.

[laughter] white? at any rate, i was at this concert and i want to read a little bit about my description of what that was all about. on halloween night was testimony to his allure and growing stature. i'm also reading this, i couldn't resist what is now called -- i couldn't resist. this is the new york portion. for you folks in tv land, bear with us. it was testament to his allure and growing stature. opened only two years early as the first showcase of the neighborhood killer robert moses' new lincoln center for the performing arts, philharmonic hall was with its imperial grandeur and bad acoustics the most prestigious auditorium in manhattan. and for that matter in the

entire country. within two years other release of his first album, dylan's new york venues and shot upward in cash a and farther uptown from townhall to carnegie hall, now to the sparkling new hall of leonard bernstein and the new york philharmonic. when the expected audience screamed out of the old mosaic tile, how may people who remember that? okay, could. we are of a certain age. the mosaic tile subway stop at 66 straight and then crammed into the cavernous guild theatre, it must've looked to the of towners into the ushers like a bizarre invasion of the beatnik civil rights band of young. as if to make sure that when you are place, a man appeared onstage at showtime to warn us that it would be no picture taking or smoking permitted in the house. then, like bernstein striving to this podium, ellen walked out of

the wings to know investment necessary. a fanfare of applause proclaiming who he was. he started the concert as he normally did with the times they are changing. here we all were, the self-consciously sensitive and concerning, settling in. at a dylan show like any other, whatever the plush surroundings. two hours later, we would leave the premises and head back underground, exhilarated, entertained, and ratified in a self-assured enlightenment. but also confused about the snatches of lines we gleaned from the strange new songs. what was that weird lullaby? what in gods name is a perfumed goal? or did he sing curfew tell? had dylan really written about based on the darkest of new? the melodies were strong and applying on the darkest song had

been ominous, overpowering, but it moves so fast that comprehension was impossible. it turns into a dylan show unlike any we've ever heard or heard about. and in our programs it was dylan's latest poem, under this list birthdays which one that if one crossed the line people would quote feel something is going on up here that they don't know about. revenge will set in. the peace conclude with a string of injunctions, some serious, some comic, beware of bathroom wall that have not been written on. when told to look at yourself, never look. when asked to give your real name, never give it. we headed this list is dylan was already mulling over sentiments, thoughts, and even lines that would one day wind up in thousand. that concert was bob dylan on

the cusp of something you. and it was at the electric music. it wasn't the electric guitars. so, move on a bit. i'm going to skip over the rolling thunder. maybe it's too long. for reading tonight. not too long in principle. there are chapters that carry through the song which i think is that his great masterpiece, the middle period of his writing. recorded in 1983, not released until 1991. but then talks about i think dylan's created horizons shrank, where his music -- he is kind of a lossy. what his music was not what it is now. and then talks about purely 90s when he recorded two

acoustic records. what i think he reached back and found his music and, and it's the section called interlude and there are two songs that i talk about in some detail, and they give you a historical background to them. and again, try to revive, tried to find rather those cultural circuits that run between bob dylan's music, in this case the singing of other peoples songs, and american culture at large. and there are two songs are vital, one is one of the oldest two songs ever written called via, which he sings and the person with the best view of this is an house. is almost embarrassing to say it, that he sings that song and a line in that song about the murder of two teenage kids. it's a stupid murder in 1900, but he sings the line all the friends i ever had are gone and it breaks your heart. the other song is lone pilgrim

which is the last song on the record. and it's a song that meant a lot to me actually so it comes back to me. but it comes back to me only because my father was dying of cancer in 1994, and for some reason i picked up this record and this song meant a lot to me. and so i remembered it. and i still remember it. but also it connects dylan with forms of religious music in america that people can don't always associate with. the lone pilgrim comes out of the sacred heart, sacred heart is the most venerable collection of handling in american religious history. it is still sung today. famous shape note music. it's sung today all across the south eric eats evensong in brooklyn. it's a wonderful piece in brooklyn. but this comes right out of that

so-called shape note tradition. and dylan, may not be a student of all american music, he chose that in part because, i will be reading from it on a record. in fact i'm going to begin with that very fact. in his notes to world gone wrong, dylan wrote he took lone pilgrim from an old record and the version that dylan thinks is identical to the one watson sings. watsons version which was one of his father's favorite hymns is a shorter replication of the version of sacred heart accept with a ghostly provision pronouns. pronouns restored. salver recordings of the song appeared between watsons and dylan's but either trend i didn't know about them or they had no effect. the watson family album produced in 1963 is drawn from genuine field recordings made from

1960-1963 in tennessee, virginia and north carolina. and it has a spontaneous life quality that is also accuse the world gone wrong which might be described to the field recordings itself. watsons rendition is both rich and piercing, the fiddle adds to that. the fiddle in the background. a combination that makes watson so singular and so enthralling. it is a charming slightly punky quality to the performance as if watching a strong heart to merge his temple and phrasing to fit the fiddler whose watsons father-in-law, a superb old time banjo and fiddle player. on the second line of each verse as the melody a sense, the story of a person visiting the tomb -- the tomb exists in new jersey. if you want to find a i will tell you the direction. visiting the tomb of many preachers and visionaries of the

1830s. and he is visiting this tomb, and the spirit of the person who is buried talks to him and telling him not to worry, that everything is fine, and he should tell his family to be happy. because he has gone to heaven and he is with the lord. and a second line of each of the melody a sense, and stood by his tomb him and gathering storms rise and so on. watsons camber intensifies placing it almost on the fifth and eighth syllable, stood, tomb, storms rise. dylan in contrast things only to his solo guitar strumming and his voice is muted and tender throughout. melodious yet barely rising above. his voice becomes the one murmuring at the grave. far more successfully than watson, dylan enters and inhabits the song score.

and offering consolation. the itinerant i, the man visiting the tomb, who sings the first three lines suddenly becomes another i, the man who died, the lone pilgrim, the man who died and yet who lives is now gently speaking. the second i, once wondered too, as compelled by his master, but, and here bob dylan's voice swells slightly, his follow-up companion should not weep now that he is gone. dylan does not sing the word so gone so much as he exhales it. i is free at last. is rested so, achieved the lord many mansions and he is gone. and anyway he is not really

gone, not completely, at least for the length of the song. .. >> of charity, decency and redemption and a compiler of hymns and also a poet as you'll find out in a sec. in an america that had been convulsioned by religious awakenings. the song as he tribes and performance -- describes and

performs it might have been been a gloss on one of the poems. above an earthly monarch's name to an immortal crown. hearing dylan sing lone pilgrim when my father fell ill in 1994 and listening again over of and over in the months after he died brought a solace that came from the last place and the last performer i'd have expected it from. more than a decade later it still brings solace especially in the last two lines and the very last word. the same hand that led me through scenes most severe has kindly assisted me home. for that performance of a song that few except dylan's most passionate fans remember, i will always feel a gratitude that is completely personal. ball of of that aside -- but all of that aside, it is clear ha with lone pilgrim and world gone wrong, dylan had reached the end

of the beginning of his own artistic reawakening and had reached a place that at least felt more like home. one last track. this is not about a song at all. this is, this is coming from my little section on chronicles. if you haven't read, you should buy along with my book tonight. [laughter] it is a masterpiece of american memoir. i can think of few others in the 20th century that are its match. of course, he wrote it in the 21st, so i guess it's the best of the 21st century. [laughter] but, you know, in chronicles which is an extraordinarily generous and a book full of gratitude, dylan talks about his early days in greenwich village which i had written about earlier, too, and i used chronicles a lot although it's not always, i think, necessarily trustworthy. in all of it accounts.

[laughter] but i think a lot of it is. and one of the things he talks about which i think is very powerful is how listening to the ballads, particularly he talks about not so much the clubs, but listening to william clancy, the clancy brothers and tommy macon at the white horse. those great irish ballads, kevin berry and all the rest, how that really got him going. how powerful that all was. and how listening to the clancy brothers and macon there got him connected to history and helped him see something that he was seeing anyway which is the ability to see the past in the present. almost in a ghostly way. and if you hang around greenwich village long enough, you know, it's not the drugs, it's not the drink, you can see edgar allen poe walking down the street. because the village still has those dimensions. you can see, you can hear herman melville's creeking.

all of that bohemian lore is all alive at the same time. there's no distance between the past and the present. at least that's what dylan described himself beginning to feel. and he describeed, there's a remarkable section where he talks about going up to the new york public library. he wanted to find a way to take the songs he was hearing and give it an american substance. to find a template, an american template, that would fit that kind of spirit of rebellion, that spirit of history. so where do you go? you go to the library. and where do you go? you don't just read other people's books which he'd been doing, you go to the sources themselves, and that's the newspapers of the time. so where did bob dylan go? he went to the microfilm room of the new york public library. this was about 15 years before with i was in the same room

doing something completely different and much less interesting. he went to the library to read those newspapers and get in touch with those sources. not just what historians had to say, but the sources themselves. he was reading old articles from newspapers with titles like the pennsylvania free man that the library made available on microfilm. so i'll close with this little riff from the book about, well, meditations on all of that. for a professional historian, it was mildly thrilling to learn that dylan had discovered the pure forms of his art in the microfilm room. dylan quickly realized, as any novice historian does, that in the 1840s, 1850s and 1860s there were many issues and stories besides slavery; reform movements, rising crime, religious revivals, riots over whether an english or american actor should be allowed to perform in a new york theater. but slavery was the center of everything. americans worshiped the same

god, shared the constitution and the major political parties, thought of their democracy as the world's best hope, yet increasingly different groups of americans eyed each other as enemies. after a while, dylan writes in chronicles, after a while you become aware of nothing but a culture of feeling, of black days, of schism, evil for evil, the common destiny of the human being getting thrown off course. it felt creepy reading of an america not at all like the one outside the library walls, but that still in this some mysterious ways -- not least amid the black struggle for civil rights -- resembled it a lot. in time the stories and the feelings and the language and the rhetoric of the newspapers cohered. back there, dylan writes, back there america was put on a cross, died and was resurrected. there was nothing synthetic about it. the god awful truth, the god awful truth of that would be the

all-encompassing template behind everything that i would write. dylan doesn't call this a breakthrough, but that is what it was. he had already through the folk songs landed in a parallel universe. quote, one where actions and virtues were old style and judgmental things came falling out on their heads. a culture with outlaw women, super thugs, demon lovers and gospel truths. streets and valleys, rich swatches with landowners and oil men, pretty polys and john henrys. an ip visible world that towered overhead with walls of gleaming corridors. that's chronicles, man. that's an amazing book. the only problem was that there was too little of it, and as lovingly preserved by the folklorists, the universe still felt cut off from the present. quote again, it was out of date, had no proper connection to the actualities, the trends of the time. it was a huge story but hard to

come across. but once he had read the history, the gap closed. what had once felt real but antique now was the underground store of the day as he would relate it in songs he was now ready to write, a mere imitator no more. the more he thought about it, the more the parallel universe was really real and completely visible. in fact, it was all around him. on seventh avenue where he passed a building where walt whitman had lived and worked, printing away and singing the true song of his soul is how dylan puts it. and on third street where he stared mournfully up at the win toes of edgar allen poe's house. the songs were no longer an escape from conformist reality, but reality itself. quote, if someone were to ask what's going on, mr. garfield's been shot down, laid down, nothing you can do. that's what's going on. looking for the american version

of the irish my central boy -- minstrel boy, he had found what he needed and more in the public library. a story of biblical proportions, a story that was not over, not by a long shot. the story of the death and transfiguration of a nation. and that's where i'll end it. [applause] that's called feedback, folks. [laughter] [applause] thank you very much. thank you. really, thank you. thank you very much. the rockets will be going off later -- [laughter] and i get my makeup on. i don't know if i'll do my white-faced thing, but, you know, that'll be happening. anyway, i'm here to answer your questions, and we'll be doing some signing. there's a gentleman with a microphone, so if you would go

to the microphone to ask your questions, he'll be happy to help you out. >> you mentioned the connection between dylan and walt whit match. did he have -- whitman. did he ever -- i saw they set bitman's -- whitman's song of myself to music. it was a few months ago. >> uh-huh. >> did he ever write a poem -- a song based on walt whitman's poetry, do you know? >> yes. >> he did? >> yes. >> do you know what song that is? >> well, the one i'm thinking that comes to mind right away was for a very, very bad movie called "gods and generals." don't see the movie but do hear the album. [laughter] he wrote a song called "across the green mountain," and there's a version in there to my ear, i can't confirm this, but to my ear sounds very much like a whitman poem. it's a story called "come from the fields, father," that's in

"leaves of grass." there's a lot from many different poets of the civil war era. when bob dylan sets about writing songs for a movie about the civil war, he's reading about the civil war, i would imagine. and a lot of that poetry stuck with him. but he's made it his own. he's not doing a song cycle of walt whitman songs, he's doing bob dylan songs. and that's what that is. more questions. sir? >> yes. yeah. bob dylan's namesake is dylan thomas, the welsh poet. >> so they say. >> i just, i have a hard time seeing any connection between the two unless he was just inspired by his poetry between dylans' lyrics and dylan thomas. or what attracted him to dylan thomas? >> well, i can't, i can't speak for him. i can say that dylan thomas was a very powerful influence on

that whole generation very early on. in fact, the title of this book of mine, "bob dylan's america," is a silent tribute to two other titles. one a book that came out in the early '50s called dylan thomas in america and the other being alan ginsberg in america. but dylan thomas did his tours of america where he read his poems. and although lyrically they're different, you know, dylan thomas spoke of poetry that was, could be understood and was appreciated by many, many ordinary americans. you know, he was not, he was the barroom poet. in fact, you know, he died having had too many tries at the white horse and ended up at the late, great st. vincent's hospital. but, you know, you wouldn't look at a child's christmas in wales and see there's a bob dylan song, no. but the very power of that verse was important, i think, to

people who came of age in the 1940s and 1950s. now, bob dylan has denied that he took his name from dylan thomas, so i have to respect the his denial. you know? so i can't say that he was doing that on that account. but dylan thomas was very much in the air, and if i ever get a chance to write this book again, i'll include something about dylan thomas too. >> thank you. enjoyed the book. >> thank you. thank you very very much yes, s, ma'am, someone. yep. can't see for the pillar. >> hi. >> hi. >> so dylan was hanging out with the beatles during their '64 tour at the time the beatles were heavily into the free wheeling bob dylan, and i wondered if you could comment on the cross-fertilization as you see it. >> uh-huh. i think the beatles got a lot from bob dylan. [laughter] i'll leave it at that. [laughter] there's a picture in the book of dylan the day before he met the

beatles in manhattan. but, you know, if you listen to rubber soul in particular, i think dylan's influence is vast. however, i mean, look, did bob dylan pick up something of the beatles? you bet. i mean, there's that famous story when he's crossing the country in a car in 1964, and he hears the beatles on the radio, and he misunderstands i want to hold your hand to be i get high, i get high, and he goes, whoa, can you say that on the radio? [laughter] i don't know if that's true or not. but, sure, the english were bringing back to america another one of these cultural circuits, and they were giving us back -- you know, the beatles' version, a kind of mixture of both english music hall and american rock and roll and little richard and the genius of paul mccartney and john lennon but were giving america back a

version of its, and bob dylan couldn't help but respond to that. it's not so much a particular line of verse or anything like that, but i think he saw possibilities open up by the beatles that helped expand him, you know, not as much as but right along with alan ginsberg and the others he was opening up to in 1963, '64. no question yes, ma'am. >> you had an opportunity -- >> wait for the microphone to come. >> you had an opportunity to meet bob dylan, and if so, what was that like? >> oh, that's a question i never answer. [laughter] so i'm not going to answer it, i'm afraid. you know, there's such a cult about bob dylan, around bob di di -- dylan that -- people ask this all the time. there's some sort of magical properties that would come off him, and i suppose those would adhere on me, and i have no magical properties. but i just like to stay away from that. and also, you know, he's a private person, and i respect

his privacy. so sorry about that. i'm sure he's a wonderful fellow. >> how important do you think bob dylan's 1964 trip throughout the united states where he wrote some things like -- >> the question is how important was that 1964 trip that i was talking about where he writes "mr. tambourine man" and ends up in california, and he stops off in new orleans. it's one of the biographies of bob dylan, there was this cross-country trip he took by car. >> how important do you think that is to his overall ideal as a poet throughout the next, let's say, seven or eight years or, sorry, next three or four years with blond on blond and highway 61? and do you think that he kind of uses some of -- [inaudible] techniques -- [inaudible] >> well, i mean, i think ha that trip was very much -- that that trip was very much a part of of

an entire series of things. excuse me, that was happening to them right around that time. the trip may not have had the impact that it did if he hadn't been opened up to it by, you know, reading rambo and so forth. but the trip was important. any car trip which produces "mr. tambourine man," that's a car trip, man. [laughter] i wish i was on that car trip. and then ends up in california. does he write -- i can't remember. >> [inaudible] >> lay down is what i was thinking of, right. so, you know, there's a trio. >> yeah. >> chimes of freedom, i have a whole section in the book about that. that's a song that i think is very deeply influenced by the beats. but, you know, it's raining outside, right? that's the most extraordinary description of the poetics of a thunderstorm i've ever heard. to hear the crashing of ducking

into a doorway and then to see the whole world open up and redemption for everyone including, you know, every hung up person in the whole wide universe, i mean, wow. >> yeah. of. >> you get that out of a rainstorm? [laughter] all i get is wet. [laughter] any more questions? is. >> [inaudible] >> bob dylan is on the road. the question is where's bob dylan now? bob dylan is on the road. i don't know, somebody can go on google or bob dylan.com and tell me where he's playing tonight. >> [inaudible] >> oh, i'm sorry. he's not on the road. he will be on the road. [laughter] he's usually on the road. that's why i said that with such confidence. yes, sir. can we get the microphone up here? >> when bob dylan released the "hard rain" album in 1976, when that came out, there was a

television special -- >> yes. >> -- that. [inaudible] the most amazing piece of television that i think i've ever seen. i mean, it was limited commercial, just one sponsor, and for me anyway, an exposure to his music. do you have any information as to how it happened that they did that in that way? >> uh-huh, sure. i like that, too, actually. i like the record more than most people do. the version of "maggie's farm" on that record is just to die. it's really good. that was filmed, i believe, in fort collins, colorado. everybody in the audience is shaking their heads. they all know. the thing about dylan fans is

they know everything about di hand. [laughter] so if i said boulder, everybody would have been -- [laughter] it was fort collins, colorado. and it was the second leg of the rolling thunder review tour. the original rolling thunder review got as far north as montreal, but it was mostly in new england in 1975. dylan kept it going another year as a sort of southern leg of the tour, and some of the people who had been on the original were there, and is some of them weren't. but it was a rainy afternoon out in the open air in fort collins, and the rolling thunder review hit fort collins, and that's that concert. it's very different from the performances that i write about in the book which were the white face performances with the sombrero and the desire and all of that. here he's wearing a kind of rolled-up turban that looks like protection against the rain or maybe he's going to go invade some country, i don't know. and joan baez is done up in an amazing getup in those shots.

but actually their singing together of "butcher boy" and a couple other numbers is particularly powerful. but the "maggie's farm "on that is just great. and it sews dylan, again, reinventing his songs. i never heard him do it that way before or since, but it's great. so i agree with you. go get "hard rain." >> [inaudible] >> one more question, ladies and gents. there's a gentleman right there. and i'll answeryour question later. >> you spoke earlier about the visit to care back's grave and that sam shepherd was along with him, i guess he was very young at time. and you also talked about copeland's movie music. sam shepherd and dylan wrote a song together which is one of my favorites, and it's also a movie in that gregory peck is in this movie. and i've never really been able to tie it all together.

seems to be a lot about america, but do you have any enlightenment that you could share on that? >> brownsville girl? i'm not really strong on that. there's a movie now, i gather, being made out of "brownsville girl." another movie being made out of it. but it's one of the highlights of that period that i talked about as kind of a -- i think it was a barren period. but he and sam shepherd, some magic happened, and he describes this -- you know, how do describe it? epic in how many verses. but i don't know as much about the background of that one as i do about some of the others. >> [inaudible] an old movie, early gregory peck movie, "gunfighter"? >> yes. >> if you look at that -- [inaudible]

[laughter] >> he would. [laughter] >> go see bob dylan in anything. [laughter] >> that's what i love about talking about bob dylan. you get every story. >> [inaudible] >> yeah. the relation to movie stars, you know, in minnesota he talks about how his friend dave whitaker's wife's mother took pictures of him, and he said, you should see me, i look just like marlon brando and james dean. i don't know how much he did, but his attachment with movies and movie stars goes back to days when members of his family ran the local theater. so dylan's connection with movies, not just the movies he makes or has made, and this book includes a rousing defense of masked and anonymous. [applause] i can see i'm among the enlightened as well as among friends. [laughter]

that year the critics seemed to prepare "my big fat greek wedding." that tells me a lot about movie critics and less about "masked and anonymous." it's a wonderful film. quite apart from all that, his connections to movies and shows comes through in his lyrics, and movie actors are very strong. and gregory peck was a great actor, so why not? okay. do we have time for, like, half a question? okay, half a question. you only can say half of it now. [laughter] >> you talked a little bit about some of the scoring. can you comment on your take with the audience, i've seen the college, he was playing, like, four concerts at community colleges in florida at the end of next month, i think. can you talk -- and his sort of

ongoing tour all over the world. can you talk about his relationship with touring and his relationship with his audience? >> right. >> he always seems to go back and forth for me. >> well, his relationship with his audience is kind of a tough one. i mean, he's there to perform his songs, and he's not there, you know, to do a whole lot of chitchat. chitchat can be great. i just went to a paul mccartney concert, and he chitchats with the audience, and it's wonderful with. if bob dylan did that, it would probably fall flat. what i take from a 69-year-old man who's not on the road tonight, sorry for the mistake. he likes being on the road a lot but, b, it tells me that he's the real thing. you know? i mean, jerry lee lewis is appearing down the street tonight. why roll there, i don't know, but i'm so happy you're here instead. you know, chuck berry will still perform -- these are the guys

who are out there, you know? who do it again and again and again. and, you know, bob dylan could have packed it up a long time ago and had an incredibly rich career, and people like me, college professors like me would probably be writing books about himway. but his relationship to his art is one that has to be constantly performed. understand, bob dylan is not just a recording artist, he's a performer, and those songs have to be performed. and that, and they're often performed in different ways, and they're performed with different bands, and they're performed for different audiences including younger audiences. i mean, those minor league baseball parks, nothing made me happier to see the 4 and 5-year-olds scampering around and tree years later -- three years later they're 9 and 10-year-olds, and they're growing up with this music. but it's not just a cultural thing. i think dylan sees his work as something that needs to be performed and can't just be listened to on your cd player no

matter how sophisticated it is. he's on the road. see, that's a beat reference. ha, ha, ha. [laughter] the man is on the road. and for that i'm eternally grateful because i love going to bob dylan concerts. i truly do. and i love the people that bring me to bob dylan concerts. any other questions? be. >> [inaudible] >> oh, my friend larry. come on, we have to let larry ask a question. >> you mentioned tommy macon and the clancys and the minstrel boy, and i just was reminded of the paul robison version of the minstrel boy. was dylan in any way affected by paul robison? >> he would have had to have been. paul robison was right in the middle of that world that i describe so, sure, he would have listened to it. and if you listen to "the lonesome road," you know, look up, look up, seek your maker

before gabriel blows his horn, paul robison's version of that is, you know, the standard. so i'm sure. he hasn't written about it anywhere, but you could not have come of age when dylan did in that part of the world without being aware of paul robison and his music. folks, thank you very much. [applause] >> sean wilentz is the author of "the rise of american democracy," which was the recipient of the bancroft prize. he's the author of "the liner notes "for the bootleg series, volume 6, bob dylan, the concert at the philharmonic hall and as the author of bob dylan's official web site. for more information visit bobdylan.com. >> visit booktv.org to watch any of the programs you see here online. type the author or book title in the search bar on the upper left side of the page and click