“His First New York Concert”

1961-11-04, Carnegie Chapter Hall, New York, NY

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We’re five entries into a series I titled The Earliest Concert Tapes, but, really, this is the first one that actually feels like a concert. The previous four were short sets at coffeehouses and folk festivals. Which was Dylan’s bread and butter his first year in New York. Today we hear his first real concert-concert. A real venue, ticketed, with his face on the handbill, and a proper 22-song set. As the flyer advertises: “His First New York Concert.”

Alas, we don’t have all 22 songs on this tape, but we have 16 of ‘em. Here is the full setlist. The 16 songs that circulate are in bold.

1. Pretty Peggy-O (Trad.)

2. In The Pines (Leadbelly)

3. Gospel Plow (Trad.)

4. 1913 Massacre (Woody Guthrie)

5. Backwater Blues (Bessie Smith)

6. A Long Time A-Growin' (Trad.)

7. Fixin' To Die (Bukka White)

8. San Francisco Bay Blues (Jesse Fuller)

9. Car Song (Woody Guthrie)

10. Talkin’ Bear Mountain Picnic Massacre Blues

11. Man On The Street

12. Sally Gal

13. This Land Is Your Land (Woody Guthrie)

14. Talking Merchant Marine (Woody Guthrie)

15. Black Cross (Lord Buckley)

16. He Was A Friend Of Mine

17. Pretty Polly (trad.)

18. House Of The Risin' Sun (trad.)

19. The Cuckoo Is A Pretty Bird (trad.)

20. Freight Train Blues (John Lair)

21. Song To Woody

22. Talkin' New York

The tapes so far have felt like hearing an embryonic Bob Dylan as, more or less, a nobody. He was never appearing prominently in the billing for the shows (at one, he hadn’t really been invited at all). He’s sandwiched between a bunch of other artists, squeezing in two or three or four songs before someone else plays. So how did he go from there, where he was just a couple months prior, to this? A full concert, under his own name, with posters and tickets and everything…

The answer essential boils down to three men: Robert Shelton, Albert Grossman, John Hammond. In rough chronological order, during the course of just over a month:

1. Shelton writes up a rave concert review in the New York Times

2. Grossman becomes his manager (unofficially, for now)

3. Hammond signs him to Columbia Records

That’s a hell of a month. During October 1961, more or less, Bob Dylan went from a little-known folk singer to— well, still a little-known folk singer, but now one with buzz!

Trying to launch Dylan beyond the Greenwich Village baskethouses, Grossman persuaded the Folklore Center’s Izzy Young to pay to book Carnegie Chapter Hall (a small recital room above the much more famous Carnegie Hall) for this showcase. The fee was $60. That’d be just over $600 today. Dylan shouts out the Folklore Center in a rewritten lyric in closer “Talkin' New York.” A couple weeks later, he would enter the studio to record his debut album.

Despite the room seating only 200 people, only a quarter of that turned up. Howard Sounes writes in Down the Highway:

Izzy Young’s agreement with Bob was that they would share the gate. When only fifty-two people came (Grossman did not attend, perhaps having already guessed it would be a flop), and it was clear Young would lose money, he gave Bob a few dollars out of his own pocket. Bob seemed a little embarrassed about taking charity, but he made no comment on the fact that so few people had come, being mentally strong enough to deal with failure which was characteristic of him throughout his career. As Young puts it: “He took it pretty straight.”

Thankfully, the concert was professionally recorded, though I haven’t found out by who or why. I’m shocked it hasn’t been released years ago. It’s a great performance, capturing the moment where all-folk-covers Dylan is just beginning to change over to performing his own material.

Hearing this tape, there’s one thing that strikes me even more than the singing (though don’t miss his off-mic belting on “Gospel Plow”), than the guitar playing (though don’t miss the sharp slides on “Fixin’ to Die,” as seen in A Complete Unknown), or than the harmonica (though don’t miss the breaks on “In the Pines”).

It’s the chit-chat! What would years later become known to all us weirdos as BobTalk.

One reason we treasure BobTalk so much these days is its rarity. It’s a beautiful moment when you get anything beyond “Thank you friends” and a band intro. Some nights you don’t even get that. But this concert feels like a VH1 Storytellers taping from young Dylan. There’s lengthy chat between practically every song. He tells jokes, he shares anecdotes, he explains what the songs mean. As I’ve mentioned in the Riverside writeup, Village scenesters like Terri Thal were first impressed not by his songwriting, but by his stage manner. You can really hear that here.

So I’ve transcribed all the BobTalk, much of which didn’t seem to be online anywhere (Olof’s Files only had the first few), and shared it with the audio clips. Since, as is often the case, what he says is good, but the way he says it is even better. Full tape—that is, the 16 songs that circulate—at the end.

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Before “In the Pines”:

Kinda got lost coming up here tonight. Took the subway. Got off somewhere on 156th Street. Started walking back. I got hung up in a Cadillac store. So I'm not here so on time. Almost run over by a bus. I took another subway. Down to 34th street and I walked up here.

Come pretty prepared tonight. I got a list on my guitar. This is a new list. I used to have one on my guitar about a month ago; that was no good. Figured I'd get a good list. So I went around and put the list on first. Then I went around to other guitar players and I sort of looked at their list and I copied down songs on mine. Some of these I don't know so good.

Well. Let's see here. Here's a (need to leave the stage (off mic)) that's fine. Here I go.

This is story about a little girl running all over, finding out about life. She's going out at night, coming home, keeping late hours. Finding out just what makes up life. 11 years old.

Before “1913 Massacre”:

[When I] first came here, I used to spend a lot of time with Woody Guthrie. Last February. This is one of Woody’s songs. I'll sing a couple more. This is one of a group of two.

Before “Backwater Blues”:

Thanks. Here's a song I guess just about everybody knows. Leadbelly used to sing this.

(It perhaps says something about who made up his audience that he’d assume “just about everybody knows” this Bessie Smith song from the 1920s.)

Before “A Long Time A-Growing”:

I must admit before I came I learned funny folk songs in New York. I learned about, … well since I been here now since …, February, last February. I've learned about, oh, 4 or 5 new songs I never heard about before. And one I never heard about was this one. There's this Irishman. Liam Clancy, sings this one. This is a straight copy. Straight imitation. I don't imitate the voice so much, I can't get that accent down quite good enough. It’s an Irish one though.

Very sad song. Maybe this the American version of the Irish version of Liam Clancy’s version. Heard Liam sing this in the White Horse Bar. Irish bar.

Before “Talkin’ Bear Mountain Picnic Massacre Blues”:

Well. Tell you what I'll do here, try something new. A lot of people used to play guitars with knives as they tune the guitar open. [demonstrates] People get a knife, play with the knife like that. I've lost some audiences like that, playing with the knife.

Before “Man on the Street”:

I’ll sing you a song I wrote— (In response to something in the audience I’m guessing:) Maybe it was time to go out or something and have a cigarette. Got no name really to this one.

Before “This Land Is Your Land”:

Another Woody Guthrie song here. This is... I haven't done too many Woody Guthrie songs, since a long time ago, so I'm gonna do a few of them tonight. This is one by a special request for this.

Before “Talking Merchant Marine”:

Got some seamen in the house tonight. [chuckles] Here’s another one by Woody. I haven’t done this one in a long time.

Before “Black Cross”:

This next one, this isn't a song. It’s just sort of a little story. I first heard this from a man in Portland, Oregon. There's a place there called The Casino. It's a sort of a jazz place. I saw a man named Lord Buckley who used to work there. His name was Richard Buckley. Everybody called him Lord Buckley. He was billed as Lord Buckley. He had a mustache, wore an African hat, and he was a sort of a poet. I learned this from him. [starts strumming]

Mr. Buckley's dead now. He died in New York. He didn't write this, but I learned it from him.

At this point he shifts into the song, but since the song itself is basically a spoken-word poem, the entire thing kinda sounds like BobTalk.

Before “Song to Woody”:

I’ll do ya one more. I wrote this. I wrote this one for Woody Guthrie. [huge applause] You heard of Woody? [laughs] He used to carry this with him in his back pocket. This is at New Jersey.

Before “Talkin’ New York”:

(Audience presumably asks for one more). Well, I ain’t got nowhere to go anyway. Oh, here’s one. I wrote this one before— I hate to get all the songs I wrote. There’s a lot of other good ones. I’ll put in a plug for my own songs here too as well. [laughs]

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1961-11-04, Carnegie Chapter Hall, New York, NY

That’s it for the 1961 half of The Earliest Concert Tapes series! I’ll continue on with 1962 in a month or two, but first will get back to our more typical fare, writing about other eras and other shows before we dive back into the early 1960s.

Here are the previous four entries if you want to catch up: