超冷门作品，就出了第一卷。

买回来后我到现在还没看完……已经过了1年了……

没看过，顶

看看

是什么内容，可否摘录一段文字？

冷门 我喜欢

我的民谣启蒙人。。dylan大叔

鲍勃·迪伦不仅称得上是20世纪最伟大的摇滚音乐家，更是一位杰出的诗人，一位语言大师（他是惟一一位获诺贝尔文学奖提名的音乐家）。本书出版以后，获得了如潮的好评：有媒体把它与克鲁亚克的《在路上》相提并论，也有媒体说它写作手法直追意识流大师普鲁斯特，更有媒体称迪伦为莎士比亚以来最伟大的英语作家。本书记录的不仅是作者发明创造和灵感迸发的辉煌时刻，还有那些意气消沉的时刻！

鲍勃·迪伦（Bob Dylan，1941年5月24日－），原名罗伯特·艾伦·齐默曼（Robert Allen Zimmerman），有重要影响力的美国唱作人，民谣歌手，音乐家，诗人，获2008年诺贝尔文学奖提名。他被认为是20世纪美国最重要、最有影响力的民谣歌手，并被视为20世纪60年代美国民权运动的代言人。他直接影响了一大批同时代和后来的音乐人，例如尼尔·杨、大卫·波维、娄·里得、布鲁斯·斯普林斯丁等人，并被时代杂志选为本世纪最有影响力的100人的名单。

dylan叔的，必须收集

太感谢楼主了，一直想看这本书来着~~

传奇巨星

迪伦的《BLOWIN_'IN THE WIND》（答案在风中飘摇）

How many roads must a man walk down 一个男人要走过多少路，

Before you call him a man 才可以称之为好汉？

How many seas must a white dove sail 一只白鸽要飞过多少片海，

Before she sleeps in the sand 才能在沙滩上入眠？

How many times must the cannonballs fly 炮弹要横行多久，

Before they are forever banned 才会永不存在？

The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind 我的朋友

The answer is blowing in the wind 在风中就能找到答案。

How many years can a mountain exist 一座山要屹立多久，

Before it is washed to the sea 才会被冲刷入海？

How many years can some people exist 这些人要坚持多少年，

Before they're allowed to be free 才会获得自由？

How many times can a man turn his head 一个人要转过多少次头，

And pretend that he just doesn't see 来假装他什么都没看见？

The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind 我的朋友

The answer is blowing in the wind 在风中就能找到答案。

How many times must a man look up 一个人要抬多少次头，

Before he can see the sky 才可以看得见天空？

How many ears must one man have 一个人要有多少只耳朵，

Before he can hear people cry 才能听到人们的哭泣？

How many deaths will it take till he knows 要经历多少次死亡他才会知道，

That too many people have died 太多的人已经付出了生命？

The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind 我的朋友

The answer is blowing in the wind 在风中就能找到答案。


在电影《阿甘正传》里曾经出现在这首歌曲，60年代末到70年代初曾经作为反越战歌曲传唱，但他的产生却要早得多，现在网上能找到的资料大多是这样介绍的：
这首歌的作者鲍勃.迪伦(Bob Dylan)，1941年出生于美国明尼苏达州的一个有犹太血统的家庭。自幼喜爱音乐，60年代初，他从明尼苏达大学辍学来到纽约开始了他的歌唱生涯。1964年，他以一曲《Blowing in the Wind》走红流行歌坛，渐渐成为民谣乐坛上的重要人物。60年代中后期，他的乐风突然发生了重大变化，从此他的歌曲不再被称为民谣而成了“民谣摇滚”。（有的资料上介绍这首歌创作于1962年）



鲍勃.迪伦所写的歌曲旋律简洁优美、歌词质朴而富有哲理，充分表达了他对社会的看法和对政治的见解，因而被人们誉为“出色的诗人、尖刻的社会评论家、反主流文化的勇敢旗手”。摇滚乐这种令年轻人狂热的音乐形式在鲍勃.迪伦的手里增加了表现宗教、死亡、爱情、政治等问题的内涵。他的作品使人们意识到摇滚乐和诗歌、小说一样是直率的、个性的、有生命力的。如果说猫王在50年代赋予摇滚乐以生命，那么也可以说鲍勃.迪伦在60年代赋予了摇滚乐以灵魂。

这首歌写于1964年，这也是被称为“美国民谣摇滚之父”的他所有创作歌曲中最优秀、最出名的一首。1957年越战爆发，美国把大量的人力、物力投向越南战场，结果造成了惨重的伤亡。于是美国社会内部掀起了一股反战热潮。与此同时，民歌也在全美各地校园流行起来，许多年青人利用创作民歌表达人民的呼声。这首歌因为迎合了当时的社会思潮，因而迅速风靡全世界：

“一个人要仰望多少次
他才能看见天空？
一个人要有多少只耳朵
他才能听见民众的呼喊？
要牺牲多少生命
他才能知道太多的人已经死去？
答案啊，我的朋友，就飘在风中。
答案就飘在风中。”

事实上这首歌的意义已经远远超过了反战，他和马丁路德金的那段著名演讲《I Have a Dream》（我有一个梦想）一样成为美国民权运动的标志。

关于迪伦还有这样一段笑话：有人问罗大佑，你的嗓子这么不好怎么还唱歌？大佑回答，鲍勃迪伦的嗓子还不如我呢，他能唱我为什么不能唱？

刚刚找到一篇比较完整的迪伦的介绍，奉献给大家。
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f0/Bob_Dylan_in_November_1963.jpg/200px-Bob_Dylan_in_November_1963.jpg
鲍勃·迪伦（Bob Dylan，1941年5月24日－），原名罗伯特·艾伦·齐默曼（Robert Allen Zimmerman），有重要影响力的美国唱作人，民谣歌手，音乐家，诗人。

迪伦成名于二十世纪六十年代，并被广泛认为是美国六十年代反叛文化的代言人。他的一些歌曲，例如《答案在风中飘》（Blowing in The Wind）【或译为随风而飘】等，成为在反战抗议和民权运动中被广泛传唱的曲目。直到今天，他仍然是非常有影响力非常受欢迎的艺人之一。他的歌词包含了政治抗议、社会评论、哲学和诗歌。除了在音乐上形式的探索以外，他也继承了美国传统的民谣、摇滚乐、乡村和蓝调音乐，甚至包括爵士和摇摆乐。

职业生涯

60年代前期
迪伦于1941年5月24日出生于明尼苏达州一个名叫杜鲁斯的小镇，他的祖父母是犹太裔的移民，于十九世纪末从从立陶宛和乌克兰移民到美国。他的童年生活，大部分都在收音机前听广播里的蓝调和乡村歌曲中度过；他在高中的时候就有自己的乐队，最早已知的录音John Bucklen Tape[1]，是他于1958年与高中好友John Bucklen在迪伦家中翻唱Little Richard和Richard Rodgers等人的歌曲。他于1959年高中毕业，并前往明尼苏达大学就读。他在大学时代，渐渐对民谣产生兴趣，开始在学校附近的民谣圈子演出，并首度以鲍伯‧迪伦作艺名。大学第一年没读完，他就从学校退学，但依然留在明尼阿波利斯与那里的民谣圈内演出。

在1961年的一次从明尼阿波利斯到芝加哥的途中，迪伦改变主意，前往纽约，探望自己的音乐偶像伍迪‧伽瑟里，并在其面前演出。在一些纽约格林威治村的小俱乐部中的演出中，他逐渐脱颖而出，获得了以Robert Shelton为首的乐评人的好评，并为哥伦比亚唱片公司的著名制作人约翰‧哈蒙德所注意，于当年10月与迪伦签订了第一份唱片合约，为期五年，并于1962年推出了第一张名为《鲍伯‧迪伦》的同名专辑。这张专辑里，只有Song To Woody与Talking New York是迪伦自己的创作作，其余都是他在格林威治村民谣圈子里，向其他歌手学来的歌曲。

他于1963年发行第二张专辑《自由驰骋的鲍伯‧迪伦》（The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan），专辑中十三首歌都是迪伦自己的创作，并因其受到伍迪‧伽瑟里和乔‧希尔而影响，以演唱抗议歌曲而出名，他这个时期最有代表性的歌曲之一，即《答案在风中飘》（Blowing in The Wind），在其后的反战和民权运动中被反复传唱，而很多人也是透过在电影《阿甘正传》中琼‧拜亚对这首歌的翻唱而认识迪伦。

迪伦许多早期的歌曲，都是因为别人的翻唱才广为人知，例如被人们称为民谣女皇的琼‧拜亚与彼得、保罗与玛丽，不仅翻唱过迪伦的歌曲，更是迪伦的重要支持者和朋友。自1963年起，琼‧拜亚邀请迪伦与她一起巡回演出；1963年8月28日，两人曾于著名的“华盛顿大进军”这场大规模的民权运动游行中，演唱Only A Pawn In Their Game与Keep Your Eyes On The Prize这两首歌曲[2]。正是在这次大游行中，马丁·路德·金发表了他著名的《我有一个梦》的演讲。在这个过程中，迪伦逐渐成为人们心目中民权运动的代言人，但是他本人却对此开始反感起来。1963年底，在肯尼迪总统被刺杀不久之后，他前往接受国家紧急民权委员会的一个颁奖仪式，他带着酒气，质疑了委员会的作用。在此之后，他逐渐远离民权运动和抗议歌曲。

60年代后期
他曾经于1963年和1964年，两次在新港民谣音乐节(Newport Folk Festival)上演出。六零年代的民谣音乐界，对于摇滚乐的出现与盛行普遍感到不满，迪伦却在1965年7月25日，于当年的民谣音乐节中，第一次在舞台表演中使用电吉他，在观众的掌声和嘘声中，他仅仅演唱了三首“插了电(Plugged)”的歌曲，随即被愤怒的听众赶下台，这被认为是其从民谣转向摇滚乐的转折点。关于为什么迪伦要在1965年的表演中使用电吉他，从而让许多他原来的民谣听众认为他是一个叛徒，一直有着多种不同的解释。但是，这次表演也被认为是民谣历史上的一个重要时刻，因为它代表着即使是对迪伦这样的继承传统的音乐家来说，民谣再也无法再满足迪伦的需求了。

1965年迪伦发行了自己的第一张摇滚专辑《重访六十一号公路》（Highway 61 Revisited），其中的一曲《像一块滚石》（Like a Rolling Stone）迅速登上美国排行榜第二名、英国排行榜第四名，后来并被Rolling Stone杂志列为史上最伟大的歌曲。在专辑出版之后，迪伦开始在美国国内巡演，在这个过程中，仍然有歌迷要求他放弃摇滚乐，改回到民谣的原声吉他中。

1965年11月22日，迪伦与萨拉·劳登（Sara Lownds）秘密结婚，并于次年产下一女。他们共生有四个孩子，其中最小的雅戈布·迪伦（Jakob Dylan）也从事了音乐事业，并成为“墙花乐队”（The Wallflower）主唱。两者于1977年离婚。

1966年春，迪伦开始了自己在澳大利亚和欧洲的巡演。每次表演通常被分成两个部分，一个部分为他使用木吉他的民谣表演，另一个部分则是用电吉他的摇滚乐表演。在巡演过后他回到纽约，但却依然面临着巨大的压力。当年7月29日，他在纽约的伍德斯托克附近驾驶摩托车中，由于刹车错误而摔了下来，脖子受伤，暂时地从公众视野中消失了一段时间，直到1968年1月20日于伍迪·伽瑟里的纪念音乐会中才再次在公众面前出现。在六十年代剩下的几年内，迪伦的音乐则开始向更具思考型发展，并受到了那什维尔乡村音乐的影响。

70和80年代
当迪伦与与哥伦比亚的第二张合约期满之后，双方无法达成新约定，于是他在1973年与格芬唱片签了一份发行一张专辑的合约，即Planet Waves；为了推销这张唱片，迪伦于1974年与长年的老朋友The Band一起进行北美巡回演出，巡回演出结束后不久，与妻子的关系开始恶化。

1975年，迪伦探望了深处囹圄中，因种族歧视蒙受不白之冤的黑人拳王罗宾‧“飓风”‧卡特（Rubin "Hurricane" Carter），并创作了一首长达八分多钟的《飓风》（"Hurricane"）为他声冤。同年10月30日，他展开一场名为“Rolling Thunder Revue”的巡回，与琼尼·米歇尔、Roger McGuinn、诗人Allen Ginsberg一起演出，甚至琼·贝茨这位在民权运动后期，因为与迪伦意见不一而分道扬镳的朋友，也与他重修旧好而加入巡回。

1977年7月29日，迪伦与Sara Lownds正式离婚；1979年，迪伦成为一名再生的基督徒(Born Again Christian)，影响到他从1979年到1982年的创作，这段时间的三张专辑，Slow Train Coming、Saved、Shot of Love都带有浓重的宗教气息。

80年代以后，迪伦的唱片得到的评论和市场的反应比较不一。在1985年，他与自己的伴唱歌手卡洛琳‧邓尼斯结婚，并在此年生下一名女孩。这次婚姻一直持续到90年代早期。1988年他入选了摇滚名人堂。

1988年6月7日，迪伦在美国加州的 Concord 展开了一场名为Never Ending Tour的巡回，此后以每年一百场上下的次数，在全球各地演出，这场巡回至今已超过一千九百场。


90年代至今
进入90年代，迪伦出版唱片的速度开始变得缓慢，其中在1992年的As I Been to You、和1993年的World Gone Wrong中，他重新拾起早期的民谣，翻唱许多并不广为人知的歌曲。1992年10月16日，在麦迪逊花园广场，举办了一场纪念迪伦踏入歌坛三十年的演唱会，其中包括尼尔·杨（Neil Young）、埃里克·克莱普顿（Eric Clapton）、前披头四吉他手乔治·哈里森（George Harrison）等人均到场表演[3]。1995年，迪伦在MTV音乐台录制不插电演唱会；1997年初，由于突然心脏病发作，当年的欧洲巡回被迫取消，但他很快就康复出院，甚至还于当年9月27日，在教宗若望保禄二世面前表演[4]。1997年9月30日，迪伦发行了由Daniel Lanois制作的Time out of Mind，距离他上一张原创专辑Oh Mercy有八年之久。

2001年9月11日，迪伦发行Love and Theft；2004年10月，他出版了名为Chronicles, Vol. 1，的自传，作为计划中三部分的自传的第一部，记述了他的童年生活、在纽约奋斗的经过、中年陷入创作低潮的心情…等。推出之后，该书停留纽约时报书籍非小说类排行榜长达19周。该书中文简体版已由江苏人民出版社和凤凰出版传媒集团共同出版，译名为《像一块滚石》；繁体中文版亦已由大块文化出版股份有限公司出版，译名为《摇滚记》。

2005年，曾经导演过《出租车司机》、《愤怒的公牛》等影片的导演马丁·斯科西斯执导了迪伦的自传性电影No Direction Home，讲述了从出生到摩托车事故之前的迪伦；片中有大量的访谈与实况演出的影像，包括迪伦当时的亲密战友琼·拜亚、以及1966年5月17日在曼彻斯特那著名的吼声（Judas！）。

2006年8月底，迪伦发行了他第四十八张专辑"Modern Times"，随即登上美国排行榜第一名。他的上一张冠军专辑，是三十年前的"Desire"。


出版唱片
Bob Dylan (1962)
The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan (1963)
The Times They Are a-Changin' (1964)
Another Side Of Bob Dylan (1964)
Bringing It All Back Home (1965)
Highway 61 Revisited (1965)
Blonde on Blonde (1966)
John Wesley Harding (1967)
Nashville Skyline (1969)
Self Portrait (1970)
New Morning (1970)
Pat Garrett & Billy The Kid (1973)
Dylan (1973)
Planet Waves (1974)
Before the Flood (1974)
Blood on the Tracks (1975)
Basement tapes (1975)
Desire (1976)
Hard Rain (1976)
Street Legal (1978)
Budokan (1978)
Slow Train Coming (1979)
Saved (1980)
Shot of Love (1981)
Infidels (1983)
Real Live (1984)
Empire Burlesque (1985)
Biograph (1985)
Knocked Out Loaded (1986)
Down In The Groove (1988)
Oh Mercy (1989)
Under The Red Sky (1990)
Good As I Been To You (1992)
The Bob Dylan 30th Anniversary Concert Celebration (1993)
World Gone Wrong (1993)
Unplugged (1995)
Time out of Mind (1997)
"Live 1966" (The « Royal Albert Hall » concert The Bootleg Series Volume 4) (1998)
Love and Theft (2001)
"Live 1975" (2002)
"Live 1964" (2004)
Modern Times (2006)

相关评价
鲍勃·迪伦被认为是20世纪美国最重要、最有影响力的民谣歌手，并被视为20世纪60年代美国民权运动的代言人。他直接影响了一大批同时代和后来的音乐人，例如尼尔·杨、大卫·波维、娄·里得、布鲁斯·斯普林斯丁等人，并被时代杂志选为本世纪最有影响力的100人的名单

Chronicles Volume Oen—Bob Dylan 『X』

Chronicles Volume One—Bob Dylan 『V』

bob dylan 不是一般的牛人 很牛！！不看不行

终于终于找到了 为什么只有卷一 巨谢

太爱Bob Dylan，3Q VM。。。

楼主太强了，连这个都有啊！收下了，谢谢！

哥们怎么不发完整啊 我哭啊！！

看了就回复

October 12, 2004 - Bob Dylan's new book, Chronicles: Volume One, portrays him at the extremes of his career. On one page it's 1961. He's a young man making a call from a phone booth in New York City, waiting for his shot at fame. On another, it's the mid-1980s, and he's a burned-out rock star who can no longer feel the power of his own songs.

When members of the Grateful Dead asked him to return to performing his old songs, Dylan made up an excuse and fled. Eventually, he found his way back to the road, touring constantly in hopes of being discovered by a new audience.

In a rare interview, Dylan tells NPR's Steve Inskeep he never accepted being called the "voice of his generation."

"That was just a term that could create problems for somebody, especially if someone just wants to keep it simple, write songs and play them," Dylan says. "Having these colossal accolades and titles, they get in the way."

Below is Chapter 1, "Markin' Up the Score," from Chronicles: Volume One by Bob Dylan (Simon & Schuster).

Book Excerpt

Lou Levy, top man of Leeds Music Publishing company, took me up in a taxi to the Pythian Temple on West 70th Street to show me the pocket sized recording studio where Bill Haley and His Comets had recorded "Rock Around the Clock" — then down to Jack Dempsey's restaurant on 58th and Broadway, where we sat down in a red leather upholstered booth facing the front window.

Lou introduced me to Jack Dempsey, the great boxer. Jack shook his fist at me.

"You look too light for a heavyweight kid, you'll have to put on a few pounds. You're gonna have to dress a little finer, look a little sharper — not that you'll need much in the way of clothes when you're in the ring — don't be afraid of hitting somebody too hard."

"He's not a boxer, Jack, he's a songwriter and we'll be publishing his songs."

"Oh, yeah, well I hope to hear 'em some of these days. Good luck to you, kid."

Outside the wind was blowing, straggling cloud wisps, snow whirling in the red lanterned streets, city types scuffling around, bundled up — salesmen in rabbit fur earmuffs hawking gimmicks, chestnut vendors, steam rising out of manholes.

None of it seemed important. I had just signed a contract with Leeds Music giving it the right to publish my songs, not that there was any great deal to hammer out. I hadn't written much yet. Lou had advanced me a hundred dollars against future royalties to sign the paper and that was fine with me.

John Hammond, who had brought me to Columbia Records, had taken me over to see Lou, asked him to look after me. Hammond had only heard two of my original compositions, but he had a premonition that there would be more.

Back at Lou's office, I opened my guitar case, took the guitar out and began fingering the strings. The room was cluttered — boxes of sheet music stacked up, recording dates of artists posted on bulletin boards, black lacquered discs, acetates with white labels scrambled around, signed photos of entertainers, glossy portraits — Jerry Vale, Al Martino, The Andrews Sisters (Lou was married to one of them), Nat King Cole, Patti Page, The Crew Cuts — a couple of console reel-to-reel tape recorders, big dark brown wooden desk full of hodgepodge. Lou had put a microphone on the desk in front of me and plugged the cord into one of the tape recorders, all the while chomping on a big exotic stogie.

"John's got high hopes for you," Lou said.

John was John Hammond, the great talent scout and discoverer of monumental artists, imposing figures in the history of recorded music — Billie Holiday, Teddy Wilson, Charlie Christian, Cab Calloway, Benny Goodman, Count Basie, Lionel Hampton. Artists who had created music that resonated through American life. He had brought it all to the public eye. Hammond had even conducted the last recording sessions of Bessie Smith. He was legendary, pure American aristocracy. His mother was an original Vanderbilt, and John had been raised in the upper world, in comfort and ease — but he wasn't satisfied and had followed his own heart's love, music, preferably the ringing rhythm of hot jazz, spirituals and blues — which he endorsed and defended with his life. No one could block his way, and he didn't have time to waste. I could hardly believe myself awake when sitting in his office, him signing me to Columbia Records was so unbelievable. It would have sounded like a made-up thing.

Columbia was one of the first and foremost labels in the country and for me to even get my foot in the door was serious. For starters, folk music was considered junky, second rate and only released on small labels. Big-time record companies were strictly for the elite, for music that was sanitized and pasteurized. Someone like myself would never be allowed in except under extraordinary circumstances. But John was an extraordinary man. He didn't make schoolboy records or record schoolboy artists. He had vision and foresight, had seen and heard me, felt my thoughts and had faith in the things to come. He explained that he saw me as someone in the long line of a tradition, the tradition of blues, jazz and folk and not as some newfangled wunderkind on the cutting edge. Not that there was any cutting edge. Things were pretty sleepy on the Americana music scene in the late '50s and early '60s. Popular radio was sort of at a standstill and filled with empty pleasantries. It was years before The Beatles, The Who or The Rolling Stones would breathe new life and excitement into it. What I was playing at the time were hard-lipped folk songs with fire and brimstone servings, and you didn't need to take polls to know that they didn't match up with anything on the radio, didn't lend themselves to commercialism, but John told me that these things weren't high on his list and he understood all the implications of what I did.

"I understand sincerity," is what he said. John spoke with a rough, coarse attitude, yet had an appreciative twinkle in his eye.

Recently he had brought Pete Seeger to the label. He didn't discover Pete, though. Pete had been around for years. He'd been in the popular folk group The Weavers, but had been blacklisted during the McCarthy era and had a hard time, but he never stopped working. Hammond was defiant when he spoke about Seeger, that Pete's ancestors had come over on the Mayflower, that his relatives had fought the Battle of Bunker Hill, for Christsake. "Can you imagine those sons of bitches blacklisting him? They should be tarred and feathered."

"I'm gonna give you all the facts," he said to me. "You're a talented young man. If you can focus and control that talent, you'll be fine. I'm gonna bring you in and I'm gonna record you. We'll see what happens."

And that was good enough for me. He put a contract in front of me, the standard one, and I signed it right then and there, didn't get absorbed into details — didn't need a lawyer, advisor or anybody looking over my shoulder. I would have gladly signed whatever form he put in front of me.

He looked at the calendar, picked out a date for me to start recording, pointed to it and circled it, told me what time to come in and to think about what I wanted to play. Then he called in Billy James, the head of publicity at the label, told Billy to write some promo stuff on me, personal stuff for a press release.

Billy dressed Ivy League like he could have come out of Yale — medium height, crisp black hair. He looked like he'd never been stoned a day in his life, never been in any kind of trouble. I strolled into his office, sat down opposite his desk, and he tried to get me to cough up some facts, like I was supposed to give them to him straight and square. He took out a notepad and pencil and asked me where I was from. I told him I was from Illinois and he wrote it down. He asked me if I ever did any other work and I told him that I had a dozen jobs, drove a bakery truck once. He wrote that down and asked me if there was anything else. I said I'd worked construction and he asked me where.

"Detroit."

"You traveled around?"

"Yep."

He asked me about my family, where they were. I told him I had no idea, that they were long gone.

"What was your home life like?"

I told him I'd been kicked out.

"What did your father do?"

"'lectrician."

"And your mother, what about her?"

"Housewife."

"What kind of music do you play?"

"Folk music."

"What kind of music is folk music?"

I told him it was handed down songs. I hated these kind of questions. Felt I could ignore them. Billy seemed unsure of me and that was just fine. I didn't feel like answering his questions anyway, didn't feel the need to explain anything to anybody.

"How did you get here?" he asked me.

"I rode a freight train."

"You mean a passenger train?"

"No, a freight train."

"You mean, like a boxcar?"

"Yeah, like a boxcar. Like a freight train."

"Okay, a freight train."

I gazed past Billy, past his chair through his window across the street to an office building where I could see a blazing secretary soaked up in the spirit of something — she was scribbling busy, occupied at a desk in a meditative manner. There was nothing funny about her. I wished I had a telescope. Billy asked me who I saw myself like in today's music scene. I told him, nobody. That part of things was true, I really didn't see myself like anybody. The rest of it, though, was pure hokum — hophead talk.

I hadn't come in on a freight train at all. What I did was come across the country from the Midwest in a four-door sedan, '57 Impala — straight out of Chicago, clearing the hell out of there — racing all the way through the smoky towns, winding roads, green fields covered with snow, onward, eastbound through the state lines, Ohio, Indiana, Pennsylvania, a twenty-four-hour ride, dozing most of the way in the backseat, making small talk. My mind fixed on hidden interests...eventually riding over the George Washington Bridge.

The big car came to a full stop on the other side and let me out. I slammed the door shut behind me, waved good-bye, stepped out onto the hard snow. The biting wind hit me in the face. At last I was here, in New York City, a city like a web too intricate to understand and I wasn't going to try.

I was there to find singers, the ones I'd heard on record — Dave Van Ronk, Peggy Seeger, Ed McCurdy, Brownie McGhee and Sonny Terry, Josh White, The New Lost City Ramblers, Reverend Gary Davis and a bunch of others — most of all to find Woody Guthrie. New York City, the city that would come to shape my destiny. Modern Gomorrah. I was at the initiation point of square one but in no sense a neophyte.

When I arrived, it was dead-on winter. The cold was brutal and every artery of the city was snowpacked, but I'd started out from the frostbitten North Country, a little corner of the earth where the dark frozen woods and icy roads didn't faze me. I could transcend the limitations. It wasn't money or love that I was looking for. I had a heightened sense of awareness, was set in my ways, impractical and a visionary to boot. My mind was strong like a trap and I didn't need any guarantee of validity. I didn't know a single soul in this dark freezing metropolis but that was all about to change — and quick.

The Café Wha? was a club on MacDougal Street in the heart of Greenwich Village. The place was a subterranean cavern, liquorless, ill lit, low ceiling, like a wide dining hall with chairs and tables — opened at noon, closed at four in the morning. Somebody had told me to go there and ask for a singer named Freddy Neil who ran the daytime show at the Wha?

I found the place and was told that Freddy was downstairs in the basement where the coats and hats were checked and that's where I met him. Neil was the MC of the room and the maestro in charge of all the entertainers. He couldn't have been nicer. He asked me what I did and I told him I sang, played guitar and harmonica. He asked me to play something. After about a minute, he said I could play harmonica with him during his sets. I was ecstatic. At least it was a place to stay out of the cold. This was good.

Fred played for about twenty minutes and then introduced all the rest of the acts, then came back up to play whenever he felt like it, whenever the joint was packed. The acts were disjointed, awkward and seemed to have come from the Ted Mack Amateur Hour, a popular TV show. The audience was mostly collegiate types, suburbanites, lunch-hour secretaries, sailors and tourists. Everybody performed from ten to fifteen minutes. Fred would play for however long he felt, however long the inspiration would last. Freddy had the flow, dressed conservatively, sullen and brooding, with an enigmatical gaze, peachlike complexion, hair splashed with curls and an angry and powerful baritone voice that struck blue notes and blasted them to the rafters with or without a mike. He was the emperor of the place, even had his own harem, his devotees. You couldn't touch him. Everything revolved around him. Years later, Freddy would write the hit song "Everybody's Talkin'." I never played any of my own sets. I just accompanied Neil on all of his and that's where I began playing regular in New York.

The daytime show at the Café Wha?, an extravaganza of patchwork, featured anybody and anything — a comedian, a ventriloquist, a steel drum group, a poet, a female impersonator, a duo who sang Broadway stuff, a rabbit-in-the-hat magician, a guy wearing a turban who hypnotized people in the audience, somebody whose entire act was facial acrobatics — just anybody who wanted to break into show business. Nothing that would change your view of the world. I wouldn't have wanted Fred's gig for anything.

At about eight o'clock, the whole daytime menagerie would come to a halt and then the professional show would begin. Comedians like Richard Pryor, Woody Allen, Joan Rivers, Lenny Bruce and commercial folksinging groups like The Journeymen would command the stage. Everyone who had been there during the day would pack up. One of the guys who played in the afternoons was the falsetto-speaking Tiny Tim. He played ukulele and sang like a girl — old standard songs from the '20s. I got to talking to him a few times and asked him what other kinds of places there were to work around here and he told me that sometimes he played at a place in Times Square called Hubert's Flea Circus Museum. I'd find out about that place later.

Fred was constantly being pestered and pressured by moocher types who wanted to play or perform one thing or another. The saddest character of all was a guy named Billy the Butcher. He looked like he came out of nightmare alley. He only played one song — "High-Heel Sneakers" and he was addicted to it like a drug. Fred would usually let him play it sometime during the day, mostly when the place was empty. Billy would always preface his song by saying "This is for all you chicks." The Butcher wore an overcoat that was too small for him, buttoned tight across the chest. He was jittery and sometime in the past he'd been in a straitjacket in Bellevue, also had burned a mattress in a jail cell. All kinds of bad things had happened to Billy. There was a fire between him and everybody else. He sang that one song pretty good, though.

Another popular guy wore a priest's outfit and red-topped boots with little bells and did warped takes on stories from the Bible. Moondog also performed down here. Moondog was a blind poet who lived mostly on the streets. He wore a Viking helmet and a blanket with high fur boots. Moondog did monologues, played bamboo pipes and whistles. Most of the time he performed on 42nd Street.

My favorite singer in the place was Karen Dalton. She was a tall white blues singer and guitar player, funky, lanky and sultry. I'd actually met her before, run across her the previous summer outside of Denver in a mountain pass town in a folk club. Karen had a voice like Billie Holiday's and played the guitar like Jimmy Reed and went all the way with it. I sang with her a couple of times.

Fred always tried to make a place for most performers and was as diplomatic as possible. Sometimes the room would be inexplicably empty, sometimes half-empty and then suddenly for no apparent reason it would be flushed with people with lines outside. Fred was the man down here, the main attraction and his name was on the marquee, so maybe a lot of these people came to see him. I don't know. He played a big dreadnought guitar, lot of percussion in his playing, piercing driving rhythm — a one-man band, a kick in the head singing voice. He did fierce versions of hybrid chain gang songs and whomped the audience into a frenzy. I'd heard stuff about him, that he was an errant sailor, harbored a skiff in Florida, was an underground cop, had hooker friends and a shadowy past. He'd come up to Nashville, drop off songs that he wrote and then head for New York where he'd lay low, wait for something to blow over and fill up his pockets with wampum. Whatever it was, it wasn't a huge story. He seemed to have no aspirations. We were very compatible, didn't talk personal at all. He was very much like me, polite but not overly friendly, gave me pocket change at the end of the day, said "Here...so you'll keep out of trouble."

The best part of working with him, though, was strictly gastronomical — all the French fries and hamburgers I could eat. At some point during the day, Tiny Tim and I would go in the kitchen and hang around. Norbert the cook would usually have a greasy burger waiting. Either that, or he'd let us empty a can of pork and beans or spaghetti into a frying pan. Norbert was a trip. He wore a tomato-stained apron, had a fleshy, hard-bitten face, bulging cheeks, scars on his face like the marks of claws — thought of himself as a lady's man — saving his money so he could go to Verona in Italy and visit the tomb of Romeo and Juliet. The kitchen was like a cave bored into the side of a cliff.

One afternoon I was in there pouring Coke into a glass from a milk pitcher when I heard a voice coming cool through the screen of the radio speaker. Ricky Nelson was singing his new song, "Travelin' Man." Ricky had a smooth touch, the way he crooned in fast rhythm, the tonation of his voice. He was different than the rest of the teen idols, had a great guitarist who played like a cross between a honky-tonk hero and a barn-dance fiddler. Nelson had never been a bold innovator like the early singers who sang like they were navigating burning ships. He didn't sing desperately, do a lot of damage, and you'd never mistake him for a shaman. It didn't feel like his endurance was ever being tested to the utmost, but it didn't matter. He sang his songs calm and steady like he was in the middle of a storm, men hurling past him. His voice was sort of mysterious and made you fall into a certain mood.

I had been a big fan of Ricky's and still liked him, but that type of music was on its way out. It had no chance of meaning anything. There'd be no future for that stuff in the future. It was all a mistake. What was not a mistake was the ghost of Billy Lyons, rootin' the mountain down, standing 'round in East Cairo, Black Betty bam be lam. That was no mistake. That's the stuff that was happening. That's the stuff that could make you question what you'd always accepted, could litter the landscape with broken hearts, had power of spirit. Ricky, as usual, was singing bleached out lyrics. Lyrics probably written just for him. I'd always felt kin to him, though. We were about the same age, probably liked the same things, from the same generation although our life experience had been so dissimilar, him being brought up out West on a family TV show. It was like he'd been born and raised on Walden Pond where everything was hunky-dory, and I'd come out of the dark demonic woods, same forest, just a different way of looking at things. Ricky's talent was very accessible to me. I felt we had a lot in common. In a few years' time he'd record some of my songs, make them sound like they were his own, like he had written them himself. He eventually did write one himself and mentioned my name in it. Ricky, in about ten years' time, would even get booed while onstage for changing what was perceived as his musical direction. It turned out we did have a lot in common.

There was no way to know that standing in the kitchen of the Café Wha? listening to that smooth, monotone drawl. The thing was that Ricky was still making records and that's what I wanted to do, too. I envisioned myself recording for Folkways Records. That was the label I wanted to be on. That was the label that put out all the great records.

Ricky's song ended and I gave the rest of my French fries to Tiny Tim, went back into the outer room to see what Fred was up to. I had asked Fred once if he had any records out and he said, "That's not my game." Fred used darkness as a musically potent weapon, but as skilled and powerful as he was, there was something that he lacked as a performer. I couldn't figure out what it was. When I saw Dave Van Ronk I knew.

Van Ronk worked at the Gaslight, a cryptic club — had a dominant presence on the street, more prestige than anyplace else. It had mystique, a big colorful banner out front and paid a weekly wage. Down a flight of stairs next to a bar called the Kettle of Fish, the Gaslight was non-booze but you could bring a bottle in a paper bag. It was shut down in the day and opened early in the evening with about six performers that rotated throughout the night, a closed drawn circle that an unknown couldn't break into. There weren't any auditions. It was a club I wanted to play, needed to.

Van Ronk played there. I'd heard Van Ronk back in the Midwest on records and thought he was pretty great, copied some of his recordings phrase for phrase. He was passionate and stinging, sang like a soldier of fortune and sounded like he paid the price. Van Ronk could howl and whisper, turn blues into ballads and ballads into blues. I loved his style. He was what the city was all about. In Greenwich Village, Van Ronk was king of the street, he reigned supreme.

Once on a cold winter day near Thompson and 3rd, in a flurry of light snow when the feeble sun was filtering through the haze, I saw him walking towards me in a frosty silence. It was like the wind was blowing him my way. I wanted to talk to him, but something was off. I watched him go by, saw the flash in his eye. It was a fleeting moment and I let it go. I wanted to play for him, though. Actually, I wanted to play for anybody. I could never sit in a room and just play all by myself. I needed to play for people and all the time. You can say I practiced in public and my whole life was becoming what I practiced. I kept my sights on the Gaslight. How could I not? Compared to it, the rest of the places on the street were nameless and miserable, low-level basket houses or small coffeehouses where the performer passed the hat. But I began to play as many as I could. I had no choice. The narrow streets were infused with them. They were small and ranged in shape, loud and noisy and catered to the confection of tourists who swarmed through the streets at night. Anything could pass for one — double door parlor rooms, storefronts, second story walk-ups, basements below street level, all holes in the wall.

There was an unusual beer and wine place on 3rd Street in what used to be Aaron Burr's livery stable, now called Café Bizarre. The patrons were mostly workingmen who sat around laughing, cussing, eating red meat, talking pussy. There was a small stage in the back and I played there once or twice. I probably played all the places at one time or another. Most of them stayed open 'til the break of day, kerosene lamps and sawdust on the floor, some with wooden benches, a strong-armed guy at the door — no cover charge and the owners tried to offload as much coffee as they could. Performers either sat or stood in the window, visible to the street, or were positioned at the opposite end of the room facing the door, singing at the top of their voices. No microphones or anything.

Talent scouts didn't come to these dens. They were dark and dingy and the atmosphere was chaotic. Performers sang and passed the hat or played while watching tourists file past, hoping some of them would toss coins into a breadbasket or guitar case. On weekends, if you played all the joints from dusk 'til dawn, you could make maybe twenty dollars. Weeknights it was hard to tell. Sometimes not much because it was so competitive. You had to know a trick or two to survive.

One singer I crossed paths with a lot, Richie Havens, always had a nice-looking girl with him who passed the hat and I noticed that he always did well. Sometimes she passed two hats. If you didn't have some kind of trick, you'd come off with an invisible presence, which wasn't good. A couple of times, I hooked up with a girl I knew from the Café Wha?, a waitress who was good to the eye. We'd go from place to place, I'd play and she'd take up collection, wear a funny little bonnet, heavy black mascara, low laced blouse — looked almost naked from the waist up under a capelike coat. I'd split the money with her later, but it was too much of a hassle to do it all the time. I still made more when she was with me than when I was working on my own.

What really set me apart in these days was my repertoire. It was more formidable than the rest of the coffeehouse players, my template being hard-core folk songs backed by incessantly loud strumming. I'd either drive people away or they'd come in closer to see what it was all about. There was no in-between. There were a lot of better singers and better musicians around these places but there wasn't anybody close in nature to what I was doing. Folk songs were the way I explored the universe, they were pictures and the pictures were worth more than anything I could say. I knew the inner substance of the thing. I could easily connect the pieces. It meant nothing for me to rattle off things like "Columbus Stockade," "Pastures of Plenty," "Brother in Korea" and "If I Lose, Let Me Lose" all back-to-back just like it was one long song. Most of the other performers tried to put themselves across, rather than the song, but I didn't care about doing that. With me, it was about putting the song across.

I had stopped going down to the Café Wha? in the afternoons. Never stepped foot in there again. Lost touch with Freddy Neil, too. Instead of going over there, I began hanging out at the Folklore Center, the citadel of Americana folk music. That was also on MacDougal Street, between Bleecker and 3rd. The small store was up a flight of stairs and the place had an antique grace. It was like an ancient chapel, like a shoebox sized institute. The Folklore Center sold and reported on everything that had to do with folk music. It had a wide plate-glass window where records and instruments were displayed.

One afternoon I went up the flight of stairs and wandered in there. I browsed around and met Izzy Young, the proprietor. Young was an old-line folk enthusiast, very sardonic and wore heavy horn-rimmed glasses, spoke in a thick Brooklyn dialect, wore wool slacks, skinny belt and work boots, tie at a careless slant. His voice was like a bulldozer and always seemed too loud for the little room. Izzy was always a little rattled over something or other. He was sloppily good natured. In reality, a romantic. To him, folk music glittered like a mound of gold. It did for me, too. The place was a crossroads junction for all the folk activity you could name and you might at any time see real hard-line folksingers in there. Some people picked up their mail there.

Young occasionally produced folk concerts by the unmistakably authentic folk and blues artists. He'd bring them in from out of town to play at Town Hall or at some university. At one time or another I saw Clarence Ashley, Gus Cannon, Mance Lipscomb, Tom Paley, Erik Darling hanging around in the place. There were a lot of esoteric folk records, too, all records I wanted to listen to. Extinct song folios of every type — sea shanties, Civil War songs, cowboy songs, songs of lament, church house songs, anti-Jim Crow songs, union songs — archaic books of folk tales, Wobbly journals, propaganda pamphlets about everything from women's rights to the dangers of boozing, one by Daniel De Foe, the English author of Moll Flanders. A few instruments for sale, dulcimers, five-string banjos, kazoos, pennywhistles, acoustic guitars, mandolins. If you were wondering what folk music was all about, this was the place where you could get more than a vague glimmer.

Izzy had a back room with a potbellied wood-burning stove, crooked pictures and rickety chairs — old patriots and heroes on the wall, pottery with crossed-stitch design, lacquered black candlesticks...lots of things having to do with craft. The little room was filled with American records and a phonograph. Izzy would let me stay back there and listen to them. I listened to as many as I could, even thumbed through a lot of his antediluvian folk scrolls. The madly complicated modern world was something I took little interest in. It had no relevancy, no weight. I wasn't seduced by it. What was swinging, topical and up to date for me was stuff like the Titanic sinking, the Galveston flood, John Henry driving steel, John Hardy shooting a man on the West Virginia line. All this was current, played out and in the open. This was the news that I considered, followed and kept tabs on.

As far as keeping tabs on things, Izzy kept a diary, too. It was some sort of ledger that he kept open on his desk. He'd ask me questions about myself like, where it was that I grew up and how did I get interested in folk music, where I discovered it, stuff like that. He'd then write about me in his diary. I couldn't imagine why. His questions were annoying, but I liked him because he was gracious to me and I tried to be considerate and forthcoming. I was very careful when talking to outsiders, but Izzy was okay and I answered him in plain talk.

He asked me about my family. I told him about my grandma on my mom's side who lived with us. She was filled with nobility and goodness, told me once that happiness isn't on the road to anything. That happiness is the road. Had also instructed me to be kind because everyone you'll ever meet is fighting a hard battle.

I couldn't imagine what Izzy's battles were. Internal, external, who knows? Young was a man that concerned himself with social injustice, hunger and homelessness and he didn't mind telling you so. His heroes were Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass. Moby-Dick, the ultimate fish story, was his favorite tall tale. Young was besieged with bill collectors and dictates from the landlord. People were always chasing him down for money, but it didn't seem to faze him. He had a lot of resilience, had even fought city hall into allowing folk music to be played in Washington Square Park. Everybody was for him.

He'd pull out records for me. He'd given me a Country Gentlemen record and said I should listen to "Girl Behind the Bar." He played me "White House Blues" by Charlie Poole and said that this would be perfect for me and pointed out that this was the exact version that The Ramblers did. He played me the Big Bill Broonzy song "Somebody's Got to Go," and that was right up my alley, too. I liked hanging around at Izzy's. The fire was always crackling.

One winter day a big burly guy stepped in off the street. He looked like he'd come from the Russian embassy, shook the snow off his coat sleeves, took off his gloves and put them on the counter, asked to see a Gibson guitar that was hanging up on the brick wall. It was Dave Van Ronk. He was gruff, a mass of bristling hair, don't give a damn attitude, a confident hunter. My mind went into a rush. There was nothing between the man and me. Izzy took the guitar down and gave it to him. Dave fingered the strings and played some kind of jazzy waltz, put the guitar back on the counter. As he put the guitar down, I stepped over and put my hands on it and asked him at the same time how does someone get to work down at the Gaslight, who do you have to know? It's not like I was trying to get buddy-buddy with him, I just wanted to know.

Van Ronk looked at me curiously, was snippy and surly, asked if I did janitor work.

I told him, no, I didn't and he could perish the thought, but could I play something for him? He said, "Sure."

I played him "Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out." Dave liked what he heard and asked me who I was and how long I'd been in town, then said I could come down about eight or nine in the evening and play a couple of songs in his set. That was how I met Dave Van Ronk.

I left the Folklore Center and went back into the ice-chopping weather. Towards evening, I was over at the Mills Tavern on Bleecker Street where the basket-house singers would bunch up, chitchat and make the scene. My flamenco guitar-playing friend, Juan Moreno, told me about a new coffeehouse that had just opened on 3rd Street, called the Outré, but I was barely listening. Juan's lips were moving, but they were moving almost without sound. I'd never play in the Outré, didn't have to. I'd soon be hired to play at the Gaslight and never see the basket houses again. Outside of Mills Tavern the thermometer was creeping up to about ten below. My breath froze in the air, but I didn't feel the cold. I was heading for the fantastic lights. No doubt about it. Could it be that I was being deceived? Not likely. I don't think I had enough imagination to be deceived; had no false hope, either. I'd come from a long ways off and had started from a long ways down. But now destiny was about to manifest itself. I felt like it was looking right at me and nobody else

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