I was out in San Fran for several weeks to be with my very sick brother, and stayed at a friend of his' apartment in the Mission. The friend (who built a paradisal house up in Forestville), has a spectacular book collection there (and probably more up in Forestville). All the leftist classics. I pulled down Suze Rotolo's "A Freewheelin' Time," which I've always meant to read. It was appropriately placed next to Van Ronk's "The Mayor of MacDougal Street." My favorite parts were the non-Dylan stuff: her Queens teen days, from her Communist parents (her father was Sicilian), and her life after she'd made the decision to not be "Bob Dylan's girlfriend." She does give the obligatory account of their relationship, but she downplays it some. For example, I was hoping for the inside scoop on "Ballad in Plain D," but she mentions it only indirectly, with a section subtitled "Ballad" that talks about how her mom and sister despised Bob. She went on to work in the theater, for example, on "The Mad Show" and she was featured as The East Village Other's "Slum Goddess of the Lower East Side."

Some enticements for me were her writing that Bob would play harmonica for Lonnie Johnson at Gerde's Folk City. Not sure I'd heard that before. Also, she includes a photocopy of a review by her friend Pete Karman of a concert at the Riverside Church Aug. 6, 1961 in which "Bob Dylan of Gallup N.M. played the guitar and harmonica simultaneously and with rural gusto." Also, a photocopy of a Broadside issue page of Mar. 1963 that has the sheet music for a song called "Train a-Travelin." I don't remember hearing it, but of course YouTube has it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yOHGTZfU4xM

Anyway, I found it a good read, and her a forthright and sweet person.

Switching topics, did any of you see the NY Times piece on Connie Converse (https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/06/nyregion/connie-converse-nyc.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare)? The piece argues that she, not Bob, was the first Singer/Songwriter. A strange claim, but I thought, after listening to her stuff (which you can do here: https://connieconverse.bandcamp.com/album/how-sad-how-lovely) that she did seem to be doing something that her friends must have thought was new.

On Sunday, September 3, 2023 at 4:18:25 PM UTC-4, Willie wrote:
>
> I was out in San Fran for several weeks to be with my very sick brother, and stayed at a friend of his' apartment in the Mission. The friend (who built a paradisal house up in Forestville), has a spectacular book collection there (and probably more up in Forestville). All the leftist classics. I pulled down Suze Rotolo's "A Freewheelin' Time," which I've always meant to read. It was appropriately placed next to Van Ronk's "The Mayor of MacDougal Street." My favorite parts were the non-Dylan stuff: her Queens teen days, from her Communist parents (her father was Sicilian), and her life after she'd made the decision to not be "Bob Dylan's girlfriend." She does give the obligatory account of their relationship, but she downplays it some. For example, I was hoping for the inside scoop on "Ballad in Plain D," but she mentions it only indirectly, with a section subtitled "Ballad" that talks about how her mom and sister despised Bob. She went on to work in the theater, for example, on "The Mad Show" and she was featured as The East Village Other's "Slum Goddess of the Lower East Side."
>
> Some enticements for me were her writing that Bob would play harmonica for Lonnie Johnson at Gerde's Folk City. Not sure I'd heard that before. Also, she includes a photocopy of a review by her friend Pete Karman of a concert at the Riverside Church Aug. 6, 1961 in which "Bob Dylan of Gallup N.M. played the guitar and harmonica simultaneously and with rural gusto." Also, a photocopy of a Broadside issue page of Mar. 1963 that has the sheet music for a song called "Train a-Travelin." I don't remember hearing it, but of course YouTube has it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yOHGTZfU4xM
>
> Anyway, I found it a good read, and her a forthright and sweet person.
>
> Switching topics, did any of you see the NY Times piece on Connie Converse (https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/06/nyregion/connie-converse-nyc.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare)? The piece argues that she, not Bob, was the first Singer/Songwriter. A strange claim, but I thought, after listening to her stuff (which you can do here: https://connieconverse.bandcamp.com/album/how-sad-how-lovely) that she did seem to be doing something that her friends must have thought was new.

I was out walking around yesterday and thought of this post, Willie, thinking about Suze and the fact that she titled her book after the second Bob Dylan album, just lots of thoughts about those Freewheeling times, which I just barely missed, being just a small child in a small town down in the Deep South.

Thinking about what it must have meant to be "Freewheeling" in 1962, and just recently watched the Coen Brothers movie about those days is a real multiverse building experience.

Just lots of thoughts, ideas, memory and dream.

Thanks, Willie.