Pod Dylan #265 - Tulsa
Oklahoma knew him well
My trip to Tulsa to see the Bob Dylan Center and speak at the World of Bob Dylan conference was such a blur (we landed in town Thursday night, were on the way back early Sunday morning) that I’m exceedingly grateful that fellow BobCats Roberta Rakove and Matt Simonsen were kind enough to join me on the show to discuss their visit. It gave me a spine on which I could organize my thoughts around, and mention the things I wanted to mention.
That said, I still managed to leave some stuff out (truth be told, a family medical emergency that took place the same day I recorded didn’t help). So I wanted to follow up here with a few additional thoughts.
I got to meet lots of past and future POD DYLAN guests in person for the first time, like Leslie Scott, Harold Lepidus, the aforementioned Roberta and Matt, Erin Callahan, Harry Hew, Rebecca Slaman, Danny Fingeroth, Jim Salvucci, Mark Godfrey, and Jeff Lamp (f I have left anyone out, I deeply apologize).
The Bob Dylan Center gift shop needs more middle aged and old Bob stuff. Everything that has a picture of Bob on it is from 1965 at the latest. That might be some directive coming from Team Bob, or just our natural societal inclination to want to look at the younger, prettier versions of celebrities. But what I wouldn’t give for a t-shirt or calendar made up of photos of Bob and the motely crew that is his band.
The video presentation at the Center was astonishing—it featured lots of video I had never seen before. It reminded me just how much Bob has been photographed/recorded over the decades, and how little of it we’ve seen. The entire “program” runs about 45 minutes from beginning to end. I could have watched 4x that length worth of stuff.
I really, really, really want that Street-Legal in-store standee that Columbia Records sent out in 1978.
The private archive at the Center is “by appointment only.” Are podcasters considered good enough to get an appointment?
As I understand it, the 6 songs that get the focus on the first floor will (at least some of them) get swapped out occasionally to make installations on other songs. As I asked on the show, what song(s) would you like to see get such archival attention? Matt and Roberta had great answers, but since recording the show I think my #1 choice would be “Dignity.” Or maybe “Where Are You Tonight?” “Caribbean Wind” would also be great. As would…
As I said on the show, big thanks to Craig Danuloff for organizing our Talkin’ Dylan panel, and to Laura Tenschert and Daniel Mackay for being up there with me. I enjoy performing, but from the relative anonymity of my home behind a microphone. Being on stage is unnerving (I don’t know how Bob does it), and I never would have pitched doing a panel on my own. It was great sharing a stage with such fine fellow podcasters.