| | | Amen brother. Tambourine Man & Girl From The North Country were always in one of my performance sets when I was playing a lot of solo professional gigs (mid/late 1960s) at gin mills, supper clubs, coffee houses & a few - way cool - concert venues. Paid part of my college expenses & was blessed to rub shoulders, hang out & form a few close friendships with better known performers and a few stars like Dave van Ronk, Melanie (my sister's best friend in H.S.) and lesser know recording artists. Never met Dylan personally. But one of the most powerful experiences of my entire life was seeing him live at the Gaslight Cafe' in NYC in 1963, right after Freewheeling was released.
It was a late Summer, Tuesday nite open mike. Close to Labor Day if memory serves. As usual Van Ronk played the opening set & headed for the Kettle Of Fish (bar across the street) to get hammered. Then walked back, swaying, to play the closing set. In between? Other touring pros with recording company contracts & multiple records to their credit would walk in off the street & do a set depending on who was in town.
Place was almost empty by late that night after we'd slowly worked our way to the front table. Ten feet from the small stage. In came Dylan. Walked up & sat at the performers table, stage right. Chatted with Van Ronk. Even blew soda straw cover at our waitresses' butt. Then borrowed van Ronk's epic 1952 Gibson J-200 (which I actually played 2 yrs later at Van Ronk's apartment) and played the greatest set I've ever seen in my life. Waitress, his girlfriend at the time, told us he'd been speeding & not slept for 18 hrs. It was pure adrenaline!! Absolutely incredible. Wave after wave of incendiary/visionary genius swept over me. Completely transformed my musical awareness AWA the quality of my own modest performances forever after.
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