Thanks very much to reader Bob Wilson for sharing his wonderfully written account — below — of an encounter he had with Bob Dylan, and the intriguing background to it.

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ON MEETING BOB DYLAN
(A brief history and memory)
by Robert W. Wilson, Jr.
January 18, 2009

“i’m a rollin stone all alone and lost”
“for a life of sin I’ve paid the cost”
“when I pass by all the people say”
“just another guy on the lost highway”

Back during World War II, a struggling young country singer/songwriter named Hank Williams, applied for a job at the Alabama Drydocks and Shipbuilding Company (ADSCO) in my hometown of Mobile, Alabama. I know this because a close friend worked at ADSCO and one day, during the early 1970’s, he made an amazing discovery. My friend was purging some old wartime employment records/files and came upon a file for one “Hiram Hank Williams”. Knowing I was a fan, he brought it to me to confirm his suspicion that this really was the now legendary “Hank”. And it was! Complete with a small pre-employment photograph (with negative) this file also contained the job application, filled out in pencil. The black and white photo and negative looked similar to one of those pictures you see in the newspaper of a person whose been arrested and booked…just a young guy standing against a measured background, his height around 6′0″- 6′1″. I am no longer in possession of the file (or negative) but I remember that Hank listed his birthplace to be Flat Rock, Alabama (note: Flat Rock is a rural area of Conecuh Co., about 100 miles south of Montgomery) and that he had been arrested more than once (for “suspicion” etc.). Also, he listed relatives and/or references in the Mobile area with the last name of “Skipper”.

My friend allowed me to make a photocopy of the file and keep the film negative. It was filed away in my office desk where it stayed there except occasionally when I would show it to an interested friend. Years later, these items would pass to another Hank Williams fan, his name is Bob Dylan, and this is the story of how that happened:

“Baby let me follow you down”
“Baby let me follow you down”
“I’d do anything in this god- almighty world if you’d just let me follow you down”

I first heard Bob Dylan’s voice singing these words on a lazy Alabama afternoon in June of 1962. An old black Westinghouse oscillating fan circulated the warm summer air inside my dorm room. It was the summer quarter of my freshman year at Auburn University and I was trying to rest between classes. The soft drone of the fan masked some of the sound of music coming from my small Crosley table top radio which sat on my desk. It was tuned, as usual, to the local AM radio station (WAUD). WAUD played an eclectic brand of music (blues, jazz, folk, country and 40’s big band) and I had come to rely on it for companionship and my daily music “fix”. The station’s only disc jockey, I think, was a guy named Bob Sanders and he had this great comfortable voice that lent a note of importance to everything he read or said. Sanders que’d up and played a song, without introduction, that woke me from my doldrums like a clap of mid-August thunder. “I Am a Man of Constant Sorrow” as Sanders later informed, was performed by a young folk singer called “Bob Dylan” and was from his new self-titled album. I listened transfixed as he continued to play several more cuts, including Eric Von Schmidt’s wonderful “Baby Let Me Follow You Down”. The guitar and harmonica work on Dylan’s version of “Baby Let Me Follow You Down” is about as close to perfect as you’re ever likely to hear and I’ll guarantee that it woke up a lot of sleeping Kingston Trio fans (like me).

That Bob Dylan album which I obtained (and still have) as soon as I got the $7.00 or $8.00 together to order it (none of the record stores had it in stock) and those two songs in particular, started what has been a long-term essentially one-sided conversation that goes on until this day. One-sided in the sense that I have come to feel, strangely, as if I know Bob Dylan as I would a close friend or a relative…and obviously he doesn’t know me at all. Not an uncommon feeling amongst his fans, I would guess. Unlike a lot of fans however, I did get an opportunity to meet and talk to him. Miraculously, 14 years later I would meet Bob Dylan on the streets of my hometown totally by chance. It remains in my memory as a one of the highlights of my 65 years on this blue/green ball.

“she wears an Egyptian red ring”
“It sparkles before she speaks”
“she’s a hypnotist collector”
“you are a walking antique”

As the crow flies, Auburn, Alabama lies about 120 miles west of Atlanta, Georgia. Today you can hop on I-85 and be there in about two hours, easy. In 1965 it took a whole lot longer. In fact, in those pre-Interstate-highway-system days it took twice as long. It was therefore, with a certain sense of adventure that, three friends and I filled my friend Lewis’ beat-up 1959 Plymouth with $.30 per gallon gasoline and set out in the fall of 1965 for Atlanta and our first Bob Dylan concert.

October 9, 1965, was the day after my 22nd birthday, several years after the above “radio” encounter with Bob Dylan and my final quarter at Auburn University. We drove the back roads and highways that day and arrived at a jam-packed Atlanta City Auditorium which was “electric” with excitement. Unbeknownst to any of us at the time, Atlanta was the ninth stop on Dylan’s historic/tumultuous 1965 tour which had begun at the “Newport Folk Festival”. Bob Dylan walked on stage with his little modified Nick Lucas Gibson, began to sing and in unison the audience immediately went totally quiet, engulfed in the sound and wonder. And of course as everybody knows, after intermission he returned, with his band, and the place erupted with a sound and wonder of a very different kind. This half acoustic, half electric concert in Atlanta still ranks as the greatest performance I’ve personally ever seen…by Dylan or anyone else. And it galvanized my lifelong interest in Bob Dylan and absolute enthusiasm for his music.

“they’re selling post cards of the hanging”
“they’re painting the postcards brown”
“the beauty parlor is filled with sailors”
“the circus is in town”

Finally, we must fast forward to the spring of 1976. The Circus is in town. The thunder’s rolling on April 29, 1976 with two performances at the Mobile Civic Center and Expo Hall. I had tickets, of course but I hadn’t seen Dylan in concert in years and anxiously looked forward to that night’s performance. After a hamburger and French fry lunch at the Burger King on Government St., I headed back to my office driving east on Dauphin St. The traffic on Dauphin seemed unusually heavy and moved slowly (…talk about being “Stuck Inside of Mobile”). Dauphin St. is a narrow two lane, one way street with parking on the south side and wide sidewalks. It runs through the heart of old downtown Mobile and has a similar “feel”, I suppose, as some of the streetscapes in New Orleans…as do many parts of Mobile in general, both cities having been established and settled by the same group of French explorers.

A strange couple walked west toward me as I sat in the left lane sweating, looking out the windshield of in my 1969 Chevy Nova Afternoon shadows from the buildings and the ancient Basilica of the Immaculate Conception fell across and covered them so that I could not see them clearly. I remember thinking: “That guy has on a leather jacket and a white bandana…in this heat?”; “must be in town for the Dylan concert”; “wow! what a beautiful girl”. As they drew closer, recognition began to send my heart toward my throat and as you’ve probably already guessed, the “couple” was Bob Dylan and a striking young lady with long dark hair. They were walking toward me about 30 feet away!

I’ve had a difficult time trying to formulate and express the emotion that went through me at this particular point in time. I cannot explain it. Let me ask the question; “What would you have done”? Driven on or stopped? Chalked it up, gone on back to the office, called your friends and told them that you had seen Bob Dylan walking down Dauphin St? What would you have done?

By this time Dylan and his companion had moved on past my car…maybe 20 ft past…and I stopped. I stopped the car, right there in the middle of Dauphin St. not thinking or caring about the traffic behind me. My head went out the opened car window I hailed him down (yelled)… Hey Bob! All the while my brain racing/exploding -”what do I say to him, what do I say to him”? “Think, think, think”! Believe me it is not easy to come up with something meaningful to say under these conditions…especially someone like Bob Dylan. But like I said, I know this guy…..right?

Remember the film/negative of Hank Williams back in my desk? Well on April 29, 1976 it wasn’t in my desk. It was in my wallet. I do not remember why, but for some reason I had it in my wallet, and as Bob Dylan stood outside my car window and looked down suspiciously at me, I remembered. And at that moment, I knew what to say to him.
Knowing that Dylan had idols and heroes of his own, I knew he would want to see that picture/negative of one of his biggest. “I’ve got something I want to show you” I said, removing the negative and handing it to him out the car window. “Guess who that is” I said. He held the negative up to the springtime sun and “squinted” at the image on the film/negative. Looking back at me I could tell he did not know. “That’s Hank Williams” I said and he held the negative again to the sun. “No kidding?”, “Yeah” he said. As traffic maneuvered around me, I told him the rest of the story including that I had a copy of the Hank Williams job application. He listened with obvious interest and then I asked him “Do you want it”? He said “…are you sure you want to give this away”? I replied “I will give it to you”. And I gave him the film/negative.

We talked about the photo for a few minutes and he was very interested seeing the Hank Williams job application. He asked if I were coming to the show and I when I answered; “yes..the evening concert”, he asked if I would bring it backstage. Backstage? Wow…no, I’m sorry Bob, I really can’t do that…Hell yes I can do that! Of course! Finally, he told me to come to the rear of the Expo Hall and to ask for his Road Manager (Mike Evans if memory serves).

I think I drove back to my office; I’m not really sure. Somehow I got back and most of my friends say I called and told them what had just transpired and that I was going nuts…admittedly deliriously hyped. And really…who wouldn’t be? Meeting and talking to Bob Dylan, giving him one of my most prized possessions and being invited backstage to the Rolling Thunder Revue! The truth is, I’m still kind of hyped.

When I finally calmed down enough to think straight, I drove to my friend Lewis’ house in the Garden District and we prepared to go to the concert. Lewis is only slightly less of a Dylan fanatic than me and my oldest friend, so I asked him to accompany me back-stage. We parked on Government St. as close as possible and walked to the rear of the Mobile Expo Hall where we found a large gate manned by a security guard. I told the guard I needed to speak to Mike Evans and explained that we were to be admitted back-stage to meet with Mr. Dylan. The guard sent another person to find Evans while we waited outside the gate. In about 10 minutes Mike Evans showed up and very graciously admitted us to a large tent located behind the venue. I gave Evans the application and then we were instructed to wait while he went for Dylan.

Lewis smoked a cigarette and we sat nervously at a table inside the tent which looked like the dining hall for the band and crew. Crew members milled about, coming/going and violinist Scarlett Rivera sat at one of the tables in the back and made-out with some guy.

After about twenty minutes, Bob Dylan came out of the back door of the Expo Hall and walked across the parking lot toward the tent. I noticed he was holding the Hank Williams job application in his hand. The side walls of the tent were pulled up and we watched as he came toward me. Then as he neared the tent he abruptly turned and went back inside the Expo Hall. Hm..m….not good.

We sat in the tent for another thirty more minutes trying to figure out what had happened and then finally we got up and left.

What had happened? I haven’t a clue. And I have wondered about this occasionally in the ensuing 32 years. Why had Dylan turned away and not returned the application (after all I had not given that to him)? Maybe it was a mistake to have brought someone with me and he thought I had brought a member of the press? That seems plausible but who know? I would’ve given him the application in any case…I’m sure of that.

Note: A friend who attended the afternoon concert told me that Dylan muttered something to the effect of “I found Hank Williams in town today”. He didn’t mention it at the evening performance.

Although I had no reservations at the time and no regrets now, I have wondered whether or not giving Dylan these Hank Williams items was the right thing to have done…and I given the times and circumstances back then, whether or not he still has them. I hope so. I realize now that they were valuable bits of music history and should have been preserved.

So, that’s the story. I hope I haven’t bored you.

Post-script:

Thankfully, I’m still blessed with my hearing and able to enjoy all kinds and genres of music (excluding Hip Hop & Rap). However, the one constant is Bob Dylan’s music which continues to inform and enlighten my life and my give me pleasure. I recently purchased “Tell Tale Signs” and I’m just as amazed by his work as I was on that summer day in 1962, when I first heard him.

“Stranger stares down into the light”
“From a platinum window in the Mexican night”
“Searching every blood-sucking thing in sight”
“For dignity”

Posts which might be related to this one based on a mysterious algorithm:

• More on Bob and Hank
• Composed by H. Williams/B. Dylan
• Headin’ south

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