Certainly one of Bob Dylan’s earliest recordings is up for public sale in Boston 

Music

Dylan’s 1966 tour harmonica, art work, photographs, and a Rolling Thunder Revue pillowcase are among the many objects.

When a baby-faced Bob Dylan arrived in Greenwich Village within the early ’60s, he crashed for a stint with Dave Van Ronk and spouse Terri Thal.

“Terri, positively not a minor character, took care of Dave’s bookings, particularly out of city, and she or he started making an attempt to assist me out,” Dylan wrote in “Chronicles: Quantity One.”

Thal turned the 20-year-old’s first supervisor — his solely supervisor earlier than Albert Grossman. 

“I needed to get him gigs … I wanted a approach to present individuals what he gave the impression of. So I took him right down to the Gaslight and I lower a demo tape,” Thal explains in a video made for Boston’s RR Public sale home. 

She took that tape, “hitched a experience” to Springfield, Mass., and performed it for a membership proprietor there. “He laughed at me. He mentioned, ‘He seems like [Ramblin’] Jack Elliot. Why ought to I rent him?’”

Subsequent attempt: Membership 47 in Cambridge. “The supervisor mentioned to me, I can rent Jack Elliot— why ought to I rent Bob Dylan? No one ever heard of him.”

Ultimately, Thal landed the child a gig at Gerde’s Folks Metropolis. “And that basically bought him began.”

Greater than half a century later, that couch-surfing child is a Nobel Prize winner, dwelling enigma, unusual genius and the topic of a biopic, you may’ve heard of it, “A Full Unknown.”

That reel-to-reel tape — containing a few of his first originals, together with the poignant “He Was a Pal of Mine,” witty, Guthrie-esque “Talkin’ Bear Mountain Picnic Bloodbath Blues,” and heartfelt “Music to Woody” — is a relic of his roots.

Billed as “Bob Dylan’s First Demo Tape,” it’s up for public sale now by way of Boston’s RR Public sale. Present bid, as of this writing: $21,675. (Is that you simply, Timothée Chalamet?)

The 1/4-inch Reeves Soundcraft Plus-100 reel-to-reel audio tape — recorded on the Gaslight on Sept. 6, 1961 — boasts six tracks complete. The opposite tracks are an authentic, “Previous Man,” and Dylan’s model of the normal “Fairly Polly,” and Woody Guthrie’s “Automobile, Automobile.”

From what you may hear on RR’s posted video, the tracks are remarkably clear. Notably, Dylan sings the primary line of “Music to Woody” — “Hey hey Woody Guthrie I wrote you a track” — with the “Guthrie” lacking. Even hardcore Dylan followers may not know that he as soon as lined “Automobile, Automobile.”

And it’s only one amongst a slew of Dylan-obilia included within the Boston public sale. The “Bob Dylan and Bob Neuwirth Public sale” closes March 12 at 7:30 p.m.

Additionally on the market: a Hohner Marine Band harmonica, key of G, that Dylan used (fairly arduous, from the seems of it) throughout probably the most notorious Dylan eras: 1966. Dylan gave the harmonica to late rock photographer Barry Feinstein, who took some iconic Bob pictures on that tour. 

Whereas “A Full Unknown” strikes the “Judas!” shout to Newport Folks, the well-known heckle truly got here on Could 17, 1966 on the Free Commerce Corridor, Manchester, England (ultimately generally known as the “Royal Albert Corridor” live performance attributable to an error by a bootlegger). After the heckle, Dylan instructed his band to “play it f—n’ loud,” earlier than blasting “Like a Rolling Stone.”

“It’s most likely one of many solely artifacts from the Could 1966 tour that’s ever been supplied,” says Bobby Livingston, govt vice chairman at RR Public sale, in an public sale video. 

Present bid on the talisman: $8,784.

A lot of the Dylan-obilia right here hails from Thal, Feinstein’s property, and from the gathering of late Bob Neuwirth. 

A determine within the early Cambridge folks scene, Neuwirth — portrayed by Will Harrison in “A Full Unknown” — wore many hats, together with a stint as Dylan’s tour supervisor, collaborator, and bandmate.

Neuwirth arrived in Boston in 1959 to attend the College of the Museum of Superb Arts, however ultimately ended up a member of Dylan’s inner-circle featured in D.A. Pennebaker’s documentary “Don’t Look Again,” and the 1975 Rolling Thunder Revue tour.

Some Neuwirth gems up for public sale embody:

Neuwirth’s 1975 Martin D-41 acoustic guitar that he used on the Rolling Thunder Revue. It was gifted to him by Dylan for the tour, per RR’s web site. 

Neuwirth’s stage-worn Nudie swimsuit from 1976’s “Evening of the Hurricane II” profit live performance on the Houston Astrodome. Additionally bought for him by Bob Dylan. (Zimmy’s fairly beneficiant, apparently.)

A Rolling Thunder Revue pillowcase. (This tour — which included Dylan’s Oct. 31, 1975 present in Plymouth, Mass., nonetheless heralded as certainly one of his all-time greatest — had all of it, apparently. There’s Rolling Thunder Revue tub towel within the Joan Baez exhibit proper now on the Folks Americana Roots Corridor of Fame.)

Amongst many iconic photographs, an authentic semi-glossy 14 x 11 silver gelatin {photograph} of Bob Dylan and Johnny Money backstage at Rutgers College — a.okay.a. the well-known photograph the place Dylan seems like he’s placing a spell on us. 

An authentic Bob Dylan combined media portray of a topless red-headed lady, “Cassandra.” It’s described on RR’s web site as “created in 2008 as a part of his celebrated ‘Drawn Clean Collection,’ completed in gouache and combined media on 24 x 30 artist paper, signed on the backside in paint by Dylan. Dylan’s vivid art work portrays the topless, ample-bosomed, red-haired ‘Cassandra’ towards a vibrant purple background.”

Dylan’s handwritten and signed lyrics for “All Alongside the Watchtower.” Per description: One web page, 8.25 x 11.75, written in black ink and signed neatly on the conclusion, “Bob Dylan, 2013.”

And, from Thal’s assortment, a “Dylan-signed Coloring E book Web page with Doodles courting to circa 1961. Dylan signed the web page: “All mine love, Bob Dylan.” The coloring web page exhibits a boy viewing a rocket ship. Dylan provides him a beanie, cigarette, beard and glasses. He writes: ”To my without end fluent floored flora Terry, This present day now 1st of August.”

Based on RR’s description, this piece dates to Thal and Van Ronk’s wedding ceremony interval. “Dylan embellished this web page throughout a typical afternoon go to with then-girlfriend Suze Rotolo — leisurely time spent on the Thal-Van Ronk residence, listening to information, taking part in penny-ante poker, consuming dinner, and socializing.”

Lauren Daley is a contract tradition author and common Boston.com contributor. She might be reached at [email protected]. She tweets @laurendaley1, and Instagrams at @laurendaley1. Learn extra tales on Fb right here.