Highway 61

This is an excerpt from the forthcoming book “Highway 61 Re-Revisited."
The book covers Highway 61 from New Orleans to Duluth to Hibbing and New York,
with every Dylan-connected place up this blues-soaked highway given it’s story.
All there is to know about Robert Allen, Hibbing and St. Paul – Minneapolis,
and places to stay and see in Hibbing, is here for you.
The book also takes you to Greenwich Village and Dylan-associated places in New York.

If you are planning the pilgrimage on Highway 61 – this is the companion you need!

If you are going Highway 61 in your dreams – this is your dream-guide!

DO YOU DARE MISS IT?

"They tell me Highway 61 is the longest highway that there is
It runs all the way from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico"
Sunnyland Slim, 1983

01
Bob 2001: "If I made music for myself, I would only cover old Charlie Patton songs."

05b

13	"Hibbing´s a good ol´ town I ran away from it when I was 10, 12, 13, 15, 15 1/2, 17 an´ 18 I been caught an´ brought back all but once" My Life in a Stolen Moment

14	2425 East 7th Avenue, Hibbing, Minnesota

Starting his own band in 1957, The Golden Chords, with Monte Edwardson and LeRoy Hoikkala “Bob had complete
arrangements worked out in his head and he used us so that he could hear them come alive"
LeRoy: “He would write a song right at the piano. Just chord it, and improvise on it. I remember that he sang one about a
train in R&B style"
During the Golden Chords days Bob, LeRoy and Monte worked out a song “Big Black Train”, the only Zimmerman-
penned rock song known to exist.
Monte Edwardson: “He wrote a thing called “Big Black Train”, that we used to do. At the time I couldn’t believe one of
us could just write a song.

Big Black Train

Well big black train, coming down the line
Well big black train, coming down the line
Well you got my woman, you bring her back to me
Well that cute little chick, is the girl that I want to see

Well I’ve been waiting for a long, long time
Well I’ve been waiting for a long, long time
Well I’ve been looking for my baby
Searchin’ down the line

Well here comes the train, yeah it’s coming down the line
Well here comes the train, yeah it’s coming down the line
Well you see my baby is finally coming home

15a

15b
The Rockets 1958
Ron Taddei, Jim Propotnick, LeRoy Hoikkala, Monte Edwardson

LeRoy Hoikkala: ”He changed a lot of songs. He listened to a song and he changed them. He didn’t like the way they read. Just like a lot of the songs he recorded. I use to say that he wasn’t copying someone, but he took the basic song and if he didn’t like the lyrics he just changed it to what he wanted.”
John Bucklen: “It was difficult to tell which songs he wrote and which he didn’t write, because sometimes I’d discover that he said he wrote a song and he didn’t and other times I thought he did not write the song and he did. So, it was … pretty similar to the music we were interested in at the time.”
LeRoy: “He was improvising quite a bit. He would copy a lot of songs. He’d hear a song and make up his own version of it. He did a lot of copying but he also did a lot of writing of his own. He would just kind of sit down and make up a song and play it a couple of times and then forget it. I don’t know if he ever put any of them down on paper.”

“Big Black Train” was later, in fall of 1958, to be recorded by The Rockets at the Kay Banks studio in Minneapolis, for the Aladdin Record label, but never released. The Rockets was then Monte Edwardson, LeRoy Hoikkala, Jim Propotnick and Ron Taddei.
“..and we finished it on the way to the recording studio”. A handful of acetates exists. “ ….. used the others to get played on the radio.”

Bob 1965: “I never sang what I wrote until I got to be about eighteen or nineteen. I wrote songs when I was younger, fifteen, but they were songs. I wrote those. I never sang anything which I wanted to write. Y’understand? The songs I wrote at that age were just four chords rhythm and blues songs. Based on things that the Diamonds would sing, or the Crewcuts, or groups like that, the uh, the, you know,’In the still of the night’ kinda songs, you know.”

"..... 20 below zero,
and running down the road in the rain
with yo´ ol´ man´s flashlight on my ass.
Now yo´ mother shines it in my face.
.....
when we sat and talked in the L&B ´til two o´clock at night.
.....
I was such a complete idiot, thinking back,
that the car was in the driveway all night.
.....
Let me tell you that your beauty is second to none,
but I think I told you that before.
.....
Well, Echo, I better make it.
Love to the most beautiful girl in school.
Bob"
Echo Hellstrom´s 1958 Hibbing High Yearbook, Hematite

"an´ I know I shall meet the snowy North
again - but with changed eyes nex´ time ´round
t´ walk lazily down its streets
an´ linger by the edge of town
find old friends if they´re are still around"
11 Outlined Epitaphs

"Well,if you´re travelin´ in the north country fair,
Where the winds hit heavy on the borderline,
Remember me to one who lives there,
She once was a true love of mine.

Well, if you go when the snowflakes storm,
When the rivers freeze and summer ends,
Please see if she´s wearing a coat so warm,
To keep her from the howlin´ winds."'
Girl of the North Country

40	"When I first came to New York (January 24, 1960) ..... I used to play in a place called Café Wha ....."

41	"I played harmonica for this guy there who was singing. He used to give me a dollar to play every day with him, from 2 o'clock in the afternoon until 8.30 at night. He gave me a dollar plus a cheeseburger."

42	"Stayin' up for days in the Chelsea Hotel, writin' "Sad-eyed Lady of the Lowlands" for you". Bob Dylan

43	"We, me and my wife, lived in Chelsea Hotel on third floor in 1965 or '66, when our first baby was born." Bob Dylan

lindh61@hotmail.com