Will Duluth be a letdown after the helter-skelter of the Blues Road? The second stage is more of a quest to find why this ordinary kid from Northern Minnesota became one of the greatest artistic influences of the 2nd part of the 20th Century. He was born in Duluth, an important iron ore port on Lake Superior whose population consisted mainly of immigrant families from Europe. The Zimmerman’s were part of a substantial Jewish community. The family didn’t have a lot of money but he appears to have had a conventional and secure upbringing. Dylan left Duluth when he was 6 years old. As a result of catching polio which impacted on his health, Abram Zimmerman moved his family an hour northwest to Hibbing, where he opened a hardware store. The first home in which Dylan lived remains at 517/9 3rd Ave. East, overlooking Lake Superior in the Central Hillside area and the family lived on the 2nd floor.
One of the Duluth’s most dark and notorious incidents took place on June 15th 1920 when three black men were lynched in downtown area. Dylan’s father, who was only 9 years at the time, must have passed the story down to his son. The family lived a couple of blocks away from the lynching site at what is now a parking lot. A Duluth woman accused six traveling circus workers of assaulting her behind a circus tent. All 200 black men on the circus train were rounded up. Several were singled out. And out of those, Elmer Jackson, 19; Isaac McGhie, 20, and Elias Clayton, 19, were taken from a downtown jail by a white mob and dragged a block and a half. They were beaten, kicked, spat upon, choked and hung from a lamppost. Months after the lynching, another carnival worker was convicted of the crime, but he was released five years into a 30-year sentence. Three members of the mob were convicted of rioting. Each man served two years or less. The lynching was photographed and the lifeless bodies of the three men hung from a lamppost. A mob of white men looked away from the lamppost into the cowardly lure of the camera. The picture later appeared on postcards. The incident must have had a profound impact on this sensitive young man and his sense of injustice. These values appear regularly in his early songs (The Ballad for Emmett Till, Death of Poor Hattie Carrol etc..) and it is not coincidental that the incident forms the focus for his dramatic 11 minute finale to the very album describing his escape from his Northern Minnesotan origins, Highway 61 Revisited.
They're selling postcards of the hanging
they're painting the passports brown
The beauty parlor is filled with sailors
the circus is in town....
And the riot squad they're restless
they need somewhere to go
As Lady and I look out tonight
From Desolation Row.
Wow Duluth is better than we ever expected. This is a great little town. Despite the recession, the shops are still functioning and there is a buzz about the place.
We immediately set out to find Bob’s childhood home on 3rd Avenue East. Its there, just as we imagined it, a little dilapidated and painted salmon pink. The house was bought a few years ago on an e-Bay auction by Jim Bagel from Hibbing. Jim occupies the upper flat (where the Zimmerman’s lived) when he is in town. The downstairs flat is occupied by a lovely lady called Darlene Watson who knows Bob and told us great anecdotes about Bob and his Duluth connections. We have been so lucky on this trip, wherever we have gone, we have had first hand accounts of our musical heroes and this was the case in Duluth. Darlene invited the boys to play on the porch. Can you imagine the honor of playing on his Bobness’s own porch. It just gets better all the time!
I asked Darlene why an ordinary young lad from Duluth should have become one of the most iconic songwriters/performers of the 20th century. She tells me that he was a loner and an eccentric at school but there was no sign of what was to come.
Duluth, sadly has done little to honor its most famous son. People look at you in a slightly whimsical way when you tell them that you are a Bob fan. They did inaugurate a Bob Dylan Way for his 65th birthday. The way takes you to another iconic place. The Armory is where the young Robert Zimmerman came to watch Buddy Holly, Richie Valens and the Big Bopper. Two days later, they died in an aeroplane accident. Dylan stood feet away from Buddy Holly that night and when Buddy Holly looked at him, he decided that he wanted to be a musician.
What an amazing day. Off to Hibbing tomorrow. Can it get any better?
