Present at the Creation

And speaking of Bob Dylan -- as we all seem to have been since the bio-pic came out and Timothée Chalamet kicked ass covering three of the man's songs on SNL --

-- and in case you missed this in last week's NY Times.

The short version:

Two sheets of yellowed stationery are crumpled but intact, with typewritten lyrics and scribbled changes that offer a rare glimpse into the creative process of their famed author as he penned one of the best-known songs of the 1960s.
The early drafts of Bob Dylan’s 1965 chart-topper “Mr. Tambourine Man” sold this weekend for more than $500,000, according to Julien’s Auctions, the California-based house that facilitated the sale.

The delicate papers were sold alongside dozens of other Dylan memorabilia from the artist’s early career in the 1960s, including sketches and photographs.

The lyrics were part of the personal trove of the prolific rock ‘n’ roll journalist Al Aronowitz, who cut his own trail through the 1960s as chronicler and confidant of the era’s artists and musicians, including Dylan.

“He never threw anything away,” said Aronowitz’s son Myles Aronowitz, who has spent years sifting through some 250 boxes containing his father’s personal collection, a time capsule of 1960s music and writing.

For Dylan experts, the lyrics offer a rare, early glimpse of how Dylan approached his work and the mechanics of songwriting.

“It’s absolutely mind-blowing, and confirmation that this is how genius works,” said Richard Thomas, a classics professor at Harvard who also teaches a course on Dylan’s writing.

The drafts of “Mr. Tambourine Man” were “family lore,” Myles Aronowitz said, and his father, who died in 2005, could not recall where or how he had filed them away. For years, his family believed the drafts were lost.

Myles Aronowitz and his wife unearthed the papers recently as they organized his father’s collections. They expect to put together another auction, but hope to eventually turn over the archives to a library or museum.

Wow.

BTW, if you're not familiar with Al Aronowitz -- who essentially invented my job, i.e. rock journalism (as a columnist for the pre-Murdoch New York Post, among other outlets) -- let's just say that he was one of the most remarkable figures of an era in American popular culture that had lots of them. He knew everybody and was there for everything, from the late 50s to the early 70s, and his rise and eventual fall is both an amazing story and something very close to Greek tragedy.

The more I think about it, I gotta say -- somebody really should write a book about the guy's life and career.

Hmm...I wonder who might be a good choice for the job? 😎