Surrounded by Fakery

Fake Name? 

"Born Robert Allen Zimmerman, he legally changed his name to "Bob Dylan" in 1962. It's generally accepted that "Dylan" is derived from "Dillon" after Matt Dillon of Gunsmoke fame. The cooler "Dylan" spelling came after he arrived in the Village."

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This is a photograph of The Purple Onion Cafe in Minneapolis, which opened in 1993. Bob Dylan never played here. He played the Purple Onion Pizza Parlour in St. Paul Minnesota in 1960. 

There are multiple 'Purple Onion' establishments across the United States, with no known connection to Bob Dylan. 

You can join the discussion about this photograph here. 

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Fake Poster - Caveat Emptor! 

This poster is a fake mock-up, being sold in various places for hundreds of dollars as a genuine article. 

Firstly, the date is incorrect. Bob Dylan arrived in New York in January of 1961, and was not headlining shows in the September of 1960. 

Secondly, there is no such venue as the Underground Cavern. This is a non-existent club! 

Finally, the picture is actually a photograph from the first Bob Dylan studio recording session(s) in November 1961. 

Bob Dylan is fantastic at many things - but we have no evidence that he has mastered the art of time travel yet!

 
;-) 

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"This is one strange disc. To interweave these two shows, Drive inserted canned crowd noises between all the songs -- particularly weird because the Terkel tape is just an interview (deleted entirely here) and Bob playing. The sound quality varies. The Adelphi stuff is pretty good; the Terkel songs are excellent. The packaging includes very dubious claims about the source recordings." - Anthony Kapolka (1989) [T-100] 

Read the full review here.

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The genuine cover of the Bob Dylan In Concert Brandeis University 1963 bonus CD (Columbia/Legacy/Sony Music 88697804952) included with the Bootleg Series Volume 9 release, 2010 (Columbia/Legacy/Sony Music 88697761042). 

The front cover shows a photograph from the Newport Folk Festival, 1963, not the Brandeis concert. The rear cover shows a ticket which certainly was not for the Brandeis concert. The date is correct (May 10, 1963) but the day of the week is incorrect. The price of $4.40 is too expensive for a 1963 concert, and there was no specific seating allocation for the show. 

Join the discussion about the album cover here. 

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"A very close knock-off of a real poster from Bob Dylan’s prime in late 1963. The bootlegs have white residue in Dylan’s ear, and are ever-so-smaller than the few originals we’ve seen over the years."

The reproduction is indeed a different size than the original and the photograph is a much harsher quality with an outline around Bob Dylan's head, ears and forehead where the photograph of Bob was overlaid on the background - if you see the two together the original vs. the reproduction is easily distinguishable. The original may be viewed here. 

Solo concert at Syracuse University Regent Theatre. CORE is the Congress of Racial Equality, a United States civil rights organization founded in 1942. It co-sponsored the 1963 March on Washington and participated in the Mississippi Freedom Summer project. CORE is open to "anyone who believes that 'all people are created equal' and is willing to work towards the ultimate goal of true equality throughout the world."

Suze Rotolo, brought up in an American Communist household, worked for CORE and travelled to Cuba illegally. Her political views are widely regarded as having triggered Bob Dylan`s topical songwriting. 

No set list is known for this concert, nor do recordings of it circulate. 

Visit the CORE website here.

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"Chuck Gregory "Subterranean Homesick Blues" Award. An in-house award presented to Chuck Gregory by Columbia Records for his work as a session musician on Bob Dylan's classic 1965 single. Plaque measures 10" x 12" and is in Excellent condition." [www.entertainment.ha.com]

Accredited session musicians for Subterranean Homesick Blues recording sessions, January 13-14 1965:

Bob Dylan on acoustic guitar, harmonica, vocal 
Al Gorgoni on guitar 
Kenneth Rankin on guitar 
Bruce Langhorne on guitar 
Joseph Macho Jr. on bass 
William E. Lee on bass
Bobby Gregg on drums

Recording session information from Olof Bjorner.

No musician named Chuck Gregory is known to have played on any of the Bringing It All Back Home recording sessions.

The term 'Breakout' in the music industry was often used to describe sales. There is reference to a promotions man named Chuck Gregory in Billboard magazine. As Subterranean Homesick Blues was the first of Bob Dylan's songs to break into the Billboard top 40 chart in March 1965, could this have been a sales award for the man who promoted the record - sales performance rather than musical performance?

Any help to verify the provenance of this item will be greatly appreciated. Does anyone know of Chuck Gregory? Has anyone heard of this in-house award being given to others and know what the award was presented for?

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This vinyl picture disc of The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan (Columbia KCS 8786 (Canada) 1963) is available on musicstack.com and there are various other albums available in different locations, usually at a price of approximately $30-$40 USD. They are treated as fakes by collectors because they are not distributed or created by Columbia Records. They are completely unauthorized, yet pose as real authorized releases from Columbia Canada or Brazil. Expert collectors suspect the place of origin may really be Italy or Germany?

For further information on questionable releases, refer to the Searching For  A Gem website.  

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"OK, so we’re being facetious with this poster, but we did strive for historical accuracy: All of the artists, including those in tiny print, could have been there on August 27, 1965. It was an open date for the touring Beatles, it was the night before Dylan played his first full electric concert in Forest Hills, the Stones were between tours, etc. (All Elvis was doing was entertaining the awestruck Beatles – oops – at his rented house in Los Angeles. So let’s just say that historic meeting took place in Raleigh instead!)."

From www.postercentral.com where you are invited to submit your own 'dream concert' line-ups.  

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 Fake Poster, 13 February 1966

We get a Friday 24 February in 1961, 1967, 1978, 1984, 1989, 1995 and 2006. None fit a real possibility any better than the image on the poster does.

Join the discussion about this poster here and here.

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Poster for sale at www.liveauctioneers.com.

This poster was created 'in very limited quantities' in 1967, by Marijke Koger. However, there are many other reasons to assume that this was not a poster commissioned for genuine advertising of the Royal Albert Hall concerts.

Nearly all of the authentic 1966 US, UK and Australian Dylan tour notices and posters were based on photo images of him taken circa 1965. The style and colouring of the design is also incongruent with genuine posters of that era (as seen here at www.dylanstubs.com).

The time of the shows is written as 6pm on the poster. The Royal Albert Hall archivist has confirmed that the start time for these shows was 7:30pm. Whilst the tickets for the Royal Albert Hall shows do not have a time printed on them, the tickets for Manchester Free Trade Hall display a start time of 7:30pm.

The Royal Albert Hall archivist also supported the theory that presumably the poster was a commemorative design for the artist's own interest. It is now widely available as a reproduction. 

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The Masked Marauders, 1969

This is an album that appeared in October 1969 (surprisingly not on April 1st!). Supposedly it was recorded by a supergroup consisting of Bob Dylan, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Mick Jagger, and others. 

In fact it was a hoax cooked up by rock critic Greil Marcus. 

Pictures from Olav Langum from Norway for Searching For A Gem.

An NBC report on Rock Center With Brian Williams (April 5, 2013) spoke about the hoax, and there is a Wikipedia entry detailing the release. 

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Self Portrait, CBS S 66250 (Germany), 1970.

The gatefold sleeve is laminated only on the outside (official releases for Germany in 1970 had gatefold sleeves laminated both inside and outside) and the unofficial and unauthorized “embellishment”, which altered the original artwork, has been printed onto the laminated surface in black ink. The person who purchased this on eBay requested it be removed from Searching For A Gem when the fraud was discovered. 

For further information on questionable releases, refer to the Searching For  A Gem website.  

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Gold vinyl copy of Desire (Holland), 1976. 

The disc has red labels with the catalogue number CBS 86003. Unfortunately the catalogue number changed to CBS 32570 when the red labels were introduced, as can be seen from the genuine labels pictured below. 

CBS 86003 is orange/yellow, CBS 32570 is red. 

The purchaser of this record, who bought it on eBay, is adamant it is genuine and strongly objects to it being labelled a 'fake'. It is therefore listed on Searching For a Gem as “unofficial”.  

For further information on questionable releases, refer to the Searching For  A Gem website. 

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This is a photograph on the cover of the booklet enclosed in the Bootleg Series, Volumes 1-3 package. The photo is assumed to have been taken in 1978 on the train from Nuremburg to Paris. This shot of Dylan's passport lists his date of birth as May 11, 1941 and his height as 5' 11". A tall story if ever we heard one! Why do fans celebrate 21:05 May 24, 1941 Duluth time? ;-)

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Ticket for gig July 15, 1978. This is a fake (single-sided, paper not card) ticket produced in the 1990's and sold into the memorabilia market as an original.

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Someone else is speakin' with my mouth...

In 1991 an interview with Bob Dylan was published in The Telegraph (issue 42). It was supposedly conducted by journalist and translator Eduardo Bueno in Budapest on 12 June 1991. 

A year earlier in 1990, there had been controversy when Bueno had written an account of Dylan's shows in Brazil for O Estado de Sao Paolo. When published, Bueno claims the account was altered by Luis Andre Fonseca to include an 'interview' with Dylan that never happened. Bueno threatened to sue. Fonseca was fired...

Then, in 1991, the fake interview called Angels, Vampires, The Bible, Mick Jagger, The New Hat, and the Ill-Fated Gig in Transylvania appeared in Zero Hora, The Telegraph and Caderno 2 (under the title 'Bob Dylan Breaks his Five Year Silence'). 

Retractions were forthcoming, but Bueno was amazed that anyone believed it was anything but a fake, as the 'responses' from Dylan were purely lifted from a selection of other interviews. 

You can also read the Porto Alegre Brazil interview (Telegraph, issue 41) here.

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Created for fun in the 1990s by a European fan. 

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Bob Dylan, Time Out Of Mind blue swirl vinyl double LP, special collectors edition (Columbia COL 486936 1 (Holland for Europe), 1998).

For sale on eBay, this item purports to be from the UK, however an expert collector believes the country of origin is likely to be Germany. 

Beautiful to look at, this was not created or distributed by Columbia records. 

For further information on questionable releases, refer to the Searching For  A Gem website.  

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Contrary to what a new collector might think, matching a known authentic signature from years ago precisely, in every minute stroke, is suspicious and unlikely to be authentic. The good forger knows to change things a little. And of course Bob Dylan loves to do a signature that the experts will reject as real!

As the collector of the above (assumed fake) autograph asks, "What does it take to get a legitimate Bob Dylan autograph without getting it in-person?"

He discovered the potential origin of the forgery - poor forgeries are often too precise. 

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From Searching For A Gem on Facebook.

This "mega rare" promo CD-R of Modern Times, purporting to be from Colombia, is almost certainly a fake. Modern Times is from 2006, yet this is dated 2002. Sony & BMG did not merge until 2004, two years after this date. ABKCO records are distributed by Universal, and Bob has never had links to that company.

For more information about questionable releases, consult the Searching For A Gem website. 

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R.I.P. Bob Dylan? Nonsense!

On 6 March 2009, there was a publicity poster circulated online for a rock music tribute at Rocbar Houston Texas. 

On the poster, Bob Dylan was featured alongside Kurt Cobain, Jimmy Hendrix, Jim Morrison and Dimebag Darrell... stars who have all "gone to that big festival in the sky". 

Contrary to the information on this poster, Bob Dylan was alive and well in March 2009, recording episodes of Theme Time Radio Hour and preparing for his European spring tour of that year.

Despite its many assets, Rocbar closed in 2010.  

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From Searching For A Gem on Facebook.

This "mega rare" promo CD-R of The Best Of The Original Mono Recordings, purporting to be from Argentina, is almost certainly another fake. This is dated 2005 and the album is from 2010, by which time Sony BMG had become Sony Music with a new logo. If you are going to fake these things, why not get your facts right?

For more information about questionable releases, consult the Searching For A Gem website. 

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Bob Dylan Goes Electronica

Spoof story 'Rock Fans Outraged As Bob Dylan Goes Electronica' in The Onion [July 12th 2010].

NEWPORT, RI—Audience members at the Newport Rock Festival were "outraged" Monday when rock icon Bob Dylan followed up such classic hits as "Like A Rolling Stone" and "Maggie's Farm" with an electronica set composed of atonal drones, hyperactive drumbeats, and the repeated mechanized lyric "Dance to the club life!" "We came here to see the authentic Dylan, the one with the Stratocaster guitar and signature wild blues-rock band behind him," audience member Robert Hochschild said. "Then he walks out with these puffy headphones, some turntables, and a laptop? The guy's a Judas." When asked later about his musical transformation by reporters, Dylan said he had nothing to say about the beats he programs, he just programs them.

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The story of the battle between Jeff Gold and Peter McKenzie. 

Peter McKenzie is the son of a man who allegedly lost his couch to a 19 year old Bob Dylan in New York. The pending lawsuits involve a copy of a 'signed and inscribed' copy of The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, along with other memorabilia. Having stated that the album was acquired from a mutual friend of Bob Dylan's, McKenzie sold the album to Jeff Gold. 

However, Mr. Gold hired a certified forensic document examiner to investigate this and other items he had purchased from McKenzie. The examiner alleged that the items were purchased from eBay and inscribed at a later date. 

Gold reported that he settled his case against Peter McKenzie in November 2008. The specific outcome was unspecified. 

It was reported that a second dealer, Reed Orenstein, was suing McKenzie for $40,000. Still holding to the genuineness of his memorabilia, Peter McKenzie was countersuing for $200,000, claiming defamation.

We don't know the veracity or outcome of that report. 

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BOB DYLAN: Shoes for Everyone

This web page is part of the bluerailroad Wordpress blog. 

The author, Henry Crinkle, asks for reader questions to be submitted, and then the queries are answered by Bob Dylan, not now and in person, but instead using excerpts from previous interviews. 

Technically this is using Bob Dylan's own words to answer the questions. But there may be a naïve assumption by the casual new reader that these questions were presented to Bob Dylan. They were not. 

Henry Crinkle will feel this is so obvious no greater explanation needs to be given. Perhaps this is just a good natured spoof. But then again...

One reader comment asks for dates and details to be given next to the questions, showing a level of awareness that the sources are from the past. 

Deliberate fakery or harmless obvious spoof? You decide.

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Royal Wedding, April 29 2011 

When Prince William married Kate Middleton, bets were on as to which song they would dance their first dance to at their evening reception. 

The following day, The Daily Star newspaper in the UK reported that they had danced their first dance to Adele's cover version of Bob Dylan's song,'To Make You Feel My Love'. 

However, the complete coverage of the reception from the UK newspaper The Telegraph told a very different story about the musical entertainment for the night. 

One guest described the scene in the Throne Room, which had been set up with a stage, a dance floor and a cocktail bar serving champagne, spirits and Mojito cocktails: “The huge chandelier in the Throne Room had been cleverly covered with a kind of curtain or cylinder which had laser and strobe lights on it for the dance floor.

“There was a huge bar in the middle of the room, lots of sofas for everyone to lounge on when they weren’t on the dance floor, and a stage for the band.”

But this was not your average wedding band - guests were treated to a two-hour long set by the Brit-Award winning singer Ellie Goulding and her live band, who are believed to have serenaded the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge with her hit song “Starry-Eyed” as they took to the dance floor for their “first-dance”.

Miss Goulding then performed a mixture of her own songs, popular “Sixties rock and roll hits” and several cover versions, including a cover of “Your Song” by Sir Elton John, who was an earlier wedding guest at the Abbey.

No mention of Adele or Bob Dylan. Although, admittedly, the song may have been one of the 'cover versions' mentioned. 

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Shangri-La or La La Land?  

On June 7 2011, news reports were stating that 'The historical Shangri-La recording studio and personal residence to Bob Dylan' was for sale. The current owner and seller is Minnesota's Blaine John "Beej" Chaney, former singer and guitar player for the 1980's new-wave band 'The Suburbs' .

Shen Schulz is the realtor handling the sale.

Mobile: 1.310.980.8809
Fax: 1.310.456.8864
Email: shen@malibudreamhouse.com
Website: www.malibudreamhouse.com/  

Looking at the history of Shangri-La we can see that it has a very interesting past. 

The official website says, 'There is a mythical quality to the property, and it took on many forms before becoming one of the most renowned recording studios in the history of rock music.  For a time, it was an upscale bordello, rumoured to have hosted the Hollywood elite of the 1950's. In the early 1960's TV's Mr. Ed was filmed and stabled at this timeless ranch above the sea.'

The current studio was designed and built in the early 1970s by Rob Fraboni to the exact specifications of Bob Dylan and The Band. Levon Helm described Shangri-La as "...a clubhouse and studio where we and our friends could record albums and cross-pollinate one another's music". 

Eric Clapton spent nearly three months recording at Shangri-La and Bob Dylan was reportedly living in a tent in the rose garden at that time. 

Martin Scorcese and Robbie Robinson used Shangri-La as a rehearsal studio for The Last Waltz and shots of the studio can be seen during the movie. 

However, there have only been two known sessions for Bob Dylan at Shangri-La, both in the spring of 1976. A longer session on March 30 and when recording Sign Language with Eric Clapton, March/April.   

Has it ever been an official residence of Bob Dylan? Has Bob Dylan ever owned the property? It is disingenuous to list the property as such if the answer is no. 

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 Guess who was playing that night? 

On 5 March 2011, there was an article by Dave Bidini in the Canadian National Post newspaper. It was entitled Nelly Furtado and the public shame of private concerts and spoke about performers and stars who give private concerts for corporations, military dictators and wealthy people - some of whom may be considered to be of dubious character. 

The article stated:

I have a friend, a garment wholesaler, who once attended the Guess Jeans convention in Las Vegas. When he arrived at the hotel, he found a schedule of the weekend’s activities, which included a private Saturday concert featuring Bob Dylan and Neil Young. History shows that these two songwriters have been among the most socially conscious musicians of their time, but it didn’t preclude them from stumping for a company that, at the time, relied on sweatshop labour and was fined in the U.S. for failing to pay minimum wage or overtime.

My friend says that Dylan and Neil got a million dollars to play at the convention. 

Now, nobody is suggesting that Bob Dylan doesn't take part in private and corporate concerts. In fact, as this review suggests, many people from outside of these companies are often able to get access to these events and verify they happened.

In fact, attending these private concerts, even where a person pays an employee for the ticket, is always cheaper than a mainstream concert and the food and drink are better and free! And the effort and time to get in adds to the sport. 

However, this particular Guess Jeans concert has absolutely no verification beyond the journalist's anonymous 'friend' from the garment industry.

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Went to see the gypsy? 

From as early as 2010, but certainly by 2012, this photoshopped picture of Bob Dylan apparently meeting Elvis Presley was widespread on the internet. Discerning fans knew it was a fake, and that chances were, Bob Dylan never actually met Elvis face to face at any time. 

Christmas 2013, Michael Gray - author of The Bob Dylan Encyclopedia - used the picture as his Christmas post to friends and followers on his blog, only later realising it was not genuine. 

The joke identification of the people in the photograph on the Elvis forum Too Much Monkey Business mentions Max Weinberg, Clarence Clemons and Bruce Springsteen as being the other people in the picture. ;-) 

The real caption for the original photograph (click the thumbnails below) is: 

1972 Gertjan van Ommen.
Elvis Presley in Wim van Ravestijn's hotel room, in Las Vegas.

Join the discussion about the photograph, as well as Dylan's connections with Elvis and how the two artists covered each other's music, at the EDLIS Café.  

Taken in Elvis's dressing room on August 12, 1969 between the dinner and midnight show. Mathieu Minacapelli is on the left of the picture (with the black shirt), with friends M. Vinciguerra and JM Gargiulo (white shirt). 

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The Phantom Ballplayer  

Is this a photograph of Bob Dylan?

A widespread "Bob Dylan" photograph which has no connection with Bob Dylan / Bob Zimmerman in any way! It does not look like him. The team is most unlikely. There is zero provenance. No serious source has claimed this is him. No one related to him or who knew him in Hibbing thinks it could be him.

The picture actually originated from a Bob Dylan birthday / baseball themed entry in a blog on May 24, 2006. The photograph is a generic picture used to illustrate the blog - it never claims to be a photograph of Bob Dylan himself. 

In fact, the file name contained within the URL of the photograph accompanying the article clearly states that the picture is from a 1965 baseball tour. 

Pretty impossible to be a photograph of a 7 year old Dylan circa 1948?

Looks like a foul ball.  

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Dylan on a bike ride, 1966? 

An oddly colourised photograph of Bob Dylan, riding a Triumph motorcycle in heavy traffic, began to circulate on the internet following its appearance in Koshiro's Blog (July 6, 2010). 

Further inspection revealed to EDLIS that this was a photoshop, placing Bob Dylan's head on a 1971 photograph of the actor Steve McQueen. 

The original photographs can be seen below.  

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Bob Dylan and John Lennon? 

This photoshop has been circulating for many years, and was debunked from at least 2011. 

Below is the original photograph of John Lennon, with Paul McCartney in the background, backstage at a Beatles' concert at the Grugahalle in Essen during the German leg of the Beatles' final world tour, 25 June 1966.

No Bob. 

The picture of Dylan is a reversed and cropped version of a photograph by Tony Gale of Bob Dylan in London, 1966. 

The original pictures are in the gallery below. 

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 Abe Zimmerman and the Flying Cuyunas. Duluth, 1938?

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New York Slate - art forgery

Another motorcycle photo!

It is NOT!

This photograph is probably from South Dakota, and is of an unknown young man who is certainly not Robert Zimmerman. 

The photograph is identified thus: 

"This snapshot turned up in a collection owned by Jerry Greer. He got it from a man who walked into Greer's Indian Engineering one day. The man's father ran a motorcycle shop in Greer's location 40 years before Greer arrived. The man offered Greer his father's scrapbook, which is where this photo came from. This means we don't know who this kid is."

Jerry Greer's Engineering is located in South Dakota:

Jerry Greer’s Engineering, 136 Sherman St. Deadwood, SD 57732.