Google Groups no longer supports new Usenet posts or subscriptions. Historical content remains viewable.
Dismiss
Something funny, I thought
158 views
Skip to first unread message
Allan Boyce
Jan 30, 2020, 5:36:46 PM1/30/20
to
This is from Piers Morgan in The Daily Mail:
Even the hippest figures have been lumbered with embarrassing parents.
Bob Dylan, universally regarded as the coolest man who ever lived, had a tremendously embarrassing mum.
In the Eighties, the boss of Dylan's record label, Walter Yetnikoff, observed mother and son at dinner.
'Sitting next to Bob and his mother, I was astonished by their dialogue. The mysterious poet suddenly turned into little Bobby Zimmerman.
' 'You're not eating, Bobby,' said Mom...
'Please, Ma. You're embarrassing me.'
'I saw you ate nothing for lunch. You're skin and bones.'
'I'm eating, Ma, I'm eating.'
'And have you thanked Mr Yetnikoff for this lovely dinner?'
'Thank you, Walter.'
'You're mumbling, Bobby. I don't think Mr Yetnikoff can hear you.'
And so it went on, the world's coolest man wincing and squirming as his mother nagged him in front of his friends and associates.
Small wonder that Dylan had once been driven to sing 'Come mothers and fathers throughout the land, And don't criticise what you can't understand.'
Was he singing about being forced to finish what was on his plate?
Even the hippest figures have been lumbered with embarrassing parents.
Bob Dylan, universally regarded as the coolest man who ever lived, had a tremendously embarrassing mum.
In the Eighties, the boss of Dylan's record label, Walter Yetnikoff, observed mother and son at dinner.
'Sitting next to Bob and his mother, I was astonished by their dialogue. The mysterious poet suddenly turned into little Bobby Zimmerman.
' 'You're not eating, Bobby,' said Mom...
'Please, Ma. You're embarrassing me.'
'I saw you ate nothing for lunch. You're skin and bones.'
'I'm eating, Ma, I'm eating.'
'And have you thanked Mr Yetnikoff for this lovely dinner?'
'Thank you, Walter.'
'You're mumbling, Bobby. I don't think Mr Yetnikoff can hear you.'
And so it went on, the world's coolest man wincing and squirming as his mother nagged him in front of his friends and associates.
Small wonder that Dylan had once been driven to sing 'Come mothers and fathers throughout the land, And don't criticise what you can't understand.'
Was he singing about being forced to finish what was on his plate?
Grave Digger
Jan 30, 2020, 5:48:00 PM1/30/20
to
Very cool
She was filmed in the audience at times during the RTR shows
"I wish my mother was still alive"
James Zadok
Jan 30, 2020, 6:09:33 PM1/30/20
to
Bob Dylan's Mother
Published in The Jewish Mothers' Hall of Fame
November 1990
"He’s a beautiful poet. But I don’t think he was ever the greatest singer."
For Beatrice (Beatty) Rutman, perhaps the most poignant reminder of her status as Bob Dylan’s mother came during her grandson Jesse’s bar mitzvah in Israel. It was Beatty’s idea to have the ceremony at the Wailing Wall. “I was taking a vacation with him anyway. Jesse was seventeen. His younger brothers had both been bar mitzvahed. So I said, ‘Why don’t you do it?’ ” In Jerusalem, Beatty and Jesse were joined by Bob, who flew over for the occasion. Also there, but not invited, was a photographer who insisted on taking a shot of Jesse praying. “I begged him not to do it,” recalls Beatty. “I said, ‘Can’t you just leave this boy alone? Doesn’t he have a right? Do you have to do this, just to make a few dollars?’ But he took the picture anyway, and he wired it to New York, and it made all the papers. So then the whole world knew Jesse Dylan had been bar mitzvahed.”
At seventy, Beatty Rutman is used to such intrusions. After all, her son is the most influential singer-songwriter of the rock era (he has sold more than 30 million records) and an enigmatic figure who many fans regarded as a prophet of his generation. No wonder the media’s interest in Dylan has been intensive and nonstop. And since Bob himself has carefully avoided interviews for most of his career, frustrated reporters have often turned to Beatty.
Bob’s mother has rarely obliged them. “My late husband, Abe Zimmerman [Bob’s father], used to say, ‘You read the paper, then you put it in the fireplace.’ They write what they want to write. What are you going to do, sue them? I knew Elvis Presley personally, and unfortunately, I think he really cared about what they said about him in the papers. The media have made some people crazy—Bobby was smart enough to stay away from that.”
Still, Beatty was willing to speak for publication when reached by phone in St. Paul, Minnesota (where she lived with her husband of fifteen years, Joe Rutman, until his recent death). And she was willing to talk about the period, from 1979 to 1983, when the press was saying that Bob had turned into a Bible-thumping Christian. “He never displayed it for me,” she says. But then Beatty adds, “What religion a person is shouldn’t make any difference to anybody else. I’m not bigoted in any way. Rabbis would call me up. I’d say, ‘If you’re upset, you try to change him.’ ”
Now, by all accounts, Bob is more actively Jewish than ever. On his most recent tour, he caused complications by refusing to perform on shabbes. In the past few years, he has spent time with Hasidic rebbes in Brooklyn, given money to Jewish causes, and made several trips to Israel, including the one for Jesse’s bar mitzvah. Of that ceremony, Beatty says, “It was magnificent. It was the high point of my life.”
Most of her life was spent in Hibbing, Minnesota, where the family moved when Bob was six. Abe Zimmerman had an appliance store, and Beatty was a popular figure in town. “All these years later,” she says, “I can’t walk down the street there without everybody stopping me to say hello.” There was no anti-Semitism in Hibbing, according to Beatty. “I got on with everyone. When a Christian friend died, they wanted to have the wake in my house, instead of in a funeral home. I said, ‘Okay, but I don’t serve ham.’ So I made tuna salad and egg salad, and everyone was happy.”
Life got interesting when Bobby reached adolescence. He had been a quiet, introspective boy; Beatty says she expected him to become an English teacher. But at ten he started playing the guitar, and soon Bob Dylan—he renamed himself for Dylan Thomas—was carrying his guitar from college campus to college campus, where he found both an audience and a reason to avoid going to high school. His mother was alternately angry and admiring. “There were lots of times when he was ready to come back to Minnesota,” Beatty recalls. “But he stuck with it. No one helped Bobby—they shut doors in his face, but no one helped him.”
She watched his progress from afar—“and then, when he was ready for Carnegie Hall, he called us.”
Beatty never expected him to become the success he is; she marvels that “he’s so big, and he seems to be getting even bigger.” Beatty says she gets along “very, very well” with Bob and his younger brother, David. “I did a wonderful job raising both my children,” she says, “and I’ve been able to stay close by never interfering.”
Does she like Bob’s music? “He’s a beautiful poet. I have things he wrote for me when he was five or six, sacred things, that I’ll never show anyone. But I don’t think he was ever the greatest singer. He was never an opera star.”
Then she adds, “Of course, I love everything he does. I’m his mother.” And what’s more, “He’s a remarkable, wonderful man. He’s a very ordinary person; he’s full of compassion; he has no ego. People don’t really know him. But I do, and I’m grateful for it. Every mother should have a son like Bobby.”
http://www.fredbernstein.com/articles/display.asp?id=333
Published in The Jewish Mothers' Hall of Fame
November 1990
"He’s a beautiful poet. But I don’t think he was ever the greatest singer."
For Beatrice (Beatty) Rutman, perhaps the most poignant reminder of her status as Bob Dylan’s mother came during her grandson Jesse’s bar mitzvah in Israel. It was Beatty’s idea to have the ceremony at the Wailing Wall. “I was taking a vacation with him anyway. Jesse was seventeen. His younger brothers had both been bar mitzvahed. So I said, ‘Why don’t you do it?’ ” In Jerusalem, Beatty and Jesse were joined by Bob, who flew over for the occasion. Also there, but not invited, was a photographer who insisted on taking a shot of Jesse praying. “I begged him not to do it,” recalls Beatty. “I said, ‘Can’t you just leave this boy alone? Doesn’t he have a right? Do you have to do this, just to make a few dollars?’ But he took the picture anyway, and he wired it to New York, and it made all the papers. So then the whole world knew Jesse Dylan had been bar mitzvahed.”
At seventy, Beatty Rutman is used to such intrusions. After all, her son is the most influential singer-songwriter of the rock era (he has sold more than 30 million records) and an enigmatic figure who many fans regarded as a prophet of his generation. No wonder the media’s interest in Dylan has been intensive and nonstop. And since Bob himself has carefully avoided interviews for most of his career, frustrated reporters have often turned to Beatty.
Bob’s mother has rarely obliged them. “My late husband, Abe Zimmerman [Bob’s father], used to say, ‘You read the paper, then you put it in the fireplace.’ They write what they want to write. What are you going to do, sue them? I knew Elvis Presley personally, and unfortunately, I think he really cared about what they said about him in the papers. The media have made some people crazy—Bobby was smart enough to stay away from that.”
Still, Beatty was willing to speak for publication when reached by phone in St. Paul, Minnesota (where she lived with her husband of fifteen years, Joe Rutman, until his recent death). And she was willing to talk about the period, from 1979 to 1983, when the press was saying that Bob had turned into a Bible-thumping Christian. “He never displayed it for me,” she says. But then Beatty adds, “What religion a person is shouldn’t make any difference to anybody else. I’m not bigoted in any way. Rabbis would call me up. I’d say, ‘If you’re upset, you try to change him.’ ”
Now, by all accounts, Bob is more actively Jewish than ever. On his most recent tour, he caused complications by refusing to perform on shabbes. In the past few years, he has spent time with Hasidic rebbes in Brooklyn, given money to Jewish causes, and made several trips to Israel, including the one for Jesse’s bar mitzvah. Of that ceremony, Beatty says, “It was magnificent. It was the high point of my life.”
Most of her life was spent in Hibbing, Minnesota, where the family moved when Bob was six. Abe Zimmerman had an appliance store, and Beatty was a popular figure in town. “All these years later,” she says, “I can’t walk down the street there without everybody stopping me to say hello.” There was no anti-Semitism in Hibbing, according to Beatty. “I got on with everyone. When a Christian friend died, they wanted to have the wake in my house, instead of in a funeral home. I said, ‘Okay, but I don’t serve ham.’ So I made tuna salad and egg salad, and everyone was happy.”
Life got interesting when Bobby reached adolescence. He had been a quiet, introspective boy; Beatty says she expected him to become an English teacher. But at ten he started playing the guitar, and soon Bob Dylan—he renamed himself for Dylan Thomas—was carrying his guitar from college campus to college campus, where he found both an audience and a reason to avoid going to high school. His mother was alternately angry and admiring. “There were lots of times when he was ready to come back to Minnesota,” Beatty recalls. “But he stuck with it. No one helped Bobby—they shut doors in his face, but no one helped him.”
She watched his progress from afar—“and then, when he was ready for Carnegie Hall, he called us.”
Beatty never expected him to become the success he is; she marvels that “he’s so big, and he seems to be getting even bigger.” Beatty says she gets along “very, very well” with Bob and his younger brother, David. “I did a wonderful job raising both my children,” she says, “and I’ve been able to stay close by never interfering.”
Does she like Bob’s music? “He’s a beautiful poet. I have things he wrote for me when he was five or six, sacred things, that I’ll never show anyone. But I don’t think he was ever the greatest singer. He was never an opera star.”
Then she adds, “Of course, I love everything he does. I’m his mother.” And what’s more, “He’s a remarkable, wonderful man. He’s a very ordinary person; he’s full of compassion; he has no ego. People don’t really know him. But I do, and I’m grateful for it. Every mother should have a son like Bobby.”
http://www.fredbernstein.com/articles/display.asp?id=333
President_dudley
Jan 30, 2020, 6:25:53 PM1/30/20
to
On Thursday, January 30, 2020 at 5:36:46 PM UTC-5, Allan Boyce wrote:
Here's her recipe for Banana Chocolate Chip bread:
http://www.bobdylan-comewritersandcritics.com/largeimages/odds/betty-zimmerman-recipe.jpg
Victor H
Jan 30, 2020, 8:33:34 PM1/30/20
to
Willie
Jan 30, 2020, 10:48:32 PM1/30/20
to
Willie
Jan 30, 2020, 10:54:21 PM1/30/20
to
Willie
Jan 31, 2020, 7:28:06 AM1/31/20
to
Victor H
Jan 31, 2020, 5:49:27 PM1/31/20
to
On Thursday, January 30, 2020 at 6:09:33 PM UTC-5, James Zadok wrote:
Willie
Feb 1, 2020, 2:17:28 PM2/1/20
to
On Thursday, January 30, 2020 at 10:48:32 PM UTC-5, Willie wrote:
Willie
Feb 1, 2020, 2:21:02 PM2/1/20
to
Willie
Feb 1, 2020, 2:24:12 PM2/1/20
to
Willie
Feb 1, 2020, 2:25:57 PM2/1/20
to
James Zadok
Feb 1, 2020, 4:07:09 PM2/1/20
to
On Saturday, February 1, 2020 at 2:17:28 PM UTC-5, Willie wrote:
>
>
> Z, or anybody, I can't find anything more than this about Beatty knowing Elvis. Is this Fred Bernstein's fantasy? Or is there something to support this? I don't remember Bob himself ever meeting Elvis, though he must have. I've read the two-volume Peter Guralnick bio of Elvis, and there's no mention of Elvis in the first volume, and though there are several "Dylan, Bob" entries in the second volume ("Careless Love"), none describes a meeting. (One reference is that Elvis, when not feeling like he could sing well, would say "My mouth's feeling like Bob Dylan's been sleeping in it.")
https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/bob-dylans-late-era-old-style-american-individualism-90298/
From the Doug Brinkley interview with Bob Dylan, published in Rolling Stone in May 2009:
“I never met Elvis,” Dylan says. “I never met Elvis, because I didn’t want to meet Elvis. Elvis was in his Sixties movie period, and he was just crankin’ ’em out and knockin’ ’em off, one after another. And Elvis had kind of fallen out of favor in the Sixties. He didn’t really come back until, whatever was it, ’68? I know the Beatles went to see him, and he just played with their heads. ‘Cause George [Harrison] told me about the scene. And Derek [Taylor], one of the guys who used to work for him. Elvis was truly some sort of American king. His face is even on the Statue of Liberty. And, well, like I said, I wouldn’t quite say he was ridiculed, but close. You see, the music scene had gone past him, and nobody bought his records. Nobody young wanted to listen to him or be like him. Nobody went to see his movies, as far as I know. He just wasn’t in anybody’s mind. Two or three times we were up in Hollywood, and he had sent some of the Memphis Mafia down to where we were to bring us up to see Elvis. But none of us went. Because it seemed like a sorry thing to do. I don’t know if I would have wanted to see Elvis like that. I wanted to see the powerful, mystical Elvis that had crash-landed from a burning star onto American soil. The Elvis that was bursting with life. That’s the Elvis that inspired us to all the possibilities of life. And that Elvis was gone, had left the building.”
Of course, the fact that Dylan may never have met Elvis doesn't really give us a definitive answer as to whether his mother did or didn't. Not hard to imagine Beatty at an Elvis show in Vegas sometime in the 1970s and wangling an invitation to meet him backstage. Not hard to imagine a member of the Memphis Mafia whispering in Elvis' ear, "Bob Dylan's mother wants to meet you" and Elvis responding, "Sure thing!" Or maybe her younger son David, who seems to be pretty well connected in the music biz, arranged a meeting somewhere, sometime.
In any event, I can't see much reason for either Beatty or Bob to have lied about this, so I'm willing to accept that she met Elvis, even if her son Bob never did.
khematite
Feb 1, 2020, 4:28:48 PM2/1/20
to
An interesting eighteen-year old RMD thread. But make sure not to skip Alan Fraser's response. Cum grano salis.
"From All Across The Telegraph by Michael Gray & John Bauldie:
"This information emerged from Presley-fanatic sources. Here is the songlist
from Presley-Dylan session of May 1971 in Nashville. Elvis was booked in to
do Christmas songs; for atmosphere's sake, they had santas and angels,
Christmas trees and holly and - not duetting on all titles, we believe (no
tape has yet surfaced) - they sang:
All I Really Want To Do
Blowin' In The Wind
Carolyne
House Of The Rising Sun
It Aint Me Babe
Jodie And The Kid
Like A Rolling Stone
Me And Bobbie McGee
Mr Tambourine Man
My Garden Prayer
The Ghetto
One Too Many Mornings
She Belongs To Me
Say You Love Me One More Time
Silent Night
Subterranean Homesick Blues
Walking Down The Line
Satisfied
Reportedly they got together again, some time in 1972, at which session they
managed only 'If Not For You'. "
Now possibly this was an elaborate lie but we know there have been various
unheard shambolic jam sessions with other celebs so this could be one of
those and those songs were merely drunken fragments not worth hearing (in
the Graceland estates opinion!)
Who knows. It'd be nice to think it were true. And The King sings that
fragment of I Shall Be Released so tenderly ending with the word "Dylan"
said with obvious reverance."
Victor H
Feb 2, 2020, 5:49:08 PM2/2/20
to
Willie
Feb 4, 2020, 5:00:36 PM2/4/20
to
"Maybe 'I knew Elvis Presley personally' is a loose translation of a Yiddish phrase, something involving knishes.
Speaking of which, I was walking by Michael’s Deli in Coolidge Corner the other day and heard the following exchange between a young couple standing outside, studying at the menu:
She: Is that how you spell quiche?
He: No, that's knish."
President_dudley
Feb 4, 2020, 6:00:56 PM2/4/20
to
Attributed both to Bill Clinton and George W Bush.
Willie
Feb 4, 2020, 7:55:51 PM2/4/20
to
https://allenginsberg.org/2017/06/w-j-21-bob-dylans-mother/
0 new messages