Bob Dylan and Allen Ginsberg, San Francisco, 1965, photo c. Larry Keenan
In 1965 Allen arranged for and fellow student photographer
Dale Smith to photograph him and Michael McClure and Robbie Robertson and Bob Dylan in the alleyway behind City Lights Bookstore (originally for possible use on the
Blonde on Blonde album cover). The images were never used (tho’ some have turned up in subsequent Dylan projects).
As Keenan, on the Empty Mirror website, recalls:
Michael McClure, Bob Dylan and Allen Ginsberg, San Francisco, 1965, photo c. Larry Keenan
“This session was arranged the night before at a party after Bob Dylan’s concert at the Berkeley Community Theater. Allen Ginsberg introduced me to Dylan and we arranged to do a photo session…the same day as the Beats’ last gathering at City Lights Books. At City Lights we hid out in the basement with Dylan and when the people started to break the door down we climbed out a window and ran down the alley and took these photographs. I was in college and living at home during the Beat period. I had to mow the lawn before I could borrow the car and go to San Francisco to shoot this…event”.
Robbie Robertson, Michael McClure, Bob Dylan and Allen Ginsberg, San Francisco, 1965, photo c. Larry Keenan
Dale Smith‘s images of this occasion he’s fancifully titled. One of them features a “lost soul” (or, half a lost soul!), Julius Orlovsky, distancing himself from the four-some – Julius and the Spirits – (everybody get the Fellini pun?):
Julius and The Spirits – Robbie Robertson, Michael McClure, Bob Dylan and Allen Ginsberg, and (partially visible) Julius Orlovsky, San Francisco, 1965, photo c. Dale Smith
Here’s more of Dale’s images – Smoking Poets (Allen would, of course, later, actively inveigh against such behavior in his
“Put Down Your Cigarette Rag”):
Smoking Poets – Robbie Robertson, Michael McClure, Bob Dylan and Allen Ginsberg, San Francisco, 1965, photo c. Dale Smith
And here, just the three of them, sans Robbie Robertson, Alley Cats (sic), the three poets:
Alley Cats – Michael McClure, Bob Dylan and Allen Ginsberg, San Francisco, 1965, photo c. Dale Smith
Also on hand to record this occasion was the pre-eminent rock photographer, Jim Marshall.
Here’s one of
his images:
Robbie Robertson, Michael McClure, Bob Dylan and Allen Ginsberg, and unidentified photographer, San Francisco, 1965, photo c.
Jim Marshall Photography, LLC
Turning to another occasion. Ken Regan was the official Rolling Thunder photographer. It was Ken who shot this extraordinary picture of Allen and Bob in Lowell at Jack Kerouac’s grave:
Bob Dylan and Allen Ginsberg at Jack Kerouac’s grave, Edson Cemetery, Lowell, Mass. 1975, photo c.Ken Regan
Ken’s remarkable Rolling Thunder work is currently on exhibit at the
Morrison Hotel Gallery in New York (it is also available in a
limited edition portfolio (a mere 350 copies, signed and numbered by the photographer, and available from the gallery). Here’s some other classic Regan shots
Bob Dylan and Allen Ginsberg at Jack Kerouac’s grave, Edson Cemetery Lowell, Mass. 1975, photo c.Ken Regan
Allen Ginsberg and Bob Dylan, Edson Cemetery Lowell, Mass. 1975, photo c.Ken Regan
Here’s another shot from that time (from Gerard Malanga) – taken in Allen’s apartment in New York, just a few weeks prior to the beginning of the tour
Allen Ginsberg, Roger McGuinn, Bob Dylan and friends, New York City, October 15 1975 – photo c. Gerard Malanga
and here’s two classic Elsa Dorfman images
A couple of friends of mine went to see Dylan at the Beacon Theater in the early nineties. After the show, they went around to the back stage door to see if they could get Dylan's autograph. When they got back there they found three other people standing by the door: a father and his young son, and Allen Ginsberg. At one point, the father asked Allen if he could say something memorable to his son. He leaned into the boy, took him by the shoulder and said, "Read 'The Bells' by Edgar Allen Poe. It's all in 'The Bells'." I don't think any of them got to see Dylan, though.
Shakespeare, he’s in the alley
With his pointed shoes and his bells.
Speaking to some French girl
Who said she knows me well……