When a few days ago Terri Thal together with Tom Paxton, Happy Traum and Dave Amram presented their new book Dave, Bob & Me in the New York club Bitter End and it was a story telling evening of it’s finest, they played the song Green Green Rocky Road towards the end of the event.
At the word „Baltimore“ a short cheer went through the audience and I thought, aha!, that must have some greater meaning and I tapped a few keywords into the digital well of wisdom – song title-Baltimore-Civil Rights Movement. The entries and links also led me to Elijah Wald’s site. And Elijah Wald also has many stories to tell, where you realize again that the Greenwich Village with its various musicians is one of the great sources in Dylan’s songwriting and not only that he heard many musicians live, was friends with them, rummaged through some record collections and of course wrote one or the other list in his notepad.
Here is the version by Dave van Ronk and the version from the soundtrack of „Inside Llewyn Davis“ recorded by Oscar Isaac (Terri, Tom and Happy thought the music was fantastic, but the movie did not correspond to the situation in the Village at the time).
Green Green Rocky Road – is of course an Ever Green that, like the song „I went down to St. James Infirmary, has migrated from the South up north to NYC. Originally by Len Chandler, who just died in August at the age of 88.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Bob Dylan plays this song as an opener in Baltimore, it would be a fitting tribute to the city, to Chandler & Dave, a salute to Terri and to Greenwich Village then and now.
If you want to take the time, here’s the You Tube clip of the book launch at the Bitter End posted online by Marc Percansky and a feature titled „The Dylan WalK“ by Bob Egan.
https://www.popspotsnyc.com/dylanwalk/
darmstadtdylandays 