http://www.boston.com/ae/events/articles/2005/10/06/only_human/Only human
Photographs, movies, and music events seek to touch the man behind the legend called Bob Dylan
By Sarah Tomlinson, Globe Correspondent | October 5, 2005
The images of Bob Dylan from the mid-1960s are iconic: The mussed mop of curly hair, the plume of smoke from the ever-present cigarette, the (usually) unsmiling expression. This is the Dylan that seems most deeply etched into our collective memory, the skinny young man from Minnesota, by way of Greenwich Village, who revolutionized popular music with songs that were by turns angry, beautiful, bizarre, vivid, and hilarious. The camera seemed to love Dylan and his theatrical demeanor, and images of him as a 20-something troubadour still have the power to captivate us.
So imagine the wonder of the curators of the Allston Skirt Gallery when a local photographer came knocking at their door, bearing dozens of photographs of the young Dylan that they’d never seen before. The photographs were taken by Douglas Gilbert, an Amesbury resident and now a psychotherapist, when he was a 21-year-old photographer for Look magazine. Gilbert traveled with Dylan, then 23, for a week in the summer of 1964. But the magazine’s editors thought the singer was too scruffy for a ‘‘family’’ magazine, and Gilbert’s photos were never published. Gilbert received the negatives when Look folded in 1971, but never printed them.
Spurred in part by the production of the Martin Scorsese documentary, ‘‘No Direction Home,’’ that aired last week on PBS, Gilbert revisited his old negatives and assembled a show of more than 40 photographs. The exhibit, ‘‘Bob Dylan: Unscripted,’’ was first shown at a gallery in Los Angeles in February. At the urging of a friend, Gilbert approached Allston Skirt about running the show this fall. An opening reception will be held Friday at the gallery, and the show runs through Oct. 29. The show also coincides with the publication by DaCapo this month of ‘‘Forever Young: Photographs of Bob Dylan, 1964,’’ a book of nearly 100 of Gilbert’s Dylan photos, with text by Dave Marsh.
Dylan was Gilbert’s first assignment for Look, and he shot some 900 images of the singer over those seven days — at the Newport Folk Festival, hanging out with friends in New York City, writing in isolation at his manager’s cottage in Woodstock, N.Y. Gilbert captures Dylan at a pivotal point in his career, just as he’s growing his hair, shaking off the last remnants of his Woody Guthrie phase, and taking the first steps into what would be the most dizzyingly productive period of his remarkable career.
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The opening reception for ‘‘Bob Dylan: Unscripted’’ is Friday at 5 p.m. at Allston Skirt Gallery, 450 Harrison Ave., storefront No..65, Boston. 617-482-3652. Free. The show runs Wed-Sun 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Through Oct. 29.
‘‘Bob Dylan Mix Tape’’ screens Oct. 11 at 7:30 & 9:30 p.m. at Coolidge Corner Theatre, 290 Harvard St., Brookline. 617-734-2501. $6.
‘‘A Nod to Bob’’ takes place Oct. 23 at 8 p.m. at the Paradise Lounge, 969 Commonwealth Ave., Boston. 617-562-8800. $8. 18+