On June 28, 1962, Bob Dylan, 21 years old, presented his first show in Montreal in front of ten people. On the eve of his visit Sunday evening to Place des Arts, one of the witnesses to this historic moment, Peter Weldon, remembers.
June 1962. A friend of Peter Weldon, recently settled in New York, calls him with an important message, almost an exhortation. You must not miss this guy’s show, she told him. This guy ? Bob Dylan.
The 21-year-old icon in the making has just launched a first album in March, which has generated little response. Outside the borders of Greenwich Village, the Gaslight Cafe star is essentially unknown. Terri Van Ronk, his first manager, undertook to organize a few visits for him in other cities, including a four-night residency at Pot Pourri, a Marxist bookstore and small performance hall, located at 1430, rue Stanley, at downtown Montreal.
In 1962, Peter Weldon, in his mid-twenties, was well connected to the music of his time, rich in revolutions, large and small. In their living room in Outremont, his parents often offered meals and accommodation to passing musicians, such as the bluesman Big Joe Williams. It is in this same living room that he plays banjo and guitar with his friend Jack Nissenson. In 1963, they formed the Mountain City Four with Kate and Anna McGarrigle.
The four of them were there at the Pot Pourri for Dylan’s first performance on June 28, 1962. “There were us and about six ladies who looked like members of a bridge club,” says Peter Weldon, 85 years old, in his Westmount apartment where he lives with his partner, Jane McGarrigle, and where instruments, books and records are piled up.
PHOTO ROBERT SKINNER, THE PRESS
Peter Weldon
But what were these ladies doing there? “It’s as if they wanted to come and take a look at the dark underbelly of the folk scene,” explains our host, still stunned, more than 60 years later, by this improbable presence.
“And the worst part was, they talked for the entire beginning of the set, until Dylan leaned over to them with one of those sloppy smiles and asked ironically, ‘Ladies, what high school do you go to? YOU ?” They immediately fell silent and looked at him for the rest of the evening like a rabbit looks at a snake. »
Although he has not spoken to his audience at all for several decades, Dylan was very talkative at the time. “She’s one of the funniest people I’ve ever met,” recalls Peter Weldon, who spent his career as a professor in the physiology department at McGill University, but in whose life she music has never ceased to play the main role.
He played with his cap, he tuned his guitar and he put on the absurd phrases [non sequiturs] one after the other. That was almost half of his performance. He had a presence like you rarely see. It was just impossible to look away.
Peter Weldon
A pirate recording
According to Peter Weldon, Bob Dylan offered essentially the same repertoire that evening as during his show on July 2, 1962, at the Finjan Club, including a few songs that will never be found on official albums, arrangements of blues standards ( Muddy Waters, Robert Johnson), folk and country (Jimmie Rodgers), as well as the classic Blowin’ in the Windwhich he released in 1963 on his legendary second album, The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan.
After his four evenings at Pot Pourri, for which he was allegedly paid $125, the singer accepted Shimon Ash’s invitation to perform at his Finjan Club, at 5650 Victoria Street. His stamp? $12 and the possibility of staying with the owner for two weeks, before returning to New York. About fifty customers were there.
PHOTO ROBERT SKINNER, THE PRESS
Peter Weldon
Peter Weldon’s friend, Jack Nissenson, is present again this Monday evening. And he brings Finjan his old tape recorder, which he places right in front of the artist. The pirate recording, of exceptional sound quality, is today among the most famous bootlegs by Dylan – you can easily find it on YouTube.
Nissenson didn’t even need to ask young Zimmerman’s permission before placing his machine in front of him. “Dylan loved being recorded. All he wanted was to be heard,” explains Peter Weldon, who missed this show because he accompanied folk singer Alan Mills and violinist Jean Carignan on banjo and guitar. Grand Falls Potato Festival, New Brunswick. “It remains one of the great regrets of my life. »
How did recording spread all over the planet? “We never knew,” replies Mr. Weldon, whose friend Jack left us in 2015. “We exchanged the recording between us for a long time, and I can only assume that he once lent to someone who made a copy. Jack was a staunch communist who believed everyone should share everything. »
Bob Dylan will be at Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier on Sunday, October 29, as part of the tour Rough and Rowdy Ways.