Bob Dylan's first demo tape—a remarkable original master recording made by his first manager, Terri Thal, at the Gaslight Café in New York City on September 6, 1961, historic as the earliest known recording of Bob Dylan at the iconic Greenwich Village coffeehouse, central to the 1960s NYC folk scene. The tape was specifically made as a tool to book the then-unknown Dylan gigs outside of New York City. In conversations with Thal, she emphasizes that the tape was a practical necessity: "I didn't have video… I didn't have a record. I needed something to show, to play for people to give them an idea of what the guy sounded like."
This is the original 1/4-inch Reeves Soundcraft Plus-100 reel-to-reel audio tape recorded at the Gaslight on September 6, 1961, boasting clear, high-quality recordings of six early tracks: 'Old Man,' 'He Was a Friend of Mine,' 'Talkin’ Bear Mountain Picnic Massacre Blues,' 'Song to Woody,' 'Pretty Polly,' and 'Car, Car.' The first four, all original Dylan compositions, demonstrate the range of his incredible songwriting talent—his early brilliance is especially evident in the witty 'Bear Mountain' talking blues and in his thoughtful tribute to Woody Guthrie, which have been recognized by Dylan biographer Clinton Heylin and music journalist Paul Williams as the first compositions to gain Dylan notice as a songwriter. His influences are made plain in the final two songs, with a great bluegrass version of the traditional 'Pretty Polly' and a playful rendition of Woody Guthrie's 'Car, Car,' supported by Dave Van Ronk's humorous duet on the 'engine noises.' Van Ronk, then husband of Terri Thal, was one of Dylan's friends and mentors in the Greenwich Village folk scene. The tape also includes a recording—not an original performance—of Dylan playing "Mr. Tambourine Man," which was added later.
In Chronicles: Volume One, Dylan reflects on their influence: "I felt different towards Van Ronk than anyone else on the scene because it was him who brought me into the fold and I was happy to be playing alongside him night after night at the Gaslight. It was a real stage with a real audience and it was where the real action was…Van Ronk’s wife, Terri, definitely not a minor character, took care of Dave’s bookings, especially out of town, and she began trying to help me out. She was just as outspoken and opinionated as Dave was, especially about politics—not so much the political issues but rather the highfalutin’ theological ideas behind political systems...Politics with a hanging heaviness. Intellectually it would be hard to keep up."
Dylan continues: "Terri had managed to get Dave booked in places like Boston and Philly…even as far away as St. Louis at a folk club called Laughing Buddha. For me, those gigs were out of the question. You needed at least one record out even if it was on a small label to get work in any of those clubs. She did manage to come up with a few things in places like Elizabeth, New Jersey, and Hartford—once at a folk club in Pittsburgh, another in Montreal. Scattered things. Mostly I stayed around in New York City. I didn’t really want to go out of town. If I wanted to be out of town, I wouldn’t have come to New York City in the first place. I was fortunate to have the regular gig at the Gaslight and wasn’t on any wild goose chase to go anywhere."
In her own book, My Greenwich Village: Dave, Bob and Me, Thal remembers: "One day in spring 1961, Bob asked, 'Would you get me gigs?' Of course I said, 'I'll try.' I didn't think of asking him to sign a management contract…Bob and I agreed that I would be his manager and would get fifteen percent of any job I got for him, but that I wouldn't take a commission until he was earning enough to pay me…Getting Bob Dylan work was difficult. Folk singers in New York started to agree with Dave and me that Bob was distinctive and remarkable, and that he had great promise. But he didn't yet have any other audience. Other folk singers went to hear him, but musicians couldn't constitute enough of an audience to support the cost to a club owner of bringing in a performer."
Thal recalls making a trip to Massachusetts in an effort to find work for Dylan: "In Springfield, the manager wasn't interested in a new, unknown performer. He wanted Dave, which was fine, but I had gone there primarily to try to get a booking for Bob. I could have booked Dave just by calling, but I had known that I'd have to generate interest in Bob, and had brought a tape to play. The Club 47 in Cambridge, where there was a flourishing folk music scene, wouldn't hire Bob. 'He's too freaky for a folk music audience,' the manager told me…The audition tape Bob made before I went to Massachusetts was recorded in the Gaslight. It's a quarter-track, reel-to-reel tape made on the Ampex I had bought for Dave. I had a studio make a vinyl recording of the tape, and insisted that the studio promise not to make any others…Years later, a pirated copy was used to produce a bootlegged album."
She goes on to discuss her rediscovery of this tape while working on her memoir: "I had not played the original tape since the early 1960s, when it was made, and didn't know whether there was still any sound on it. In early 2023, writer Richard Barone introduced me to Steve Addabbo, owner of Shelter Island Sound, a studio that has worked on Bob Dylan recordings. Steve played the tape in his studio. Not only was there still sound on it, the sound is clear and stunning. It's a wonderful sample of Bob's early music." The tape is accompanied by Addabbo's digital transfer; the sound quality is clear and stunning, far superior to any bootlegged examples of the Gaslight set.
The tape has been rehoused in an Ampex box, but the original Soundcraft Plus-100 box cover panels are included, boasting a handwritten track list.
Note: No copyright, license, or any other rights in or to the music contained on these tapes is conveyed, implied, or claimed in connection with the sale of these tapes. This sale is of the tangible personal property constituted by the physical tapes themselves only, which RR is selling at auction on consignment from the legal owner thereof.
