The recent movie “A Complete Unknown” portrayed Bob Dylan as a rebellious folk singer/songwriter/’60s icon. His sometimes abrasive, often arrogant attitude was legendary. He was elusive and enigmatic. He was deliberately mysterious and unknowable. His fans loved it. Over the years, Dylan rarely gave interviews. That was common knowledge to those of us in the media, which is why this footnote of pop music history I’m writing about now will forever be a cherished moment I will never forget.
In May 1980, I was a videotape editor in the news department of KDKA-TV. My job was to edit the video packages that ran on the 6 p.m. and 11 p.m. news broadcasts.
My friend and colleague, Pat Crosby, was a young TV reporter who, like me, had been with the station for a couple of years. Pat and I were both musicians who often used to hang out and jam together after our day was done at 11:30 p.m. It was great to be young.
On May 14, Pat saw that Dylan would be in town for three nights, performing at the Stanley Theater. The fact that Dylan rarely gave interviews didn’t stop Pat from trying. He had heard rumors that Dylan’s latest tour was causing a bit of a stir with his die-hard fans, who wanted to hear their folk hero play his greatest hits. Instead, he had chosen to play his new, Christian-themed songs on the Bob Dylan Gospel Tour.
On the first night of the concert, Pat convinced the news director to allow him and a cameraman to stand outside the Stanley Theater. Fans began storming out shortly after the concert began. They were tearing up their tickets (on camera) and loudly complaining that they had been ripped off. It was an ugly scene that Pat captured on tape and presented in his story at 11 p.m.
Predictably, [Dylan] did not change the set list due to the negative response of his fans the night before. It was a moment of defiance reflected in the climactic ending of “A Complete Unknown,” in which a young Bob Dylan broke all the rules and audaciously, rebelliously played an electric guitar at the Newport Folk Festival, creating a cultural atomic bomb blast that is still resonating to this day.
The next day, Pat reached out to Dylan’s manager. He and Dylan were staying at the Hilton Hotel downtown, just a short walk from the station. He mentioned the story and the disgruntled fans and asked whether Dylan might want to respond. Initially, the answer was no. Pat was reminded that Dylan rarely spoke to the press.
The morning and afternoon passed, but much to everyone’s utter shock and surprise, Dylan’s manager returned Pat’s call around 5 p.m.
“Dylan will see you at 5:30 at the hotel.”
No one could believe it, but Pat notified the assignment desk, grabbed a news photographer and rushed out the door before anyone could change their minds. I was told to clear the decks and be on standby when they returned. If they could nail the interview, the station wanted to get the story on the air at the top of the 6 p.m. newscast in what is known as the “A-Block” (the first 11 minutes of the show).
The news business then, as now, was a highly competitive game in which you wanted to scoop the competing local stations by beating them to the punch or running an interview with someone that no one else could get. We had the opportunity to do both.
Pat came rushing back into the newsroom around 5:45 p.m. much like reporters do in movies like “Broadcast News” that everyone thinks is an exaggeration of what happens in real-life TV newsrooms.
He tossed the three-quarter-inch video cassette (the standard at the time) into my edit booth as he flew back to his desk to slam out a short script. He had scribbled an “in-cue” and “out-cue” on a piece of paper, and I immediately began to fast-forward and search. He recorded a short voice-over track to be inserted in the story, followed by Dylan, on camera, talking to Pat Crosby, addressing his local fans, and breaking his longstanding rule of never speaking to the press. It was glorious, but the clock was ticking.
Thankfully, the God of video technology (if there is one) smiled upon us that evening. The tape didn’t jam, the edit machines didn’t malfunction and the piece was edited quickly and smoothly. But before it could air, it had to be delivered to the projection room, which was located on the second floor. The newsroom was in the basement, so the final sprint to the finish line involved a race down a long hallway of the newsroom to the single elevator to the second floor, being held open, as it repeatedly tried to automatically close.
The two-floor ride always seemed to take an eternity, but that night, the story arrived in record time and was being inserted into the playback machine as the anchor introduced the story, live, on air. I often wondered if viewers ever knew the insane pressure and anxiety (and down-to-the-wire, split-second timing) that routinely went into breaking news coverage. I suspect it took years off the lives of everyone involved, including mine.
The story ran. Pat and I were heroes. The news director was beyond ecstatic, knowing what we had just accomplished. He learned that Pat had received two complimentary tickets to the concert that night from Dylan’s manager. In a moment as monumental as the interview we had just scored, he told Pat and me to take the night off and go see the concert. It was huge. Things like that simply never happened, then or now.
We enjoyed the concert, which included all of Dylan’s new material. Predictably, he did not change the set list due to the negative response of his fans the night before. It was a moment of defiance reflected in the climactic ending of “A Complete Unknown,” in which a young Bob Dylan broke all the rules and audaciously, rebelliously played an electric guitar at the Newport Folk Festival, creating a cultural atomic bomb blast that is still resonating to this day.
Admittedly, what we did, did not change the world. In the moment, for us, it felt like a major journalistic victory. To some extent, it was.
To the best of my recollection, Dylan’s rare interview with KDKA-TV was mentioned in the Holy Grail of pop culture and music, Rolling Stone magazine. This was the icing on the cake.
Editor’s note: This article would not have been possible without the cooperation of the folks at KDKA-TV. Thank you all for digging in the archives and then digitizing and uploading the news stories for Drew and the West Hills Gazette crew. The unearthing of this supposedly lost interview is a gift to music and film fans alike.
The music, songs, and band really stand the test of time. While I can’t exactly relate to the most “fire and brimstone” lyrics, the lion’s share of the work is long free of what was controversial to some at the time. Just as some folk purists resisted electric music, some fans resisted gospel music. Keep and open mind and fresh perspective. Dylan will hit the road next month, bless him. Pressing on, indeed.
I was at one of those shows!!! I remember him teasing the audience with “Lay Lady Lay” at one point, then going into another one of his new songs. It surely was different but I still remember that show 45 years later!!!!