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60 yrs ago a teenager from the Iron Range arrived in the Queen City of the Plains. Bob Dylan lit our for the west on his former Golden Chords band mate Monte Edwardson& #39;s advice. Monte& #39;s on the left. 1/
How he got here (bus, train, thumb) is still a mystery but when Bob arrived Denver already had a full-blown folk scene. It leaned more toward the clean-cut Kingston Trio type stuff which Bob will quickly discover. 2/
Walt Conley was a local folkie hosting shows at the Satire Lounge & the premiere folk club in town the Exodus. 3/
The Satire Lounge was owned by ex-football star Sam Sugarman. Sam was an All-American at Denver University when it still had a team. It was originally called Sugie& #39;s Lounge. 4/
Ol& #39; Sammy didn& #39;t need a weather vane to see which way the wind blows & once folk music caught on he renamed his place the Satire Lounge. He hired Walt Conley to run the club & book folk acts. (It still exists today!) 5/
One of the first acts Walt booked was the Smothers Brothers way before they were famous. 6/
Walt only lived a few blocks from the Satire on 17th Ave. A lot of the folkies would crash at Walt& #39;s place, like the Smothers Bros who lived there during their run. For the longest time his old house was torn down & the lot stood vacant. Something gross is there now. Barf. 6/
When Bob rolled into town he heard that Walt was the man to know in the folk scene & you can prolly talk yer way into crashing on his floor/couch/whatever was available. Bob did just that. Then he talked his way into opening for the Smothers Brothers. His 1st "real" gig. 7/
It didn& #39;t take long for Bob& #39;s ongoing hobo/blues character to get under the delicate skin of the Smothers Bros & they demanded Walt kick him out. His opening slots for them where not going over well either. Folks didn& #39;t wanna hear old blues folk tunes. They wanted laffs. 8/
Now Walt is faced with a dilemma (Dylamma?). He digs the rough edged Bob but he& #39;s gotta keep his headliners happy. So he& #39;s gotta get rid of him. Tune in tomorrow as we resume the story with Bob heading into the Rocky Mountains.... 9/
OK, took a little longer but we& #39;re back. Walt clearly dug the young hobo striving to be authentic but Walt said he felt like he let Bob down. (From DYLAN bio by Bob Spitz) 10/
Now before this thread gets too unwieldy I wanna jump a bit ahead in the narrative. It was OTD 60 yrs ago that the Denver folk scene got a new club - the Catacombs, located in the basement underneath the Exodus in the Raylane Hotel. He saw Jesse Fuller. 11/
Jesse was an old Black blues folk singeing one-man band. He was born in 1896. As the legend goes this is where Bob first saw a wire rack holding a harmonica around yer neck. A look he gladly copied & made his own.12/
