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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's advice. Monte'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's Lounge. 4/
Ol' Sammy didn'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'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't take long for Bob'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'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's gotta keep his headliners happy. So he'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'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/
