Not Completely Unknown (E07)
The seventh podcast in our Not Completely Unknown series shines a bit more light on the ‘Bob Visits Woody at Greystone’ part of the story. Featuring interviews done by Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital Oral History Project by Stephanie Kipp.
‘A Complete Unknown’ starts and ends with Dylan & Woody Guthrie in Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital in Morris Plains New Jersey. In this episode we learn more about Dylan’s time there with Guthrie from two people who were directly involved, Woody’s daughter Nora Guthrie and his friend Jahanara Romney (then known as Bonnie Beecher).
These interviews were done about six years ago by the Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital Oral History Project by Stephanie Kipp.
Beecher’s name will be familiar to Dylan fans because The Minnesota Hotel Tape was made in her Apartment in by Tony Glover in December 1961 - so she was in fact a friend of Bob’s from the time period just before he came to New York.
She is also often referred to as the original Girl From The North Country (but in reality is likely just one of the characters in the composite), and the subject of an early Dylan original called “Bonnie, why'd you cut my hair.” which an be found on those Minnesota Hotel Tapes and heard below:
A second interview with Jahanara is here too - but this one is from 25 years earlier. Here she first tells us about Dylan in MN before he ever went to NYC, and then about visiting Dylan in NYC later when she went with him to visit Guthrie at Greystone. That interview was done by Markus Wittman.
To learn more about Guthrie at Greystone and see images of the place before it was torn down (which happened in 2015).
LINKS
Nora Guthrie - Video Interview
Jaharana Romney - Video Interview
Greystone Oral History - Website
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Not Completely Unknown
Our Introductory Series for new and deepening Bob Dylan fans. Visit the Series Page. Here are a few other episodes from this series:
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