ABSTRACT
Woody Guthrie, a patient at Creedmore Psychiatric Hospital for the last year of his life, died of Huntington’s chorea on 3 October 1967. It was two weeks before the first recording session for John Wesley Harding (eventually released on 27 December). At the Guthrie memorial benefit three weeks or so later, at Carnegie Hall on 20 January 1968, Dylan backed by The Hawks (or The Crackers as they were announced) played a brief set, singing rockabilly, drum-driven interpretations of ‘Grand Coulee Dam’, ‘Dear Mrs Rooseveldt’, and ‘I Ain’t Got No Home in This World Anymore’. Shelton described Dylan entering from the side of the stage wearing a blue shirt and grey suit. Landy’s photographs show him carrying a small acoustic guitar fixed to his neck by a strap so thin it resembled a cord or rope. His hair was short, clear of his forehead, his face framed by a sparse, curly beard. He looked of an indeterminate age, blending in with his band who collectively resembled a group of civil war survivors. Unsurprisingly, he was unrecognised at first by most of the audience. Where the Dylan of 1966 could appear to have arrived from another planet, here his aspect is more timeless, almost biblical, like he might have stepped onto the stage from the Book of Daniel (Shelton, No Direction Home, 270).
