Louie Kemp’s Dylan and Me: 50 Years of Adventures (2019), the January 2025 Bob Dylan Book Club book-of-the-month

The Bob Dylan Book Club has been “in” Minnesota lately, in part because Minnesota shaped the guy who arrived in New York City in 1961, just in time to catch the opening of a new movie…
Below, we present an overview of Dylan and Me—see also Marc Percansky’s site and compilation of links, HERE (Marc also gave us permission to use 3 pictures from the site). We will focus, again, on Dylan in Minnesota just before his trip east. But like Bob Dylan in Minnesota and Bob Dylan’s Hibbing (two of our previous books), we’ll find Bob’s relationship to Minnesota (and in this case, his friendship with Louie Kemp) was not confined to the pre-New York days.
Back in 1953, Bobby Zimmerman (12), Larry Kegan (11), and Louie Kemp (11) met at the Herzl Summer Camp, located in Webster in northern Wisconsin—the first of five summers they spent together at that camp (a coeducational camp [one of the attractions for these 3 boys], Herzl is still in operation). This fun loving gang of three shared a cabin at the camp and also hung out together in the offseason. Bobby was born in Duluth and the family moved to Hibbing after his kindergarten year. During the offseason, Bobby, Louie, and Larry visited Herzl campers in Duluth, Minneapolis, and St. Paul.
When the three boys got together, they would usually end up at the home of one of their camp friends. As Louie writes, there would often be a piano and Bobby would go straight for it. Like his rockabilly heroes, Bobby would stand up at the piano, sing loudly, and pound away. This would lead, eventually, to the boys being kicked out of the house. Louie writes they were kicked out of every home they went to, but that it didn’t bother Bobby.
Louie Kemp’s book Dylan and Me begins with the story of those early days. When Zimmerman became Dylan, Bobby was shortened to Bob. Dylan has said there were lots of other “Bobbys” (Bobby Rydell, Bobby Darin, Bobby Vee, Bobby Rydell) in the music scene and that Bob went better with Dylan. But to Louie Kemp, his friend will always be Bobby Zimmerman. After using several other stage names in Hibbing, the name “Bob Dylan” was firmly established during Bob’s Dinkytown days in 1959-1960 (in New York on August 2nd, 1962, Bob changed his name legally to “Robert Dylan”, some months after his first album, “Bob Dylan”, was released).  
During his senior year, Bobby joined Louie so they could attend the January 29, 1959, performance that featured Buddy Holly at the Duluth Armory. Bob was 17, Lou was 16, and Buddy was 22. Bobby elbowed his way to the front of the stage. That night has become an iconic moment—Dylan has described the eye contact he had with Buddy Holly and the feeling that something was transmitted to him. Days later (on February 3, 1959), Buddy Holly was killed in a play crash in Iowa, along with Ritchie Valens, “The Big Bopper”, J.P. Richardson, and the pilot Roger Peterson. February 3rd was the “The day the music died” memorialized in Don McLean’s 1971 song, “American Pie” (Mr. Dylan may or may not be the Joker on the sidelines in a cast—I can’t think for you, you’ll have to decide, but how else can you explain the Joker and cast?).
In the very first paragraph of Dylan and Me, we learn that during his first year at Herzl, Boby was already announcing that he would be a rock and roll star. Not everyone believed him—but Louie believe it from day one. What the 11 year old saw in the 12 year old was an unusually strong sense of purpose. Louie writes Bobby was the “most determined person he ever met”. We also learn that Bobby’s first performances took place at the talent shows at the camp, beginning in 1954. Bobby sang a rockabilly blues, “Annie Had a Baby” (for the song, click here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2iqk2rtpj0M).
Later, after the death of Louie’s father in 1967, Louie returned to Duluth to run the family fishing business, a large enterprise that was expanding to all corners of the globe. When Bob left Minnesota for New York City (by way of Madison, Wisconsin) in January 1961, Louie and Bob kept up with each other through Dylan’s mother, Beatty (pronounced Bee-tee) Zimmerman (after her husband’s, Abram’s, death, she remarried, becoming Beatty Rutman). In late summer 1972, Beatty told Louie that Bobby wanted Louie to get in touch so they could see each other in New York where Bob was living at the time. Louie was due to be in NYC in 3 weeks as part of the fishing enterprise—and so the friendship took a new turn. Louie accompanied Bob to the filming of “Pat Garett and Billy the Kid” in Mexico and participated in Dylan’s 1974 tour. Then Bob asked Louie to be the producer of The Rolling Thunder Review, telling him “if you can sell fish, you can sell tickets”. And he did.
Louie has commented that there is a big difference between Bob Dylan, the entertainer, and Bobby Zimmerman, his friend. He has said (and written) that “He [Dylan] wasn’t lucky, he was blessed. He knows what he has is a gift from God. He’s a conduit. He knows that. He was like a faucet of songs” and “My friend is not Bob Dylan, that’s the persona, the public entertainer. I don’t relate to that—I understand it, I appreciate it, but that’s not my friend. My friend is Bobby Zimmerman. We talk about everything, there is no ego.” Several times in Dylan and Me Kemp compares Dylan to the Lone Ranger—that he was “Out the door and gone.” Dylan as disappearing, as in “I’m Not There” and “The only person on the scene missin’ was the Jack of Hearts.”