For our meeting on June 9th, we return to the EDLIS group, a set of Dylan researchers, sleuths, and enthusiasts whose work dates back to the 1960s. Our book of the month for January 2024 was Bob Dylan's Hibbing, published by the EDLIS Café Press in 2019. Now we move westward for the second book from that press: Bob Dylan’s Malibu (ISBN 9781736972304) by Martin Newman, published in 2021—and we move onward in time to the 1970s. The book is much more than a third party description of the place where Dylan built a home with a view of the Pacific Ocean, a copper dome, and a whale-watching terrrace—it’s a collection of stories and memories from an insider and eyewitness that create a sense of Bob, his friends and environment. As the author wrote “I hope you will like these memories of us working together and of our friendship, offering my insights into the man that so many endeavor to understand more fully.” The book is notable for previously unseen pictures and for an eyewitness account of Mr. Dylan at a particular place and time.
For a reviews, click HERE and HERE. For more on the EDLIS group, check out our page on Bob Dylan’s Hibbing and visit the EDLIS facebook page (where you will find Marty Newman reading from his book if you scroll down a bit.

BELOW LEFT: the cover of Dylan’s Album The Basement Tapes (1975) with Bob in a coat crafted by Marty Newman, BELOW CENTER: The full painting partially visible on the cover of Bob Dylan’s Malibu (we will learn much more about the story of the painting at our meeting on June 9th!), and BELOW RIGHT: Marty Newman at home amidst collected art.

Martin Newman is a craftsman who had a chance meeting with Bob and Sara Dylan which led to four years of friendship and collaboration. Sara liked a coat she had seen in Beverly Hills and sought to find the man who had made it. That led to an invitation to meet the Dylans in Malibu where the Dylans were then renting a house. When the Dylans decided to build their own home (the Point Dume house), Martin was part of the design team. Newman also designed hats and other accessories used in the Rolling Thunder Reveiw tour. For interviews of the author, click HERE and HERE. For an overview of Martin’s experiences, go HERE.

Dylan’s Point Dume house in Malibu (left). For Merrill Markoe’s analysis of his Christmas lights, click HERE and for a video tour of these in 2017, go HERE.