Left to Right: Suze (wearing a Ukrainian coat that Bob bought her for Christmas 1963), Terri Thal (partner of Dave Van Ronk), Bob, and Dave. With the publication of Terri Thal’s book (My Greenwich Village: Dave, Bob, and Me) in fall 2023, all four have written memoirs! Note that the cover of Terri’s book uses the photo above—but Suze is cropped out! To these 4 books we could add: Hajdu’s Positively 4th Street: the Lives and Times of Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Mimi Baez Farina, and Richard Farina and Peter McKenzie’s On a Couch & 50 Cents a Day as books that inform us about the early 60s when Bob Dylan was becoming BOB DYLAN! See the Book List linked in the banner above.
Ralph McTell’s song West Fourth Street and Jones is a beautiful reflection on the Freewheelin’ album cover. It starts: February ‘63, the cold would chill your bones, there’s a couple walkin’ down the road, West Fourth Street and Jones. Ralph is a British folksinger. He was born Ralph May but took the name McTell after the blues singer Blind Willie McTell (and before Bob wrote the song of that name). Ralph’s song borrows some chord sequences from Bob’s Boots of Spanish Leather, a song about Suze’s trip to Italy to attend art school in 1962. Even the use of “would” in the opening lines echoes the Dylan’s conditionality of “the same thing I would want today, I would want again tomorrow”.
Our first book selection (for the August 6, 2023, meeting), was Suze Rotolo’s memoir, A Freewheelin’ Time (published 2008, thus after Dylan’s memoir, Chronicles Volume One, published in 2004). We are so lucky to have this first hand account from Bob Dylan’s first love in New York City. Suze proves to be insightful, generous, independent, and reflective. Her strength shines through as she writes about her own journey as a young woman (she was 17 when they met and 20 when they parted). We are also lucky that she chose to illustrate her memoir with artifacts and photographs. For instance, there are images of a letter Bob wrote Suze when she was at art school in Italy and another of a poster for one of Bob Dylan’s performances with her sketches as illustrations. Importantly, Suze’s relationship to Bob and the timeline of her memoir is exactly the time span over which Bob was becoming the phenomenon Bob Dylan.
I compiled a timeline of events covered by Suze’s book, you can find it by clicking HERE.
I also provide links to interviews of Suze, her obituaries, and a guide to Suze’s appearances in Martin Scorsese’s profile of Dylan, No Direction Home: click HERE. For quotes and thoughts about the meeting of Suze and Bob in 1961 and their parting in 1964, along with a list of Dylan songs that mostly likely were inspired by Suze: click HERE.
Peter White, August 2023
Suze in later life. Her husband, an Italian film editor, Enzo Bartoccioli is shown in the group picture (far right). They married in 1967 and have a son Luca.
Interviews with Suze Rotolo upon the release of her book:
A short TV interview
Radio interview with Terry Gross of Fresh Air
For a list of Suze’s appearances on No Direction Home, her obituaries, and other links about her life, click HERE.
