Drummer Christopher Parker on the Start of Bob Dylan's Never Ending Tour

"I'm just a fucking poet."

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Photo by Joseph Peduto

Update June 2023: This interview is included along with 40+ others in my new book ‘Pledging My Time: Conversations with Bob Dylan Band Members.’ Buy it now in hardcover, paperback, or ebook!

Christopher Parker was the first-ever drummer of Bob Dylan’s Never Ending Tour. For three years starting in 1988, he split his time between the road and his day job in the Saturday Night Live house band, alongside Dylan guitarist G.E. Smith. Parker was seated a few feet behind Dylan for all the formative moments of the Never Ending Tour, playing hundreds of shows before he left at the end of 1990.

I called him recently to discuss how he got involved, his relationship with Dylan, obsessive fans, songs they rehearsed but never played, pranking Bob, and a whole lot more.

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Can you walk me through how you joined the band? I know you were on SNL with G.E. Smith in the years leading up to it. Was that the connection?

Yes. G.E. was the band leader, as you know, and said, "Would you be interested in doing this?"

At that time, the bass player on Saturday Night Live was T-Bone Wolk, so the three of us went to Montana Rehearsal Studio, which no longer exists, and started playing with Bob. We probably played 100 tunes or something over a couple of days, a lot of great stuff. Not all Bob's material; other people's material too. It was really fun, and he seemed to dig it.

How did you know G.E.?

I met him at SNL when they called me to be in the house band. That was '86, I guess. Steve Ferrone was the drummer, and he was leaving to go on the road with Duran Duran, so there was an opening. I had done the show over the years as a drummer for guest artists, Quincy Jones, Leo Sayer, Boz Scaggs, Linda Ronstadt and Aaron Neville, Elvis Costello, Paul Simon, and stuff with Joe Cocker and Belushi, but that's just playing in the guest spot. I had never been in the band before.

I was looking at your discography and you're on so many records even before SNL and Bob. Were you primarily a session guy, or were you touring a lot as well?

I was touring a lot with different people. I started with Paul Butterfield's Better Days and toured with Bonnie Raitt for a while. I toured with Ashford & Simpson when I was working on all their records. I was in a band called Stuff and we ended up backing up Joe Cocker on his tours for a while.

Getting back to Bob, you get the call, you go to the rehearsal space. At this point, are you a fan, or do you just know a few hits that everyone knows?

To be honest, I wasn't a fan, but there was an interesting intertwining of lives. In 1970, I auditioned for this band in Woodstock. I answered an ad in Rolling Stone, “Drummer Wanted.” The band was called Holy Moses.

I got the gig and started working up there. I met a girl who eventually became my wife. Her mother was a huge Dylan fan and ended up buying Bob's house on Byrdcliffe. The first time I took this girl home, we went to Byrdcliffe, Bob's [old] house. He wasn't there, but his vibe was certainly there.

People in Woodstock were always talking about Bob. "Well, I saw him… He might be around… He was supposed to come here… He's supposed to…" Everybody was always mentioning him in some context. At that time, I don't think he was currently living there.

But getting to know this girl, this woman who later became my wife, we explored the property and explored the rooms and it was amazing. At that time, I started to listen to the records. I really liked Nashville Skyline and John Wesley Harding. I wasn't really aware of the poetry at all. I still wasn't a fan.

After rehearsing with him and meeting the guy, listening to him sing and to the poetry, I became an instant fan.

What does that first meeting look like? You show up at the studio, what happens next?

We're introduced. Not much is said. We start playing.

G.E. and T-Bone knew a lot of the songs, and I didn't. They were quoting things; they seem to know whatever he wanted to play. I just fell in, like Colin Allen talks about in your interview with him. [Bob] starts playing something and you fall in. There was never any, "Here's the count off and here's the tempo and this is the kind of feel I want." He didn't tell me, "That's good" or "Don't do that," but looked at me like, "You wouldn't be here if I didn't dig what you were doing, so just keep doing that."

I had the gall at one point to say, "What do you want me to play on this?" Bob said, "I'm just a fucking poet."