Never-Heard '60s Dylan Tape #4: San Francisco 1965

December 11, 1965 - Masonic Memorial Auditorium, San Francisco, CA

Photo by Jim Marshall

The fourth and final never-circulated tape recently acquired by the Bob Dylan Archives is a special one. It’s the only one of the mid-’60s Ray Andersen tapes that comes from the “going electric” era. The tape comes from near the end of Dylan’s first big tour with the Hawks, the Fall 1965 tour which is generally much less well-documented than Spring 1966. Dylan’s soundman (with a similar name to our taper) Rich Alderson had not come aboard yet to capture those ace soundboards we all know and love from UK 1966.

There actually already is a different circulating tape of this final show, San Francisco, December 11 1965. One that was taped by Allen Ginsberg no less! It’s listenable, but the quality leaves something—okay, a lot—to be desired. The new Ray Andersen tape is better.

This show came in the middle of a month-long run of West Coast shows. The routing was bizarre. Three shows in the Bay Area, December 3-5. Then Dylan drives eight hours south for a show in San Diego. Then he turns around and returns straight back to the Bay Area, another eight hours, for two more shows (including this one). Then he turns around again and drives back south for three more SoCal shows. Who routed this tour? He’s basically yo-yoing back and forth the entire length of California.

All the Hawks made the trek West with Dylan—except one. These were the first electric concerts without Levon Helm, who had gotten sick of the audience abuse. Bobby Gregg, who’d played on Bringing It All Back Home and Highway 61 Revisited, drummed the first few West Coast shows, then Sandy Konikoff took over. (Mickey Jones, the longest-tenured Levon replacement, wouldn’t join until 1966).

Robbie Robertson wrote about Konikoff in his book Testimony:

Meanwhile the Hawks held a meeting to discuss new drummer possibilities. We debated the merits of all kinds of candidates, from guys in bands we knew down south to people we had played with from Canada. There was a drummer we liked from Buffalo, and then when we asked ourselves who Levon would choose, we realized it was the same guy: Sandy Konikoff. So we got in touch and asked him to come try out for the job.
…
When Sandy Konikoff showed up, the Hawks were a bit confused by his appearance. He looked very different from the last time we’d laid eyes on him. Sandy said he’d been “studying drums seriously” for the last year, but “studying drums seriously” meant one thing: jazz. And all that jazz had evidently rubbed off on the way Sandy carried himself, spoke, and dressed. He now wore a beret, black pants, black turtleneck, and beige overcoat. He looked like a beatnik from central casting. I introduced Sandy to Bob and could see the mismatch immediately. Sandy even tuned his small-combo drum set in a tight, jazzy sort of style. We played through two or three songs from our tour set list and Sandy tried a couple different approaches. Trying to be helpful, I went over to him between songs and confided: “Rule number one, don’t swing. Never swing. Flighty fills and jazzy grooves don’t work here. All that you’ve been studying in your music school needs to be left at home.”

(Confusing the timeline, Robertson places all this as having happened after the 1965 tour completed, but analysis of concert photos—shoutout Dag Braathen—indicates it was indeed Konikoff playing these final West Coast shows.)

The setlists for this run were fairly different from the more famous 1966 shows. There was still an acoustic set followed by an electric set, but with different songs in each. Compare the two below (non-repeated songs in bold):

Alas, the new tape only includes seven of the seventeen performed songs. But it does include the three most important.

The first is “Visions of Johanna.” This is the first taped performance of it ever! Not the first performance overall—he seemed to be playing it most nights on this run, having just recorded it a couple weeks prior—but the first one we can hear. “This is called something like ‘A Freeze Out,’” he drawls by way of introduction. (There’s a lot more BobTalk introducing this song on the Ginsberg tape but it’s hard to make out. It’s a shame Andersen didn’t capture it in better quality.) It’s a wonderful performance, featuring wild harmonica swoops throughout and Dylan singing the hell out of it. He also sings an earlier lyric similar to the one heard on the No Direction Home outtake:

The peddler, he now steps to the road
Everything’s been returned which was owed
He examines the nightingale’s code
Still left on the fish truck that loads
My conscience explodes

The second key song is “Long Distance Operator.” This is one of only three known live performances of this song (though there were probably a few more around the time) and one of only two recorded. It’s like a lost gem from this period, something that could have easily slotted in for “From a Buick 6” on Highway 61 Revisited or “Tell Me Momma” in the 1966 shows. Like those, it’s maybe not an absolute top-tier Dylan composition, but it has a fun energy that explodes live. Robertson’s wild guitar solo and Konikoff’s crashing drums leap out of the headphones. A great performance.

The third key song is “It Ain’t Me Babe.” A song he’s performed way more than the other two combined, of course, but this era is notable. In Fall 1965, “It Ain’t Me Babe” got the “I Don’t Believe You” treatment: it used to go like that, and now it goes like this. It’s been literally electrified with the full band, a wonderful arrangement that didn’t carry over to the famous ’66 shows. This one I A/B’ed with the Ginsberg tape, which is boomy and blown-out. Andersen’s recording sounds way better. The dynamic shifts are powerful, as the band ebbs in and out, adding wild accents (listen to after “ground,” for instance). Plus Robbie does a truly strange guitar solo that almost sounds like Freddy Koella. It’s maybe my favorite song of this whole tape. So good I’ll share the muddier Ginsberg-tape version if you haven’t heard it.

Here’s what’s on this final Ray Andersen tape. For reasons probably lost to history the acoustic and electric sets got swapped in the running order.

1. I Don’t Believe You (She Acts Like We Never Have Met)

2. Baby, Let Me Follow You Down

3. Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues (incomplete)

4. Long Distance Operator

5. It Ain’t Me, Babe

6. It’s All Over Now Baby Blue

7. Visions of Johanna

---

That’s it for this series on the four never-heard Bob Dylan concert tapes recently acquired by Bob Dylan Archives! Thanks to Mark Davidson and his team for facilitating, and thanks to Sunny Chanel for sharing her father’s story. If you missed the earlier three installments, catch up here.