Here in New York City there is an institution called the 92nd Street Y which offers, among other things, adult education courses. One such is a course on Bob Dylan taught by a devoted and knowledgeable Dylan aficionado named Robert Levinson. Yesterday he had a guest lecturer in the person of Bob Cohen, formerly of the New World Singers (with Happy Traum, Gil Turner and Delores Dixon), and a fellow-traveler—so to speak—with Bob Dylan in those early years in Greenwich Village. Some time ago I posted here a piece written by Bob Cohen recounting some of his memories of and reflections upon Dylan: “How Blowin’ In The Wind Came To Be.”
Bob graciously invited me and Mrs. C. to sit in on the class yesterday evening. Also speaking was a writer named Billy Altman, who ably illustrated some of the sources which Dylan draws upon with Together Through Life
Bob Cohen engagingly reminisced about the old times and the old scene and about Dylan, and he also shared some of his considerable insights on the art of song generally, often breaking into snatches of this or that number to illustrate his points.
The highlight of the evening for me was when he picked up an accordion and sang an impromptu version of one of Dylan’s newest songs, “This Dream of You.” It’s his favorite song on the new album (as indeed it is mine). Before singing it he told of how he and his wife Pat, listening to it in the car, had more or less simultaneously come to the conclusion that it seemed to be not just an ordinary love song but instead a song addressed to the singer’s Maker. (Bob Cohen was not religious back in those Village days, but now he’s a practicing Jew and indeed the cantor of a synagogue in Kingston, New York—check out his website for his whole scoop.) By the end of his performance Bob Cohen had the class gamely singing along on the chorus. I found it extremely poignant; of-course, it’s a beautiful song, and Bob’s a very fine singer and musician. But I think it also struck me so poignantly because of who Bob Cohen is; he and Dylan were at one point part of the same crazy milieu back there in the early 1960s in New York. Their lives followed very different trajectories, and yet, in a certain way, they have both ended up singing the same song.
So, it was an evening I won’t soon forget, and nor will Mrs. C., and thanks again to Bob for having us.
