Bob Dylan 1963 Town Hall, NY Autographed & Doodled Concert Poster....

Description

STRAIGHT TO A MUSEUM OR ULTRA-ELITE COLLECTION

Bob Dylan 1963 Town Hall, NY Autographed & Doodled Concert Poster. An absolute drop-dead collectible for the ages, this is a candidate for "Best Concert Poster Ever" in the 100-year history of the medium. It's that special, that unique, that important, that historic, that compelling and charismatic, that just plain... stunning.

Heritage has been working on acquiring this museum piece for 3 ½ years, and we're delighted beyond words that the consignment was finally obtained. The Letter of Provenance that comes with it is a stunner in its own right; be sure to read that before you read this.

Dylan's annotating and autographing on this piece, 36 hours after the first major concert of his career, is just so far off the charts that words escape us. It would've been amazing if the 21-year-old future rock god had signed it just once and left it at that. But instead he signs it twice, for a folkie who had just put him up for the night and made him breakfast, and then doodles three more humorous sets of words that knock this thing into the next galaxy.

We know that we're gushing, but there's not a shred of exaggeration going on here. This was already the best concert poster of Dylan's entire career, and one of the rarest; we've sold the handbill before, but forget about this cardboard poster, there's only 2-3 others known to exist and they're in elite collections. The original paperwork for this, found at Vanguard Records many years ago, states that only 50 were printed.

Then you add in Dylan's own handwriting, the Letter of Provenance and the story behind it, and it's just magical, and even that word isn't enough. It's truly otherworldly.

In previously selling the flyer, I have written, "It's a double-trophy handbill in that it gets an A+ in both history/importance and in graphics/appearance." Well, does that make this a triple-trophy piece because it's the big cardboard poster, and then a quadruple-trophy piece because it's autographed & doodled on the weekend of the concert? How about 100 trophies, is that too many?

Some may wonder why we chose to not have this restored, and it's a good question. But the general and easy consensus around Heritage and consulting the big poster guys is that it has so much character, originality and authenticity that it needs to be left alone. So for now it consists of 100% 1963 molecules; the new owner may decide to have a restoration expert go to town on it. But... we wouldn't recommend that.

As for the event itself, this was unquestionably Bob Dylan's first major concert. Show promoter Harold Leventhal was a prominent manager and publisher in the folk-music world; he administered Woody Guthrie's music publishing and managed Pete Seeger. He was taking a chance on this charismatic folk singer who was the talk of Greenwich Village. As Dylan scholar and author Clinton Heylin writes, "Some 900 hip souls attend Bob Dylan's first solo concert at a major New York venue. Billboard and the New York Times have both sent reviewers. For the first time, Dylan [plays] nothing but his own material."

Columbia rolled tapes for a possible live album which never materialized, but fans have enjoyed hearing tracks from this show on bootlegs since the 1970's, and Sony Legacy has since released a few of the recordings on its Bootleg Series.

How can one just not love the looks of this advertising piece. A full 50% of it shows Bob in his typical 1963 garb of work shirt, acoustic guitar and harmonica around his neck. The other half, with words, has every bell and whistle imaginable. The famous promoter and early Dylan advocate at the top; Dylan's name in that fantastic font; a New York City venue; the full date, including year; ticket information; and then...

...take a look at those press quotes. Just amazing stuff. Remember, Dylan had not released the Freewheelin' yet; the public still saw him as the cherub-cheeked, corduroy-capped choir boy from his first album, Bob Dylan. He had to be hyped to get rears in seats. And the funny things found in those quotes... "ragamuffin minstrel"? "Citybilly"? "He's so goddamn real"? It's a tour de force of Greenwich Village coffeeshop-speak by folk-circuit insiders. (FYI: the Little Sandy Review was a Minneapolis-based folk music circular published in tiny numbers by later-renowned music critic Paul Nelson.) Nice to see Columbia Records plugged in small letters at the bottom, too... even if Bob did call them "a drag." That may be the funniest thing on the poster. Oh - excuse us - on this poster. Only. In Bob's hand. That's what makes this thing so unique and priceless.

Pete Howard
Director, Concert Posters
Heritage Auctions

Measures 15 1/4" x 20" and grades to utterly magical Good condition. LOP from Barry Mushlin, COA from Heritage Auctions.

More Information: If we put all our love aside for a minute, the board has major condition issues throughout, most of them readily visible to the eye. There's a significant ‘tape lift' at the bottom center of the poster which luckily takes out only part of one letter ("C"). Smaller tape lifts occur on "Harold Leventhal," to the right of "presents," a small one to the right of Dylan's forehead, one on part of "Town" and the end of "Hall" down to "At," to the left of "Fri.", between "Recent" and "Review," and in the lower right corner. There's a small line of ink pen drawn from "At" down to the left and ending by "Tickets" and "Folklore." In the bottom right corner, there's a two-inch arcing crease which starts at the bottom and goes up through "Stereo" and "generations" before coming to a halt, leaving that corner piece pretty loose. Multiple pinholes in the top two corners, with as many as nine in the upper left one. The lower left corner has a small amount of cello tape and a four-inch vertical crease that breaks a little color on Bob's guitar but gets lost with everything else going on. And the verso has a wide band of tape-lifting around all four edge areas, so it was taped down solidly sometime for posting back in the day.