Bob Dylan & the Hawks 1966 White Plains, N.Y. Concert Poster. An original, vintage Bob Dylan window card ...

Description

RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF RECORDING BLONDE ON BLONDE

Bob Dylan & the Hawks 1966 White Plains, N.Y. Concert Poster. An original, vintage Bob Dylan window card from when he was changing the face of popular music by splitting his concerts into two halves: folk music and barnstorming rock & roll. This cardboard poster shows Dylan with just his famous harmonica in its holder (along with cigarette) and simply states all the information necessary for customers to know: Venue, city, day and date, ticket prices and where to buy them. In this case, the show scheduled was the Westchester County Center in White Plains, New York on Saturday night, February 5, 1966.

How significant is this poster? England's revered Mojo magazine once voted this months-long trek the greatest tour in Rock & Roll history. Dylan was single-handedly changing the course of popular music in 1965-66 by retaining his solo-acoustic roots for the first half of each show, but then blowing the audience away with loud, raucous rock & roll in the second half, often greeted with boos by folk purists. His backing band for the electric half consisted of Robbie Robertson on electric guitar, Rick Danko on bass, Richard Manuel on piano, Garth Hudson on organ and the little-known Sandy Konikoff on drums (Levon Helm had left the tour months earlier).

Measures 13 7/8" x 22" and grades to Very Good condition. From the Archives of Charlie Rothschild. COA from Heritage Auctions.

More Information: To promote and advertise this tour in America, "tour blank" posters were devised consisting mostly of the photo of Dylan and a blank white space down below. The home office would then strip in localized information in red ink for each stop on the tour, in very small quantities. It's possible only a couple of dozen were made for this stop, or perhaps a few dozen.

It was an interesting choice of Dylan photos used on this window card. They chose to not show The Hawks because that might turn off folkies, and they only appeared in half of the show. But they also chose to not show an acoustic guitar, because that was only in half the show as well. So they showed Dylan with his ubiquitous harmonica holder, which was indeed played in both the acoustic and electric halves. And the cigarette? An artistic touch that speaks for itself. Or maybe having no significance at all.

And then down in the lower right corner, the poster printer's credit: "Murray Poster Printing Co." with the union bug and a NYC address.

Bob Dylan has always been in the top three in the concert-poster hobby, alongside the Beatles and Elvis Presley's 1950's posters. There's simply nobody in rock-music history that's more respected, admired, covered, imitated and yes, more feared than Dylan. Rolling Stone magazine once called him "the rock star that other rock stars stare at backstage." And George Harrison once opined that in 100 years, the Beatles' individual names will be forgotten but everybody will still know Dylan's.

Charlie Rothschild is a music manager with a career that spanned decades. In his early career, Charlie booked musical acts at Gerde's Folk City in Greenwich Village, most notably Bob Dylan in September 1961, Dylan's first paid gig in New York City. He went on to work for renowned manager Albert Grossman (Dylan, Peter, Paul & Mary, Janis Joplin). As a manager, touring manager and concert promoter himself, Charlie worked alongside folk and rock 'n' roll greats Bob Dylan, the Velvet Underground, Gordon Lightfoot, Judy Collins, Peter, Paul & Mary, Allen Ginsberg, Ian & Sylvia, The Clancy Brothers, Odetta, The Fugs and Pearls Before Swine, among others. Charlie also ran the storied 1960's New York City music venue Balloon Farm, before going out on his own in 1972.

Condition details: The poster board got exposed to some moisture at the bottom, resulting in a light-brown water stain in the lower right corner area, encompassing the printer's credit. It goes to the left and last appears under "E. 48th." And going up, it stops to the right of "PM." So the board is also a little bit "wavy" down there. You can also see the discolored remnant of the water stain on the verso. Then there's also an uber-faint trace of that as well in the lower left corner area, all in the white.

Back to the front, the poster remains mostly free of the scratching & scuffing that so often frequents any poster that is 80% photo like this. Do notice the printer's imperfections of little white dots around Dylan's name and twice on his eyebrow. That tiny line you see on the bottom center edge is a printer's hash mark.


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