Act 1 Scene 3 - From Somers Point to Woodstock

Small Town Talk

by Rick Danko and Bobby Charles.

It's all small town talk, you know how people are   

They can't stand to see, someone else               

Doing what they want to    

                        

 And it's small town talk, they tell alot of lies    

 Make some people crazy                              

 Never realize that they're sinkin                   

 We're all the same people, tryin to live together   

 And we're tryin to make something work              

 Now who are we to judge one another?                

 No ... that could cause alot of hurt ...

 You can't believe everything you hear                

 And only half of what you see                       

 And if you're going to believe in anyone            

 Oh - you gotta believe in me                        

                                                     

 And it's small town talk, you know how people are   

 They can't stand to see, someone else               

 Doing what they want to                             

 And it's small town talk, it's a well known fact    

 You don't ever know how one might react             

To what you're thinkin ...                            

Act 1 Scene 3 – Flashback to Labor Day 1965

From Somers Point to Woodstock

Of those who left town on Labor Day 1965, taking different directions from the Somers Point Circle, none were less sure of their destination than Levon & the Hawks, as they took a good paying job backing Bob Dylan, first at Forest Hills, the New York.

The concert at the Forest Hills tennis stadium, adapted for use as a folk concert venue, was the second time Dylan “went electric,” the first being at the Newport Folk Festival.

Philly Steve, who rode his bike as one of the 99 Percenters, ran the Guitar Workshop on Sansom Street in Philadelphia with his twin brother, and put together the program for the first few Philadelphia Folk Festivals as well as the Newport Folk Festival, where the feud over Dylan “going electric” spilled out in violence.

Dylan’s manager Albert Grossman and Alan Lomax, who recorded the old blues artists for the Library of Congress, ended up wrestling on the ground, and the folk purists sensitivities were just as aroused at Forest Hills, where the boos were long and loud as Levon set up his drums and Robbie Robertson and Dylan plugged in their guitars, but generally subsided into applause and cheers as Dylan ripped into his then just released and popular hit, “Like a Rolling Stone.”

Dylan then took the show on the road, to England but Levon got tired of the booing and left the tour and was replaced on drums by Mikey Jones of the Monkeys.

Even though “Like a Rollins Stone” never made number one on the pop charts, kept in the runners up number two slot by the Beatles, his growing popularity and cult following made it difficult for him to be seen in public, and he even had a hard time walking around his Greenwich Village neighborhood.

So his manager Albert Grossman sent him to his rural upstate retreat at Woodstock in the Catskill mountains. Known as a Bohemian artist’s colony for over a century, Woodstock already had its share of eccentrics so Dylan would not stand out, and he enjoyed riding his motorcycle into town and playing chess with the locals on a table set up on the sidewalk in front of the Espresso Café on main street in the quaint but small down town.

Then one day, July 29 1966, with his wife Sarah following him in her car, Dylan wiped out on his bike, crashing his motorcycle in an accident that would have major consequences for a lot of people.

With Dylan recuperating at Grossman’s house in Woodstock, the rest of the Hawks slowly made their way from the city to the country, as according to the contract that took them out of Tony Marts in Somers Point they were booked and were to be paid to be Dylan’s band whether they performed or not.

First Rick Danko and Richard Manuel took the drive up the Hudson River and after getting lost a few times, found Woodstock and visited Dylan in recovery, and then took a look around town, and liked what they saw.

From the Espresso Café they found a local bar and over a few drinks they decided to stick around awhile. After discounting taking a room or apartment downtown with the hippies and artists, that had the feel of a Western cowboy town, they drove down curving two lane blacktop until they came to something they liked better – a vacant and for rent pink split level house in Saugerties, an even smaller village outside of Woodstock proper.

 Filling it with furniture bought at garage sales, they began to get to know some of their neighbors, and learned which ones smoked weed and invited them over, and before long Garth and Robbie made their way to Woodstock and they set up their equipment in the basement side room of the split level house that became a magnet for their creative juices.

Eventually even Levon came back to the fold after a brief sojourn home to Arkansas and Ontario, where he checked in with Colonel Kutlets who told him of how the rest of the Hawks were now holed up in Woodstock, waiting for Dylan to recuperate from his motorcycle accident.

“Where’s Woodstock?” Levon said incredulously.

But he found it, and rejoined the rest of the Hawks. Both Robbie Robertson and Garth Hudson found other places to live nearby but kept their musical equipment in the basement of the pink split level in West Saugerties they began to refer to as “Big Pink.”

And the townspeople, mainly hip artists and writers, began to refer to them simply as “The Band.”

After getting everything settled down in their new Woodstock environs, Rick and Richard got into their car, and just as they drove around and found Big Pink, they took off south on Route 9, without a destination, stopping occasionally for gas, a diner meal and a drink at every bar they passed.

By the time they got near to Atlantic City they were pretty soused and instead of going to Kentucky Avenue to see some old friends performing there, they decided to revisit Somers Point and see some of their friends from last summer.

First stop was Bay Avenue, past Tony Marts to the first of the four similar houses across the street from the Clam Bar, where they had shacked up for six weeks with Ophelia the hippie queen and her daughter, a Tony Marts dancer.

They knocked on the door, but when no one answered, they asked a neighbor who said that Ophelia and her daughter had left, left town, maybe went to Florida or California – they talked about going to California.

Rick and Richard, after a night in a motel room with some girls they picked up at the Anchorage, drove back up Route 9 North to Woodstock, stopping in every bar along the way.

Back at Big Pink, where Levon had set up his drums and Garth his organs, they plugged in their guitars and began to jam, fine tuning some of the songs they started last summer while playing the Tony Marts gig, including Garth’s “Chest Fever,” Richard’s “Ophelia,” and Rick’s “Small-town Talk,” that some people believe is about Woodstock, but others think it stems from Rick’s time in Somers Point where he broke the house rules by dating and living with one of the dancers.

Dylan’s wounds eventually healed and after hearing much about the jams in the basement of Big Pink, Dylan began to stop by, bringing some booze and weed – for medicinal purposes only, to jam with the band. It was very therapeutic for all of them, and they began to produce some very interesting pieces, all of which was recorded on Garth’s reel to reel recorder parked next to his B3 organ.

“Quinn the Eskimo” and other good if not great songs are on those tapes, but it’s not just the music, it’s the talk and banter between songs, and story-telling, like Dylan saying how he once  went to East Orange New Jersey to visit Woody (Guthrie) in the hospital, and stopped by the Checkmate Coffee House, where he paid for his coffee with a chess piece – and got a rook and two pawns as change, and everyone would break up laughing before someone would start the first strands of a new song they were working on.

Then someone, it’s not clearly who got a copy of one of the Big Pink basement tapes and cut a two record set they sold underground via head shops, an all white double album that from the outside looked very much like the Beatle’s white album, but was very much different, not only in tone but content.

Then, thanks to the efforts of Albert Grossman, the Hawks officially changed their name to The Band and got to record and release their own album – Music from Big Pink that included an oil painting by Bob Dylan on the front and a photo of Big Pink on the back.

By 1969 it was common knowledge that Bob Dylan and The Band were holed up at Woodstock, New York, and other musicians joined them – Todd Rungrin, Van Morrison and Paul Butterfield among them, but the sudden influx of vagabond hippies looking for Dylan to give them the answers, put of the local Woodstock townspeople as well as Dylan himself. Dylan once returned to his home from Big Pink to find strangers in his house, even his bedroom, looking for something he didn’t have and didn’t want.

Ophelia

Boards on the window, mail by the door
What would anybody leave so quickly for?
Ophelia - Where have you gone?

The old neighborhood just ain't the same
Nobody knows just what became of
Ophelia - tell me, what went wrong?

Was it somethin' that somebody said?

Mama, I know we broke the rules
Was somebody up against the law?
Honey, you know I'd die for you

Ashes of laughter, the coast is clear
Why do the best things always disappear
Like Ophelia - please darken my door

Was it somethin' that somebody said?

Honey, you know we broke the rules
Was somebody up against the law?
Honey, you know I'd die for you

They got your number, scared and runnin'
But I'm still waitin' for the second comin'
Of Ophelia - come back home

Next: Act 1 Scene 4 - The Girl's Last Good Time