Dylan: A Biography by Bob Spitz

Author:Bob Spitz [Spitz, Bob]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Published: 1991-09-16T22:00:00+00:00

Part 4

A Brief Intermission

21

Business as Usual

The pale winter sun had already dipped below the Catskills when the stretch limo carrying Mort Nasatir edged onto the New York State Thruway for the trip back to the city. The temperature had dropped to a teeth-chattering fifteen degrees, but Nasatir felt warmer than he had been in months. Positively glowing, in fact. And gloating, too, like a gluttonous little boy. Once more, he ran his fingers over the sheaf of papers clutched in his hand. Over the signature with its childish scrawl and curlicues. With a forefinger, he traced the round, slanting strokes that swung above and below the mimeographed line. D-Y-L . . . He could hardly believe his good luck. . . . A-N. No doubt about the name there. Bob Dylan—signed, sealed, and delivered.

Nasatir heaved a sigh of relief. So it hadn’t been a hoax, after all. The offer, incredible as it sounded, had been on the level. Bob Dylan was leaving Columbia Records, and he was signing with MGM. He’d already signed! There hadn’t been a blockbuster like this since the Yanks snatched Babe Ruth from the Boston Red Sox! Since the Nets got Dr. J. from the Kentucky Colonels! And the record company wasn’t getting damaged goods, either. That had been the purpose of Nasatir’s trip to Woodstock—to make sure Bob hadn’t suffered any brain damage in that motorcycle business. To see if he could still play the guitar and write those fucking hit songs of his. After all, why else would Columbia pass up a chance to resign its number-one recording star— the most important American artist on any label. Unless, of course, he was a . . . a vegetable.

Two weeks earlier, that had seemed like the only logical answer. That accident everyone was talking about must have snuffed out the left side of Bob Dylan’s brain. Or left him confined to a wheelchair like Lieutenant Ironsides, so that he could never perform again. Those were the rumors. Whispers abounded that Bob wasn’t half the Dylan he used to be.

Nasatir’s suspicions had gone wild when Al Grossman called him and suggested that Bob might be willing to record for MGM Records. “Let’s just say he’s available,” Grossman intimated, in the same way George Steinbrenner shopped a utility infielder he was dying to trade. “There’s a possibility Bob would move under certain conditions.” Yeah, like a fifty percent controlling interest in The Wizard of Oz and your tacit agreement to replace Leo the Lion with a likeness of Andy Warhol. And you can throw in a date with Connie Francis for good measure! Nasatir knew Bob Dylan wasn’t going to come cheap. Grossman would squeeze him for every cent he could get—and then more. Still, it’d be a deal at any price. Bob Dylan! It was like a chance to acquire the Mona Lisa.

Though he probably didn’t come out and say it, Nasatir had to admit to himself that MGM needed this deal in the worst possible way.

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