January 25, 2017 (theguardsman.com)<\/p>\n
Bob Dylan is an American icon and folk paragon who is now the first singer, songwriter to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for literature.<\/p>\n
City College student, poet, philosopher, rambler and Mutiny Radio host \u201cDiamond\u201d Dave Whitaker not only knew Bob Dylan back in the day, but served as a mentor to Dylan.<\/p>\n
\u201cDiamond\u201d Dave Whitaker has evolved in conjunction with San Francisco throughout its history for the last half century. He is a local legend, a cultural curator, and advocate of freethinking whose personality radiates with originality.<\/p>\n
Whitaker first set out for San Francisco in 1957 to be apart of the \u201cBeat\u201d movement, an American social and literary movement centered in the artist communities of San Francisco. Gallivanting through San Francisco\u2019s Little Italy, Whitaker met poets and philosophers such as, Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and other social misfits and anarchist.<\/p>\n
Having left the country to go to Israel in 1958, Whitaker returned stateside landing back in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1961. In Minneapolis, Whitaker continued to expand on concepts introduced to him by Kerouac and Ginsberg, nurturing the spirit of the \u201cBeat\u201d generation by encouraging people to play their uniquely styled music.<\/p>\n
Whitaker first met Bob Dylan in 1961 at the University of Minnesota, when mutual friend, Bonnie Beacher, bumped into a \u201cbummed out\u201d Dylan who was wrestling with his life\u2019s journey.<\/p>\n
After Beacher listened to a young Bob Dylan, he said, \u201cI know where you need to be,\u201d and took Dylan to Whitaker\u2019s house. It was in Whitaker\u2019s living room \u201cwhere music was going on, where talks of radical politics are going on,\u201d said Whitaker, that the two met for the first time.<\/p>\n
Whitaker recalls that it was through his friendship to Dylan that he was first introduced to musician and folk patriarch Woody Guthrie.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was when I gave Dylan, Woody Guthrie\u2019s autobiography \u2018Bound For Glory\u2019 a book about riding freight trains, playing picket lines, hobo camps and other dives, that Dylan learned of Guthrie,\u201d Whitaker said. \u201cIt changed [Dylan\u2019s] life.\u201d<\/p>\n
After closing his eyes,Whitaker recollected a story of himself and Dylan attempting to locate and speak with Woody Guthrie. He said Dylan located Guthrie at Greystone Park Mental Hospital in New York City.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe tried to call [Guthrie] but could not talk to him due to his disease,\u201d Whitaker said Guthrie suffered from Huntington\u2019s disease.<\/p>\n
Whitaker said Dylan hitchhiked from Minnesota to Madison, Wisconsin where he stayed with other folk singers who were brought together by their shared radical ideas. According to Whitaker, Dylan continued to travel to Chicago, Illinois and finally New York City.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn those days there was no modern interstate system, and this is back when there was only three main highways, so it took Dylan a few weeks to make it to New York,\u201d Whitaker said.<\/p>\n
A few weeks later Dylan sent Whitaker a postcard, with Guthrie pictured playing a guitar stickered with \u201cthis machine kills fascist\u201d on the front, and smoking a cigarette.<\/p>\n
\u201cDo you want to know what the card said,\u2019 Whitaker asked.<\/p>\n
It read: \u201cDear Dave, I met Woody, He like\u2019s my stuff. \u00a0\u2013Bob.\u201d<\/p>\n
I asked Whitaker when was the last time he and Bob Dylan had spoken and if he had any clue as to if and when Dylan would accept the coveted Nobel Peace Prize?<\/p>\n
\u201cIt had been years since we\u2019ve spoke, Bob will take his time as he always does and do what he thinks is best,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" January 25, 2017 (theguardsman.com) Bob Dylan is an American icon and folk paragon who is now the first singer, songwriter to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for literature. City College student, poet, philosopher, rambler and Mutiny Radio host \u201cDiamond\u201d Dave Whitaker not only knew Bob Dylan back in the… Continue reading ![\"](\"http:\/\/theguardsman.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/MG_7420.jpg\")
<\/a>