Bob Dylan's Downfall

James Damiano

Bob Dylan's Downfall

Bob Dylan Life's Work Scrutinized

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Within English speaking countries the word culture has long been synonymous, with the name Bob Dylan.

There are many interpretations of the definition of the word culture. Practically speaking, the most authentic definition describes culture as "the arts and other manifestations of human intellectual achievement."

When referencing this definition with regard to the public's perception of Bob Dylan, we learn that Bob Dylan  is the most revered “celebrity” on the planet by most of the general populace and intellectual community.

What’s interesting here is that when focusing on the word "celebrity" in regard to Bob Dylan, it appears as if he Dylan was touted as the most revered celebrity first before being transformed into being recognized as the most highly acclaimed and  revered songwriter in the world.

It is without doubt a strange perspective to be cultivated as specifically “a celebrity”. Instead of promoting his talent as a songwriter music industry and Dylan's camp promoted Dylan as a celebrity first above all else.

Dylan’s mysterious, subliminal persona had been meticulously cultivated by the Dylan camp to project Dylan as (specifically) the most revered “celebrity” of all in which no other celebrity would come close to matching Dylan’s level of reverence.

The “most revered songwriter” persona played second only to the “most revered celebrity” persona in developing Dylan's  total persona. No other celebrity had ever been cultivated by the industry in this fashion. There was however some degree of legitimacy to this proclamation. Being the most quoted and chronicled person of our time established Dylan as the most revered celebrity as well .

It's also irrefutable that songs that Dylan had written changed the course of history. Dylan accomplished that feat by the age of 24. 

Ms Ray cites four songs in her article. Four songs that in her opinion changed the course of history.

Her opinion is corroborated  by many other opinions of these four songs all in the affirmative so it’s safe to say that they did.

The four songs Ms. Ray cites are:

Blowin’ in the wind , The Times They Are A-Changin’, Hard Rain's gonna Fall and Hurricane.

It was a great accomplishment indeed however thanks to the internet it is now known to the masses that Dylan had plagiarized three out of the four songs. The mainstream media  had covered it up.

When Bob Dylan‘s five concerts in the San Francisco Bay Area were scheduled in December 1965, the idea was proposed that he hold a press conference in the studios of KQED, the educational television station. Dylan accepted and flew out a day early to make it.

At the press conference there were all sorts of people. The TV news crews of all the local stations were there; so were reporters for three metropolitan dailies (their stories were subsequently compared to the broadcast of the interview by a University of California journalism department class) plus representatives of several high school papers, and personal friends of Dylan including poet Allen Ginsberg, producer Bill Graham and comedian Larry Hankin.

Thus the questions ranged from standard straight press and TV reporters’ questions to teen age fan club questions to in-group personal queries and put ons, to questions by those who really had listened to Dylan’s songs.

He sat on a raised platform facing the cameras and the reporters and answered questions over a microphone all the while smoking cigarettes and swinging his leg back and forth.

This was the only full length press conference by Dylan ever televised in its entirety. The transcript was made from an audio tape of the conference, and the only editing has been to take out statements concerning ticket availability and times of the local concerts – R.J.G.

One reporter asked Dylan "Do you think there will ever be a time when you’ll be hung as a thief?

Dylan replied. You weren’t supposed to say that. 
 

 

Dylan's work was being recognized by the most prestigious  universities and Dylan was being characterized subliminally as "Godlike".

What wasn't publicized was Dylan's appetite for plagiarism.

Richard Thompson a professor at Harvard wrote the following article comparing Dylan to Greek mythology .

Odysseus is often referred to as “God like” in Greek mythology. Therefore the seed is planted subliminally that Dylan is “Godlike”

Then one day the newspaper headlines read “Bob Dylan a prophet?”. A prophet? As the question mark lent forgiveness the suggestion begged for an answer and rightly so.

So let us pay homage to the "prophet" and give this accolade some thought. Pondering the portrayal of Bob Dylan  “the prophet”,  besides religious leaders of our day (and not even the pope is characterized as a prophet) can I think of any one celebrity who has ever been portrayed as a prophet.

Of course Dylan modestly played this off which was what he was suppose to do knowing that the idea was fabricated by someone in his camp. The whole scheme was semi subliminal as to have the vast amount of the fragile minded be subliminally persuaded by this concept. I mean who wouldn't want to listen to an album of songs written by a "prophet". A great selling point if you will.

The New York post reported an interview by Dylan.

Bob Dylan has a message for his awestruck fans: I’m no prophet.

“they call [me] that all the time – ‘you’re the prophet, you’re the savior,’ ” says Dylan of his worshipful public, in an interview with CBS newsman Ed Bradley.

“I never wanted to be a prophet or a savior,” Dylan says. “ELVIS maybe. I could see myself becoming him. But prophet? No.”

Face it there probably is nothing more esteemed or flattering than being portrayed as a prophet even if it is just presented as a question or a comparison and yet to boot probably seventy percent of the world’s population do not know the true definition of the word (prophet) which is far less dynamic than it’s acoustic phonics.

Dylan's 1979 release of evangelical songs under the title "Slow Train Coming", baffled many of his devoted fans and adoring critics.

The following is an excerpt from an article by Robert Goldbloom November 6, 2017

"with the (Judeo-Christian) god on his side Bob Dylan's gospel phase back in the spotlight."

“Gotta Serve Somebody”: Bob Dylan on his 1980 gospel tour

He was Judas in a black leather jacket and a jewfro.

It was 1979 and Bob Dylan, who grew up going to the Zionist Herzl camp in Webster, Wisconsin., and who had sung prancingly of the Binding of Isaac “out on highway 61,” had come to Jesus. Over the course of three gospel-tinged and preachy albums from 1979-81 — “Slow Train Coming,” “Saved” and “Shot of Love” — he seemed to turn his back on Judaism in what came to be called his Christian period.

It was 1979 and Bob Dylan, who grew up going to the Zionist Herzl Camp in Webster, Wis., and who had sung bracingly of the Binding of Isaac “out on Highway 61,” had come to Jesus. Over the course of three gospel-tinged and preachy albums from 1979-81 — “Slow Train Coming,” “Saved” and “Shot of Love” — he seemed to turn his back on Judaism in what came to be called his Christian period.

The critics weren’t kind, and neither were Dylan’s Jewish watchers. “When the news came down that Dylan had been ‘born again’ and that his next album would be fully devoted to songs about Jesus, it was shocking and painful and felt like a betrayal,” Seth Rogovoy, author of 2009’s “Bob Dylan: Prophet, Mystic, Poet” (Scribner), recalled in an email interview with The Jewish Week.

Writing last year in the journal Foreign Policy, Eric Alterman, a Brooklyn College professor, put it this way: “It would be hard to overstate the horror that many Jewish Dylan fans and followers felt during this period. Not only did Dylan appear to be lost musically, but perhaps he had been lost entirely. And more to the point, was our Jewish prophet even Jewish anymore?”

Was it really that hard to understand?  I'm guessing no it wasn't and it isn't. I’m guessing it’s simple, Dylan was out of ideas. For Dylan it seemed there was nothing else concrete or substantial for him to write about. He needed direction and he needed it fast so he most likely discussed it with his advisers back at Columbia who would have been Mikie Harris and John Hammond Sr.  After all everything he  released to the public up to this time had been stolen  from other songwriters.

The  answer was simple Jesus and the bible. It was all the content he needed to make a fortune.

There was a problem though. The public bought it. Dylan was thought of as an uncorroborated messiah or at least a “prophet” by his people and some of the the public.

To this day the Dylan prophet concept is still subliminally planted in the minds of many. Authoritative, convincing, credible, legitimate, original. pure, true, actual, certain, creditable, dependable, factual, faithful, official, sure and valid are some of the words associated with prophet. All of these words portray a positive position and describe characteristics that most people would want their associates to possess. What a comforting thought to have a real live "Prophet" among us.

What would persuade Dylan to defer his religious beliefs and to use that deferment to steer his secular career in the direction of  searching for Jesus? At the time the CBS Record executive who originally signed Bob Dylan to Columbia Records, John Hammond Sr. was working with a song writer named James Damiano who was working on a song titled "Where Are You Jesus" Damiano's lyrics included 

 

It Could All End Tomorrow

So Why Not Live For Today

I'll Leave You With All The Sorrow

Just As Long As You Promise

To Pray

Cause What Good Is A Man

Who Needs Love That Bad

Can't You Understand

It Doesn't Have To Be This Sad

And I Was Was Only Tryin

To Keep Myself From Cryin

Well The Devil Must Be The Blame

Where Are You Jesus

It's About Time

You Claim Your Honor To Fame

And I Was Only Tryin

To Keep Myself From Cryin

Well The Devil Must Be The Blame

Where Are You Jesus

It's About Time

You Claim Your Honor To Fame

After eleven years of working with Dylan's management Damiano filed suit against Dylan for copyright infringement. When one reviews the documents of the case they realize that Dylan had "NO" as in zero evidence to defend himself against Damiano .  He ignored his subpoena's, never filed an affidavit of denial, refused to answer any motion for admissions, never filed a counter suit and admitted to having access to Damiano's songs.   

Dylan however did file for a confidentiality order. and was granted the order by Judge Rosen.

Judge Rosen's "Gag Order" has been in effect for the last nineteen years. The irony of the situation is that Bob Dylan was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom award by President Obama while utilizing a gag order on James Damiano. Obviously it didn't include Freedom of the Speech.  

The order designated all discovery materials confidential including fifty hours of  video taped depositions all of which all fifty hours were incriminating to Dylan, and  Damiano's  musicologist's musical comparison. 

After completing the most comprehensive movie on Bob Dylan's plagiarisms and songwriting process James contemplated showing his movie at an independent theater in New York. When Dylan found out he had his attorney's send James the threatening letter below.

 

 

Damiano's musicologist graduated magna cum laude from  Harvard. The song "Dignity" was nominated for a Grammy as the best Rock song of the year. Dylan never contested Dr. Greene's analysis with a musicologist that had any scholarly credentials. 

Doctor Greene's Analysis

Here is where is gets contoversial. James Comey worked for Gibson Dunn the same law firm defending Dylan. At the time Damiano was notifying the FBI and The Justice System that there was a fraud upon the court committed Comey was the United States Deputy Attorney General, a clear cut conflict of interest that Comey never thought would come to light.  Well now it has.

Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards saw Dylan’s release of evangelical songs as an attempt to sell records, calling the proselytizing songwriter "the prophet of profit" which is precisely my point.

Keith Richards

Dylan has forever operated under the guise of the starving artist who refused to relinquish his ideals for the opportunity of self enrichment. It’s a great act if you can pull it off however it’s not so easy when you’re a millionaire a few times over and have the eyes of the world staring at you.

Incredibly Dylan was able to sustain this image for decades until one day he blew it when during a Superbowl commercial he appeared as the main spokesman in an advertisement for Chrysler, which drew the attention to other commercial endeavors that he partook in namely Cadillac.

 

A CNN headline read Bob Dylan Super Bowl commercial draws cries of 'sellout' you can imagine the rest.

As time went on a phenomena called the internet hit the world which enabled people to learn just about anything they were interested in learning  about. Information which one may want to keep confidential or secret was readily available.

Dylan was no different than anyone else and had secrets he wanted to keep confidential.

Dylan's fans wanted to know everything about him, and started frantically searching the internet for any morsel of information they could find about him. He and his camp knew that something had to be done to hide these secrets.

Dylan's objective was to divert all google searches relating to any personal or professional information that Dylan would want to keep secret from his fans. Dylan's think tank engineered the perfect solution to remedy the problem. A  Victoria’s Secret commercial.

The concept was so bizarre that success was assured simply by the concept. It diverted all secret oriented internet discussions about Bob Dylan to Victoria’s Secret commercial or their website.

It also drew a massive amount of attention to Bob Dylan so as to ponder the irony of the person considered to be the pinnacle of intellectualism to be so shallow minded as to be associated with such a crass corporation.

The commercial received so much attention that it instantly buried any internet discussions of fans discussing anything embarrassing to Dylan or Bob Dylan secrets if you will.

One must wonder did Dylan do it for the cash? Was there no other corporation Dylan could have contracted with to do a commercial? Well of course there was Dylan also became a spokesman for Cadillac.

 

 

Then came the Beatles who spoke of their obsession with Bob Dylan. In interviews they mentioned that they were so impressed with Dylan’s work that they insisted on meeting him. In an interview Paul McCartney stated that Dylan was their idol thus the top mantle for aggrandized respect was reserved for Bob Dylan alone as it was cemented in the genre of reverence.

Dylan was crowned the King of Kings.

No other celebrity has been afforded the amount of adoration that Dylan has been afforded. College Deans, college professors, actors, publishers. playwrights, editors, critics, reporters, newscasters, producers including judges, politicians, senators and last but not least presidents, all hail Bob Dylan as the pinnacle of intellectualism and show an immeasurable reverence to him.

Every anybody who's somebody celebrity, Al Pacino, Robert Dinero, Robert Redford, Billy Joel, Adam Sandler, Alanis Morissette, Kanye West, Madonna, Alicia Keys, Brad Pitt, Bradley Cooper, Martin Scorsese, Bruce Springsteen, Jack Nicholson, Tom Hanks, Clint Eastwood President Obama, President Clinton, etc. all speak in awe of Bob Dylan.

When examining the reasons Dylan is so revered one must consider his position. Being a songwriter positions Dylan as a creator of original thought. It is this position that affords Dylan this great mantel of reverence and respect.

Throughout Dylan's fifty year cultivation of his mysterious subliminal persona there have been many secrets. Some of these secrets were and still are covered up by the mainstream media. In fact Dylan went through great lengths to cover up his biggest and damning secret which is that Bob Dylan does not write melodies or in other words music. While being interviewed by Robert Hilburn of the L.A. Times Dylan stated:

“Well you have to understand that I’m not a melodist. My songs are either based on old Protestant hymns or Carter Family songs. What happens is, I’LL take a song and simply start playing it in my head. That’s the way I meditate.” “I wrote ‘Blowin’ in the Wind’ in 10 minutes, just put words to an old spiritual, probably something I learned from Carter Family records. ‘The Times They Are A-Changing’ is probably from an old Scottish folk Song.” "I'll be playing Bob Nolan's 'Tumbling Tumbleweeds,' for instance, in my head constantly, while I'm driving a car or talking to a person or sitting around or whatever. People will think they are talking to me and I'm talking back, but I'm not. I'm listening to the song in my head. At a certain point, some of the words will change and I'll start writing a song.".......Bob Dylan

After critics started scrutinizing Dylan’s work it had been noted that a majority of his melodies were from songs previously written by other people. His fans were extremely disappointed and started expressing their views that Dylan should have at least made reference to the the authors of original songs that Dylan changed the words to. The comparisons were unforgivably blatant. His songwriting process was blatantly nefarious and  getting a great deal of attention on the internet. Dylan he had no choice but to admit to his plagiarisms to save face.

At first glance it appears that Dylan is being forthright by appearing to be honest about his song writing process which is actually a major form of plagiarism.

A second glance tells us that the date of the interview was Aug. 4, 2004 forty years after the beginning of his career and after the release of many songs that were released under Dylan's name with no credit given to the original author.

Even when the song was in the public domain there was no reference on any of the albums liner notes or labels to that fact, which was misleading to the public who just naturally thought that Dylan wrote the melody line to the song or music if you will.

And why would his fans think any different when the album stated written by Bob Dylan. Little did his fans know he just replaced the words to the song with his own words.

After further study of Bob Dylan's melodies it was learned that a very high percentage of the melodies to Dylan's hit songs were actually melodies from preexisting songs in which no credit had been given to the original author of the melody. Knockin on Heaven’s door was the same melody as Neil Young’s Helpless.

Even when the songs were in the public domain Dylan took credit for the melody and left absent the fact that they were from the liner notes and album label or album cover. This projected the image that Dylan had written the entire song including the music which he had not done.

We know this by reviewing the actual label and sleeves of the album that states written by Bob Dylan with no mention of the original authors. We are talking about the most highly acclaimed songwriter in the world here.

It’s common knowledge that no other artist has had the amount of songs covered by other artists than Dylan.

It’s also common knowledge now that the melody line to "Blowin in the wind” was actually the melody line to an old anti slavery song titled "No More Auction Block". Dylan simply discarded the words to the old song and replaced them with his own words. The label to the record states that the song was written by Bob Dylan. There is no mention of the original author anywhere on the label or the album covers liner notes. There is also no reference to public Domain.

Dylan would have gotten away with this nefariousness had it not been for the internet. When the internet hit people started scrutinizing the origins of his songs. Feeling betrayed his fans started posting the similarities one by one until an avalanche of damning evidence was common knowledge.  To this date Bob Dylan has been accused of plagiarism in more than two hundred incidences all separate.

After forty five years of profiting from royalties on stolen melodies it was this phenomena that persuaded Dylan to come out and admit the truth. After carefully crafting a statement he called for an interview and released his statement which included the information that he is not a melodist.

Rolling Stone magazine actually published an article "Dylan's Greatest Thefts" This was no difference than Dylan doing a press conference to announce that he is not a melodist.

Dylan’s way of announcing to the world that he was going to be honest now but of course it was after he had made millions if not billions of dollars on royalties. Someone else labored on writing the songs yet Dylan profited on them.  

For decades Dylan's songwriting process was a nice big fat cash cow bringing in an enormous amount of money. All in all he had been accused of plagiarism in more than two hundred incidences.

When Dylan's music plagiarism issue started getting a substantial amount of publicity he released a series of paintings in which he blatantly plagiarized another author’s work as a diversion to the plagiarism issue. The painting plagiarism issue would fill the Google searches. He apparently thought it would look better to his fans to be accused of plagiarizing another artists paintings instead of songs.

Rolling Stone magazine stated:

The paintings in Bob Dylan‘s “The Asia Series,” which are currently on display at the Gagosian Gallery in Manhattan, have come under fire for their resemblance to widely available pre-existing photographs. The series of paintings, which are said to part of a “visual journal” made by the singer during his travels through Japan, China, Vietnam and Korea, have been compared to famous photos by well-known photographers such as Henri Cartier-Bresson and Léon Busy.

“The most striking thing is that Dylan has not merely used a photograph to inspire a painting: he has taken the photographer’s shot composition and copied it exactly,” wrote Dylan critic Michael Gray in a post on his blog, Bob Dylan Encyclopedia. “He’s replicated everything as closely as possible. That may be a (very self-enriching) game he’s playing with his followers, but it’s not a very imaginative approach to painting.

More damning evidence of plagiarism surfaced when a handwritten Bob Dylan poem was being auctioned off at Christies and someone realized that the poem had been written by someone else. The article reads below;

Dylan "poem" on sale was actually Hank Snow song

Daniel Trotta

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A “poem” purportedly written by a teenage Bob Dylan and up for auction at Christie’s is actually a song written by the late Canadian country singer Hank Snow, the auction house said on Wednesday.

A hand-written poem believed at the time to be by a teenaged Bob Dylan and signed Bobby Zimmerman is seen in this undated handout photo from Christie's Auction House May 19, 2009. REUTERS

Christie’s announced on Tuesday the sale of the hand-written poem believed to have been written in 1957 when Dylan was 16 and away at Jewish camp.

Christie’s failed to detect that the words, with a few minor variations, matched those of a song previously recorded by Snow, who died in 1999 at age 85.

Reuters discovered the lyrics matched the Snow song when alerted by a reader. Reuters then informed the auction house.

“Additional information has come to our attention about the handwritten poem submitted by Bob Dylan to his camp newspaper, written when he was 16, entitled ‘Little Buddy.’ The words are in fact a revised version of lyrics of a Hank Snow song,” Christie’s said in a statement.

“This still remains among the earliest known handwritten lyrics of Bob Dylan and Christie’s is pleased to offer them in our Pop Culture auction on June 23.”

The manuscript had been expected to fetch $10,000 to $15,000.

Christie’s said Dylan, still using his given name Robert Zimmerman, signed the piece Bobby Zimmerman and submitted it to the Herzl Camp newspaper. The editor of the paper kept it for more than 50 years and recently donated it to Herzl Camp, a Jewish camp in Wisconsin, Christie’s said.

Another Dylan hand manuscript of yet another Hank Snow that Dylan had claimed to have written titled "A Drunkard's Son"After the manuscript was published, someone eventually pointed out that the young Zimmerman's "Drunkard's Son," was actually Hank Snow's "Drunkard's Son," almost exactly paralleling the "Little Buddy" story.

A Motive

It was revealed in a Bob Dylan interview with Associated Press Reporter Kathryn Baker In the late 80's that Dylan was experiencing writer's block when Ms. Baker published in her article the following statement "he (Bob Dylan) didn't have enough material of his own for an album"

When deposed Ms.Baker testified:

Mr.Kramer: You then continue without quotes: "The other reason for the others is inevitable: He didn't" that's d-i-d-n-'t, as in did not "He didn't have enough material of his own for an album." Did Mr. Dylan say those words?

Ms. Baker "I went back in the transcript and I was paraphrasing him and that's not entirely accurate. He said he didn't have enough songs that he wanted to put on an album."

This interview was given to Ms.Baker on August 5th 1988.

During this exact same time period a songwriter named James Damiano had been working on material with Dylan's producer's and publishers at CBS in New York. One of the first songs Damiano submitted to John Hammond Sr. at CBS was Where Are You Jesus

At the time of the Baker Dylan interview Damiano Had a prior eight year affiliation with Hammonds Office. The association started in the later part of the 70's.

An article written by Jonny Whiteside explains:

FOLK LIES: Joni Mitchell Outs Bob Dylan

by Jonny Whiteside

Big Hollywood

April 28, 2010"Bob [Dylan] is not authentic at all. He's a plagiarist, and his name and voice are fake. Everything about Bob is a deception. We are like night and day, he and I."

- Joni Mitchell, Los Angeles Times, April 22, 2010

Caterwauling Canuck "folk singer" Joni Mitchell got just about everybody riled up with that sweet morsel of self-serving insight, but the real shock is not that Mitchell is absolutely correct but that someone finally came out and said it. After decades of carefully manicured deification by Columbia Records, brain-dead rock critics and the slimy elite institution that elevated such barely able snake-oil salesmen as Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger to celestial heights, it's high time to flout indoctrination and examine Dylan's track record as a Grade-A phony.

Most Dylan fans would be stunned to realize that his vocal style (for lack of a better term) was high-jacked, in its entirety, from long-dead bluegrass-country singer Carter Stanley. We're not talking about an influence, like Lefty Frizzell for Merle Haggard, but a total appropriation of Stanley's highly idiosyncratic approach. A counterfeit from the get-go, once Dylan realized what an advantage his audience's innate ignorance was, he's exploited it ever since.

Just type "Bob Dylan plagiarism" into your friendly search engine, and a plethora of questionable circumstances pop up, enrobing the singer almost as completely as his years of reflexive media fawning have. Documented from his teenage start, when he submitted a hand written, thinly revised version of country star Hank Snow's "Little Buddy" for publication as an original poem, to his 1963 pilferage of Irish poet Dominic Behan's "Patriot Game"'s melody for the similarly slanted Dylan tune "With God on Our Side" to songwriter James Damiano's ongoing multimillion dollar copyright infringement suit (alleging Dylan's Grammy-nominated "Dignity" is nothing but an altered version of Damiano's "Steel Guitars") to the naked "Red Sails in the Sunset" melody heist for the song "Beyond The Horizon" on his Modern Times album, up through the recent Confessions of a Yakuza-Love & Theft plagiarism charges (Love & Theft? Calling Dr. Freud!), the Timrod controversy, even the numerous passages of Proust and Jack London that (re) appear in the text of Dylan's autobiography, it's a deep, dark thicket of thoroughly damning and apparently chronic bootlegging. Naturally, Dylan has said nothing publicly about any of these, but he already spent over three million dollars defending himself against one-time affiliate Damiano - the classic delay-to-destroy courtroom technique.

Defenders and apologist have an extraordinary array of excuses on Zim's behalf, from use of "literary allusion" to his building a "cultural collage," or that his "borrowing" is "homage," to the more deliciously desperate "he obviously doesn't NEED to do it" (strangely, though, he always has). This instamatic, Clinton-ian excuse making serves only to further polish up the shine on Dylan's teflon hubris and to underscore the blind, Pavlovian worship which he has long enjoyed. Let's face it: as a lyricist, Dylan is crap, inarguably unworthy beside, say, Hank Cochran, Chuck Berry, Mickey Newbury or Jimi Hendrix ("All Along the Watchtower" plays as a lead balloon even for Hendrix, nearly deflating his Electric Ladyland masterpiece).

While we're endlessly told that "The pump don't work / cause the vandals took the handle" is vintage Dylan worthy of class room study, in truth it's little more than the wordy spew of a peripatetic rhyming dictionary who'll hang any phrase together as long as it fits. Metaphor is convenience, not expression for Dylan. His songs have also treated women quite badly: the entire attitude of "It Ain't Me, Babe" is ugly; "Just Like a Woman" is nothing short of misogynistic, but, worst of all, Dylan's sheer verbosity has ineradicably stained American pop music, and we've all had to suffer through the post-Dylan legacy of long-winded nonsense ("American Pie," anyone?).

The real tragedy is that none of these very well-documented and nigh irrefutable plagiarism charges will ever emerge from the shadows, as the Cult of Zimmerman's hulking form casts a very, long one. Even when the Hank Snow rip-off stared the world in its face, the strongest reaction was a nervous giggle and murmurs of youthful indiscretion. To capitulate the carefully constructed myth of folk music and Dylan's subsequent installation as rock & roll's poet laureate is unthinkable, a hot, hit-the-panic-button nightmare for generations of quiescent "hipsters" never weaned from the million-selling Dylan teat. His socio-cultural mystique is also an industry-manufactured sham, one that very handily diverted attention away from genuine political stink-stirrers like the MC5 or the lysergic guerilla warfare of the 13th Floor Elevators.

As a junta-backed counter-culture figurehead, Dylan is ideal: a harmless, unoriginal patsy, a cute insouciant whose relentlessly self-involved stance never threatened anyone, save for the hazard of the droning lip service endlessly paid him. We should all praise Joni Mitchell for this overdue call-out (just don't ask us to listen to her records), but it's unlikely that any in the Zim Cult will even consider the ramifications of her statement. But when you pile it up with all the rest, there's a single conclusion to be made: Bob Dylan is an artistic (and ethical) fraud, one whose own fear of creativity has long since given way to an apparently lifelong practice of emulating his superiors by vampirism, siphoning off their intellectual blood and using it to top off his own under-baked efforts. Weirdly, even then, the results have been scarcely palatable.

Damiano turned down a forty five million dollar movie deal to be able to keep the publishing rights to his life's work. 

On June 16th 2009 the following letter was sent to Bob Dylan’s Attorney Orin Snyder written by James Damiano’s Attorney in the Bob Dylan Damiano Plagiarism suit “Robert Church” regarding boxes of James Damiano’s songs produced to Bob Dylan during discovery

There were approximately twenty to twenty five boxes filled with anywhere from 200 to 400 finished and unfinished songs in each box (twenty seven years of writing) that were never returned.

Dear Mr. Snyder:

I have one other matter. Mr. Damiano informs me that Steven Kramer (James Damiano’s lead attorney) had several boxes of songs delivered to Parcher & Hayes during the discovery phase of his case against Dylan. Mr. Kramer never made copies of the documents, since I am presuming he felt pressed to comply with an overdue discovery request.

Mr. Damiano informs me that he has never had all the original songs returned to his possession, even though the case is over. If you don’t mind, please explain what you can recall about Mr. Damiano’s song production. Do you still have songs unaccounted for? Can they be returned?

Sincerely Robert Church

Still to this day 12/08/2018 nine years later Mr. Snyder has not replied.

JULIE LEVINE an attorney and writer for the Cardozo Entertainment Law Review did a scholarly article titled" Lo and Behold"

DOES TOLERATED USE GIVE AN INCENTIVE TO PLAGIARIZE? AN EXAMPLE THROUGH THE MUSIC OF BOB DYLAN.

Additionally, ruling that a qualified reporter’s privilege existed regarding an interview Dylan gave where he claimed he had writer’s block demonstrates the willingness of courts to protect the big name musician instead of the original composer, thereby endorsing a minor form of plagiarism.

However, protecting Bob Dylan in this one instance may differ in a case where the musician is not well known or does not have a reputation of borrowing from other musicians since the beginning of his career. Indeed, Bob Dylan disclaiming he has writer’s block can give rise to an inference for a reasonable jury to believe that it is more likely that he copied Damiano’s song if the jury heard that he had writer’s block, as compared to the jury not hearing that he had writer’s block.

Therefore, by deeming the requested evidence in the motion to compel irrelevant, it is not clear whether or not Bob Dylan did in fact plagiarize James Damiano’s song or was merely influenced by his music.

Hence, if Damiano’s musicologist’s theory had been presented to the court and was believed as true, it is very possible that Bob Dylan plagiarized James Damiano’s song.

On the other hand, if a contrary theory was presented, one that does not involve the Schenker analysis, it is possible that Bob Dylan was only influenced by Damiano’s song and used that influence to write Dignity, not to copy Steel Guitars as his own.

Nevertheless, it is still unclear whether the court endorsed Bob Dylan’s potential plagiarism because of whom he was or if the court was willing to turn a blind eye to the alleged plagiarism.

This court’s behavior further demonstrates how a court tolerating the use of another’s song may give an incentive to plagiarize. If a court is willing to dismiss a motion to compel discovery that could prove plagiarism, a court may very well do the same for another musician, even if he or she is not as well known as Bob Dylan.

Bob Dylan and Plagiarism

To Catch a Master Thief

by Alexander T. Deley

December 12th, 2013

A tired adage states that: “talent borrows but genius steals.” This has certainly been true of the folk tradition in which homage and the borrowing of ideas has always been an integral part. Folk musicians – most notably Bob Dylan, have always sprinkled their work takings from the tradition, giving their work added depth and imbuing it with a sense of timelessness. Dylan’s work has varied in quality and in subject matter over-time, but has remained firmly rooted within this folk tradition, borrowing the odd-melody here or phrase there, but often creating new work, within new contexts that has often amounted to more than the sum of its parts. Somewhere along the line, and most evident in his album Modern Times and his memoir Chronicles Vol. 1, Bob Dylan appears to have crossed a line and has resorted to plagiarism.

It can be said that the work of a great artist should be beyond seemingly petty nit-picking, however, when the work of a great artist is no longer truly his own, does that person ceases to be a great artist? It can be argued that what Dylan is now doing – namely the naked theft of the work of others – has reduced him in stature. Intellectual and artistic honesty remain some of the most important features within a free society. It is taken as natural that someone should be recognized for the excellence of their work and reap whatever benefits producing said work rewards. Similarly, the naked theft of the work of others, in whole or in part, is to be scorned. It is dishonest in that it represents not only intellectual dishonesty, but also intellectual laziness. Genuine insight and especially the sort of word-craft that alight the senses are difficult to produce with regularity and require not only-talent, but continual work and refinement of craft. It, in the end, plagiarism is so immoral because it is a form of cheating – hence the vitriol and anger normally directed towards plagiarists upon the discovery of their malfeasance. We all like to think that when someone produces a piece of work, it is their ideas – or at least their perceptions or spin on ideas – that are being represented. Plagiarisms vulgarity stems from the idea that, in accepting work falsely passed off as one’s own, it challenges our collective integrity.

The brilliance of much of Dylan’s early work is beyond dispute – here was someone who was able to make-up for his utter lack of musicianship through brilliance as a word-smith and managed to root his lyrics deeply in a tradition that added delicious context to his work. Albums such as Bringing It All Back Home and later, Blood on the Tracks featured brilliant manipulation of folk traditions to produce songs of strong social and personal resonance. He was also a sharp social critic, pointing towards the ills of society in the finest folk tradition with songs such as “The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carol” and “Hurricane”. His mastery of word-play was absolute and hinted towards numerous literary and poetic traditions more so than towards musical ones. His songs spoke to both the spirit of the times and Dylan (and the artistic persona he created for himself). Dylan’s tendency towards self-mythology further strengthened his work by casting him as all the more part of a grand tradition. He became a voice of the ages, not simply of a generation. This bred obsessive, often humorless followers who hung upon Dylan’s every word. Despite this, his muse burned bright, and even his self-consciously ‘bad’ albums, notably – to throw the obsessive off the scent – including the much reviled Self-Portrait brimmed with ideas and intelligence.

Sometime in the late 70s or early 80s – while Dylan was at the height of a drunken depression that eventually saw him ‘save’ himself by becoming a ‘born-again’ Christian, and eventual seeming acquiescent return to Judaism, his muse seems to have dried up. Throughout the 80s and early 90s, Dylan produced a series of poorly received records bearing little resemblance to his old work. The music he produced on albums such as Infidels and Saved included everything from inane Zionist propaganda (“Neighborhood Bully”) to simplistic retellings of Biblical creation stories (“God Gave Names To All The Animals”). While this period saw the odd splash of the old genius (notably the moving “Dark Eyes” on the not so moving Empire Burlesque and the funny though admittedly 80s sounding “Brownsville Girl” on Knocked Out Loaded –considered by many to be Dylan’s worst record) something appeared to be missing.

Dylan appears to have briefly experimented with writing ‘list songs’, where a theme is repeated down a list (i.e. “Everything’s Broken” and “Most of the Time”) to some affect on 1989’s Oh Mercy, which received positive reviews and was heralded as something of a come-back, but this gimmick had already begun to wear thin on 1990’s Under the Red Sky, which was critically savaged.

Dylan then defied many of his critics by recording two solo albums in rapid succession of old folk and blues standards. Good As I Been To You and World Gone Wrong were remarkable in that they seemed to show Dylan both re-immersing himself in the material that had inspired him in the early 60s, but also in that his musicianship on the albums appeared to be far more impressive than anything he had previously, or would thereafter, produce. This was followed-up by 1997’s intelligent, though slightly morbid – especially in light of Dylan’s subsequent near-fatal heart infection that he was treated for around the time the album came out – Time Out of Mind.

Dylan remained inactive until 2001 when he released “Love and Theft”- considered by many to be the best album Dylan had produced in decades and receiving a Five-Star review in Rolling Stone, the first of which the magazine had awarded in over a decade. The album’s September 11th release date further cemented the importance of the album as many of Dylan’s lyrics on the record– largely about loss and renewal – seemed to speak to the immediacy of the tragedy.

 

“Love and Theft” was also notable as being the first of Dylan’s albums in some time where clear literary-lifting was identified. The New York Times1 and San Francisco Chronicle identified several lines that Dylan had taken verbatim from the English language translation of Dr. Junichi Saga’s 1991 Japanese gangster memoir, Confessions of a Yakuza. These lines included: “my old man was like some kind of feudal lord”, “why don’t you shove off if it bothers you so much”, “my uncle did a lot of nice things for me and I won’t forget him”, and “What’s the use if you can’t stand up to some old businessman?”. While the New York Times article argued that what Dylan did was closer to “cultural collage” than to plagiarism the publication asked more questions with the release of 2006’s Modern Times.2

Modern Times was notable in that it saw Dylan make considerable use of the poems of Confederate Poet Henry Timrod as lyrical fodder. Many of Dylan’s lyrical constructions and exact phrasings were shown to be direct borrows from Timrod, as well as from other sources including the Ovid. Further, the songs seemed to lack focus and felt as though they were simply assembled from snippets of various sources rather than carrying the crisper narratives that characterized Dylan’s earlier work.

The liner notes carried no notation or footnotes on sources. Indeed, the songs were credited as “Words and music by Bob Dylan” a point that was particularly glaring as almost every single song on the album was a reworking of an old blues, jazz or R & B number. For example, “Rollin’ and Tumblin’” was little more than the addendum of some new lyrics to the Muddy Waters’ arrangement of the blues standard of the same name, “Beyond the Horizon” was identical musically and similar lyrically to “Red Sails In The Sunset”, “When the Deal Goes Down” was musically identical to the Bing Crosby hit “Where The Blue of the Night (Meets The Gold Of The Day)”, “Thunder on the Mountain” and “When the Levee Breaks” were borrowed Memphis Minnie numbers, “Ain’t Talkin’” a remake of the Stanley Brothers song “River of Regret” and so on. While some of this can be thought of Dylan’s use of the folk tradition, the decision to credit the songs both lyrically and musically to himself is telling. In light of Dylan’s satellite radio program, it is strange that Dylan would not opt to credit this music to its writers, some of whom are still alive if not living in obscurity and likely could stand to earn royalties from their work following it’s reuse.

More telling however, is Dylan’s outright theft of material in writing his memoir Chronicles. The book appears to be a cleverly written account of various points in Dylan’s life, including his initial arrival on the Greenwich Village folk circuit circa 1961, where he would go on to become a fixture and shortly thereafter make his name to his time in New Orleans in the late 80s when he recorded Oh Mercy. Critics were unanimous in praising Dylan for his recapturing much of the feel of the era as well as his clever turns of phrase. The problem was, many of these turns of phrase were pilfered from sources as diverse as the March 31, 1961 issue of Time magazine to novels by Jack London, Sax Roehmer and R.L. Stevenson among others.

Many will argue that as a product of the folk tradition, these distinctions should not trouble Dylan. Of the folk tradition, half the reason it works the way it does, with musicians actively borrowing from one another is because everyone, within the context of a folk scene, is familiar with the same body of work, and thus would be able to recognize ‘borrowed’ material is done so with a nod and a wink. Secondly, social change, rather than commercial remuneration was clearly the reason for many folk songs and thus copyright becomes immaterial.

With the Dylan of present, neither of these are the case. Dylan’s audience is overwhelmingly composed of baby-boomers, reared on rock music and who are unlikely to know many of the songs that Dylan is pilfering. This can be taken even farther with the memoir, in which very few people are capable of remembering the passages borrowed, and no one is expected to remember the contents of antiquated issues of Time magazines. Bob Dylan also does not simply represent ‘Bob Dylan’ rather he represents a multimillion-dollar empire. The economics of each new release are likely closely considered and Dylan has not been politically active for decades. Thus, his plagiarism involves him profiting enormously from the work of others.

Further, the argument that Dylan does not comprehend copyright, intellectual property or is somehow beyond that is also specious. Dylan has himself been ruthless in pursuing his own copyright claims. He famously sued the group Hootie and the Blowfish for their use of the phrase “Tangled up in Blue” and some lines from the song “Idiot Wind” in their song “Only Want To Be With You” – despite the Blowfish song being clearly written as a tribute to Dylan, stating: “Put on a little Dylan” immediately before delivering the offending lines. The eventual settlement was said to run to several million dollars in Dylan’s favor.

Dylan is also no stranger to controversy regarding his work. An 11-year, still-unresolved lawsuit filed against him by songwriter James Damiano is particularly telling. Damiano alleges that Dylan, quite ironically given the title, plagiarized the song “Dignity” from Damiano. Damiano had repeatedly met Dylan and submitted songs to Dylan’s parent label CBS. This is especially telling as “Dignity” was Dylan’s only ‘hit’ record of the 1990s and seems quite different from much of Dylan’s earlier work or other work that he was producing during that period. The direct song lyric comparisons given in the case appear to hold to Damiano’s version of events, despite reports of Damiano’s apparent erratic behavior and his being held in contempt of court.

It is now common knowledge that Bob Dylan has been accused of plagiarism in over two hundred seperate incidences. In Dylan's early career he would plagiarize one or two songs from different artists. By the late seventies his professional schedule became very demanding of his time and he was afforded less time to write. It was at this time he was introduced to James Damiano's material.

Damiano a prolific writer provided a treasure trove of material to Dylan over the course of eleven years of which Dylan took the liberty of taking advantage of without crediting Damiano and also making a ton of money from royalties. Eventually Dylan acquired twenty seven years of James Damiano's writing.

It is this story the "Bob Dylan's Stealing of James Damiano's Songs" in which Dylan is actively and aggressively seeking to hide and cover up given the potential of the internet to expose his nefariousness and deception.

He continuously initaiates illegal actions and lies to web forums about Damiano citing illegal authority knowing Damiano does not have the money to file suit against him. He has gotten Damiano banned from every internet forum that could potentially expose his (Dylan's) corruption. 
When James posted "Bob Dylan's Stealing of James Damiano's Songs on the Broadwayworld chatboard he received 348 hits within 15 minutes then was banned. What people don't know is that probably the top five hundred conspiracy website forums on the internet are Shill sites designed to control the flow of truthful information. That should inflame the general populace.

James has posted nothing but the truth so it was totally illegal for Broadway World to ban James. Should James had posted something that was not true about Bob Dylan for sure Dylan would have filed criminal charges against James.

Dylan has also hired companies to make false representations about the legality of James Damiano's sites to other hosts which effected the google search positioning of James Damiano's sites he has also used server blocks to bury Damiano links.

It was the amount of Damiano materials that Dylan stole that determined the aggresiveness of Dylan's scandalous conduct in covering up his plagiarisms of Damiano's songs

Never has Dylan tried so hard to defend himself against one accuser. The blatancy of his affiliation with Damiano and the amount of material taken determined the difference between Damiano and Dylan's other accusers.

Perhaps a strong precedent is the case of disgraced historian Stephen Ambrose. Ambrose was found to have placed quotation marks in his book about World War II airmen, The Wild Blue, identically to passages in Thomas Childers Wings of Morning. The misuse of quotations was repeated throughout the work. While in this case, Ambrose’s citation was correct, it was his failure to acknowledge the second hand source from which he had gleaned the material that led to allegations, (arguably rightfully) of plagiarism. With Bob Dylan, this is not even the case. Dylan does not acknowledge any of the multitudes of materials.

This is also similar to the recent case of (then) Harvard undergraduate Kaavya Viswanathan who in 2006 had been found to plagiarize several passages in her debut novel with only minor variations. In both cases, the accused writer was publicly disgraced and in the case of Ambrose, questions were posed about much of his previous work (which unearthed that he had falsified most of the first hand sources that composed his Eisenhower biography).

Whether one feels that Dylan is guilty of plagiarism or of some sort of clever game of literary cryptography, it remains difficult to let his work stand sans correct citation or notation. Moreover, Dylan’s willingness to enforce his copyright in cases where he feels his work has been infringed upon, and his attempts to conceal his use of external passages indicates that he is well aware of what he is doing. While crafting a literary memoir rarely requires accuracy of memory; Robert Graves, Vladimir Nabokov, Salvador Dali and others have all crafted memoirs that are clearly as literary as factual, the distinction has been that they all did so using words and imaginings that are firmly their own. One is left to wonder, with Dylan, not only whether what he has done is fair, but whether it is worthy of his own legacy.

“Plagiarism in Dylan, Or a Cultural Collage?”. Jon Pareles, New York Times, July 12, 2003. [↩]

“Who’s This Guy Dylan Who’s Borrowing Lines From Henry Timrod?”. Motoko Rich, New York Times, September 12, 2006. [↩]

“Many Lines in Chronicles are from Time Magazine”. Scott Warmuth, Expecting Rain, March 11, 2005. [↩]

“More Dylan Thefts”. Edward Cook, Ralph, The Sacred River, September 27th, 2006. [↩]

“Bob Charlatan: Deconstructing Dylan’s Chronicles: Volume One”. Scott Warmuth, New Haven Review, January, 2008, pp. 70-83. [↩]

Alex Deley is an urban planner, writer, record collector and musician. He received his MS in Urban and Regional Planning from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and has worked in the US, France, and in West Africa. He can be reached at: [email protected]. Read other articles by Alexander, or visit Alexander's website.

This article was posted on Thursday, December 12th, 2013 at 6:30am and is filed under General, Music.

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Bob Dylan fooled the world for decades claiming to have written many of the melodies to his hit songs when in fact most of the melodies were from preexisting songs that he did not write, including Blowin In The Wind.

In a last nail in the coffin scenario James Damiano's movie "Eleven Years" draws the straw that breaks the camel's back, rivets Bob Dylan to his secret past of plagiarism and rewrites musical history"......Virtue Films

It is uncontested by Bob Dylan and or Bob Dylan's law firm Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, Parcher Hayes & Snyder, Gibson Dunn & Crutcher, Hecker Brown & Sherry including Mary Jo White, Steven Hayes, Jonathan Liebman, and Sony House counsel that Bob Dylan and people in Bob Dylan's entourage have solicited James Damiano's songs and music for over ten years.

Few artists can lay claim to the controversy that has surrounded the career of songwriter James Damiano. Twenty-two years ago James Damiano began an odyssey that led him into a legal maelstrom with Bob Dylan that, to this day, fascinates the greatest of intellectual minds.

As the curtain rises on the stage of deceit we learn that CBS used songs and lyrics for international recording artist, Bob Dylan. Bob Dylan's name is credited to the songs. One of those songs is nominated for a Grammy as best rock song of the year. Ironically the title of that song is Dignity.

Since auditioning for the legendary CBS Record producer John Hammond, Sr., who influenced the careers of music industry icons Billy Holiday, Bob Dylan, Pete Seeger, Bruce Springsteen and Stevie Ray Vaughan, James has engaged in a half a billion dollar copyright infringement lawsuit with Bob Dylan.

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