Everybody Must Get In Rolling Stone

I have to tell you, there was a day and time when the news that a new Bob Dylan album was coming out was even more exciting to me than when someone calls to say they are bringing me a raspberry pie. As America's Greatest Living Poet has faded into mumbled obscurities, my interest has waned, but seeing that his new "Rough And Rowdy Ways" album is coming out on June 19 still gives me at least one goosebump.

I can't even say that the people on the album cover even look either rough or rowdy, but that's not up to me. It is interesting, though, that this picture is 56 years old.

The photographer is an English guy, Ian Berry, 86 now, from Salisbury, England. He told Rolling Stone magazine that he's more a visual guy than a musical one, but adds, "I have, though, spent quite a lot of time with people like Miriam Makeba, but most of the profiles I’ve done on musicians have been more classical, people like [David] Ashkenazi.”

He was happy to be asked if Dylan could use the photo on his new album: “I was delighted,” he says. “A record cover for Dylan is a great compliment.” Oh! By the way, Dylan has not put his own mug on one his albums of new music since 2001’s "Love and Theft."

Rolling Stone says the image, taken in 1964 at a club on Cable Street in Whitechapel, London, "crackles with intrigue and romance." Well, now. The one guy is checking the selections on a jukebox, and that was always a lot of fun when you had a fistful of dimes, and the couple seem to care about each other. That's romantic. They're doing the kind of dancing where holding hands is part of the fun!

Berry says he had not asked for permission to shoot photographs in the club, and after 20 minutes or so, the pub's habitues were indicating that they wished for him to leave. They did this by throwing empty beer bottles at him, which is the universal signal that it's time to haul ass.

He's not one of those sensitive artists, clearly. This was originally a black-and-white photo and he had no problem when Dylan's people asked for permission to tint it. "I didn't mind at all," he said. Being 86 will do that to a person, make them a little more practical and less artistically stringent.

Berry even admits that he's not a huge Dylan fan. "I like the sort of singers where I can actually hear the words, people like Joan Armatrading or Joan Baez.”

He shouldn't think twice. It's all right.