When Dylan Met the Beatles

Editor’s note: This is an excerpt from “The Beatles and Me on Tour,” a memoir by the only newspaper reporter to accompany the Beatles from start to finish on their 1964 North American tour.

The Beatles were blown away when they first listened to "The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan," the folk singer's breakthrough second album. While Elvis was pure rock and roll with his strangulated, staccato, gargling, Southern-accented vocals, the lyrics weren't much to write home about. But while the 22-year-old Dylan sounded like a toothless old coot from deep in the Ozarks, the Beatles were smitten by the poetry of his lyrics, from "Blowin' in the Wind" to "Don't Think Twice, It's Alright" to "Masters of War."

The boys had been introduced to Dylan early in 1964, while holed up in grand style at the Olympia Hotel in Paris. Paul had a new copy of "Freewheelin'," and they played it again and again and again. George called it "the highlight of our trip to Paris." Lennon, greatly enthused by Dylan's piercing prose, offered this review: "Fookin' poetic."

On their first U.S. tour later in 1964, the Beatles had little interest in Hollywood celebrities, but the kid from Duluth was on their "must meet" shortlist. What they could never have predicted was that, unlike their introduction to Elvis, when the Beatles did get together with Dylan, it would change their songwriting — especially John's — and their lives forever.

Much has been written of that New York summit. But some popular myths that have arisen over the last half century differ wildly from what I personally experienced.

As has been correctly reported, Dylan's road manager, Victor Maymudes, drove the folk singer from his home in Woodstock, New York, to Hotel Delmonico on the evening of August 28, 1964, to meet the Beatles. Joining them was Saturday Evening Post writer Al Aronowitz.

As legend has it, the Delmonico meeting was a landmark event — where a member of Dylan's entourage brought out a stash of marijuana and the Beatles (and their manager, Brian Epstein) climbed aboard the THC train.

Not so. In fact, the Delmonico was little more than a brief encounter for Dylan and the Beatles, a swapping of stories, a mutual admiration society, without the aid of any altered states. The real bonding occurred three weeks later, in the less-auspicious surroundings of the Riviera Idlewild Motel, near John F. Kennedy International Airport.

What about the Delmonico? The blame for the confusion most likely falls on Aronowitz, who, before he died in 2005, enjoyed placing himself center stage in 1960s rock history. Perhaps he wanted to take matchmaking credit. Whichever, the facts got tangled.

Among other things, it is most unlikely that Dylan and crew would have risked bringing pot into a five-star hotel under the vigilant eye of not only upwards of one hundred of New York's finest, but also the intense scrutiny of a beefed-up army of security guards. Additionally, smoking it, even in the privacy of their suite, certainly would have been ill-advised at a time when simple possession of pot could lead to lengthy prison sentences.

Then there was Epstein — a constant nervous Nellie forever worrying that any bad publicity might capsize not only the spitting-clean image of his boys, but the whole tour. The Beatles at this point were barely a third of the way into a long tour; they had a concert to perform in less than a day, and while uppers and downers were part of their daily diet, any further experimentation could have been considered a tad too reckless.

Here's how it really went down. When the Dylan entourage arrived at the Delmonico, Epstein, the Beatles, Mal Evans, who served as the band's personal assistant, and road manager Neil Aspinall were still having dinner in their suite. They chatted for a bit, and then Dylan and his manager, Albert Grossman, and the Beatles and Epstein arranged for a longer liaison at a more opportune time: at the end of the tour, when they returned to New York.

Thus it came to pass. The Beatles were back in the Big Apple on September 21 for a final charity performance at the Paramount Theatre benefitting United Cerebral Palsy of New York. The band performed for a celebrity-packed sellout crowd of 3,700, commanding $100 per ticket.

After the show, Dylan came backstage — and it was there they agreed to rendezvous in a somewhat more private setting: in the off-the-beaten-track motel where the Beatles were to spend the night before jetting home the next day.

After the Paramount show, we all jumped into limos and with only a couple of siren-blaring motorcycles for escorts, headed out in the direction of the unpretentious Riviera Idlewild Motel. We were deposited in the forecourt of our less-than-salubrious lodgings, to the incessant sound of jet aircraft taking off and landing nearby.

The tour finally over, Epstein could stop worrying. He had booked the entire top floor for the entourage, and it was finally time to let our hair down.

Several radio reporters and DJs appeared on the top floor because Derek Taylor, the group's press officer and Epstein's assistant, had foolishly promised some last-minute interviews. The parade of journalists included Gloria Steinem, who wanted a wrap-up interview with John for her six-page Cosmopolitan cover story ("Beatle with a Future"), which ran in December 1964. She was quickly whisked in and out. Aronowitz was notably missing.

Thrilled with the tour's success, Epstein gave the hotel the green light to serve unlimited food and drink in an expansive conference room suite, which had been turned into a lavish hospitality room.

An open bar and abundant buffet were laid out for the farewell bash — this uncharacteristic bit of goodwill coming on the heels of Epstein's frequent complaints to the boys about their extravagant room-service bills. After mingling with the press and other guests for half an hour, the Beatles retreated inconspicuously to their own suite. There was much speculation about the identity of the guests they were holed up with.

I didn't need to speculate. I knew.

Moments earlier, as I walked down the corridor on the Beatles' floor, I had seen a scrawny, baby-faced young man with a prominent nose and looking as though he had forgotten to shave, exit the top-floor elevator carrying a backpack. I gave him the once-over because he looked out of place with his tall shock of unruly dark hair, scruffy black jeans and a long-sleeved black sweater that looked like it was picked up at a thrift store.

Taylor suddenly appeared and whispered to me: "Dylan's here."

He promised us traveling journalists he would brief us about what took place between the Beatles and their iconic visitor, so we all waited, gossiping and rehashing memories of the tour, sad that it was all over and that the Beatles were heading home. A couple of radio guys who were promised a final interview with the boys also waited.

Around 2:30 a.m. someone removed the wet towel that had been stuffed under the door — a tested method to stop fumes in one room entering another. (Remarkably, 60 years later, souvenir hunters can still buy online what are allegedly three-by-four-inch pieces of that towel in a plastic case for $25.) When the door opened, a certain pungent aroma wafted into the outer suite where we sat.

Taylor came out and told the patiently waiting DJs that the Beatles were now soundly asleep and, "terribly sorry," but there would be no more interviews. He promised them phoners (phone interviews) from London; so they glumly packed up and left.

But the boys were not tucked in bed soundly snoozing. Though Dylan had slipped away unnoticed, the lethargic lads stuck their heads out of the door, and we tried to start a conversation with them.

Their answers were . . . somewhat vague.

Ringo looked the worse for wear. He was bleary-eyed and, with great effort, tried to string some words together. He would start, then stop in mid-sentence, grappling for the right words as if he had lost his way completely. But try as he might, he could never quite finish what he had started saying.

And he giggled a lot.

Much later, explaining his inability to communicate on that night, he recounted that John had handed him a cigarette, declaring to the room, "My official taster." He later said he was unfamiliar with weed ritual (one puff, or two, then pass it along), he had finished the entire joint himself.

Epstein flopped down on a chair and appeared to doze, which was completely out of character for someone whose public front was that of a man in complete control.

Paul recollected that he was stunned by Epstein's behavior. "It may not seem the least bit significant to anyone else, but in our circle, (for Eptein) it was very liberating," Paul said, according to Beatles author Bob Spitz.

A possibly apocryphal, much-told story that followed that famous night supposedly had Dylan expressing surprise that John was such a stranger to pot.

"What about your song lyric, When I touch you, I get high, I get high?"

John looked at him puzzled for a moment: "Don't be such a dope," he said. "That's, I can't hide."

Pot smoking aside, it had been a particularly tough night for Epstein. By rights he should have been basking in the glory — he had magnificently pulled it off. Yet when he arrived at the motel, before the Dylan meet-and-greet, he was, for some reason, hopping mad. One person described him as "looking like Bela Lugosi."

Taylor explained it to me, saying that he too was furious: "I don't work for the Beatles anymore."

"Why? What's happened?" I asked, stunned. He said he had been fired after getting into a screaming match with Epstein. "I am now an ex-Beatle."

Clearly upset, he told me that when Epstein got back to the motel from the Paramount, "he was literally frothing at the mouth. All he kept yelling again and again was, 'You took my [expletive] limo.'" Epstein claimed he had been shamed because Taylor had left the manager of the most famous pop group in the world stranded and forced to scrounge a ride back to his hotel.

"Get out of my sight," Epstein told him. "Get out of our lives."

"I'm fed up with your shit," Taylor shot back.

"We did a lot of screaming," Taylor confided. Then he pulled an envelope from his pocket and waved it in front of me: "Here's my letter of resignation, and I'm going to stick it under Epstein's door right now."

A few weeks later, when Taylor was back in England, I spoke to him on the phone. On the plane ride home, he said, a contrite Epstein, looking distraught and near to tears, handed him a glass of champagne and asked him to withdraw his resignation.

Taylor, of course, was familiar with Epstein's tempestuous rants and uncontrollable temper. "He does that a lot," Taylor told me.

As for Dylan, that night in New York had been the start of a beautiful friendship. He continued his relationship with the Beatles, showing up on their 1965 American tour at their New York concert — standing on a chair the entire time so he could get a better view.

He remained closest to Lennon and stayed with him and his first wife Cynthia's in their home in London, and then at Kenwood, Lennon's twenty-seven-room mock-Tudor mansion in Weybridge, southwest of the capital.

Kenwood was where John liked to serve LSD with coffee and after-dinner drinks, a little habit he had picked up when a dentist friend of George's had spiked the Beatles' drinks with the hallucinogenic drug.

In 1967, John and Paul wrote "With a Little Help from My Friends," and by then the drug reference ("I get high…") was out there for all to hear.

Lennon described the following years of his songwriting career as "my Dylan period." He observed that it was Dylan's music that influenced his later compositions. Particularly "Norwegian Wood." Dylan later observed that piece reminded him of himself.

Ivor Davis has covered music, murder, politics and Hollywood. He was the only daily newspaper reporter to accompany the Beatles on their entire 1964 North America tour. He has written for the Daily Express, The Times of London and The New York Times Syndicate. His latest book is “The Devil in My Friend: The Inside Story of a Malibu Murder.” Read More