Free Night Beat by Mikal Gilmore

Sciences Lifetime Achievement Award. In theory, these prizes are bestowed to acknowledge a performer’s invaluable contribution to the modern history of popular music. In Dylan’s case, though, it was a ludicrously belated recognition: Though he had affected both folk and popular music more than almost any other figure in American culture, Dylan hadn’t been honored—by NARAS, nor most of the established music industry for that matter—during the period of his greatest innovations, a quarter-century before. Indeed, in 1965—the year that Dylan released “Like a Rolling Stone” and transfigured rock & roll—the Grammy for Record of the Year was awarded to “A Taste of Honey,” by Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass. Dylan himself would not receive a Grammy until 1979, for “Gotta Serve Somebody.”
    Maybe Dylan was thinking about this when he took the stage that night. Or maybe he had other matters on his mind. In any event, on this occasion, Bob Dylan proceeded to behave precisely like Bob Dylan. Accompanied by a motley rock & roll outfit, he delivered a snarled, throttled version of his most embittered anti-war song, “Masters of War,” and did so during the peak season of America’s adamant support for the Bush Administration’s Persian Gulf War. It was a transfixingly weird performance: Dylan sang the song in a flat, rushed voice—as if he realized that no matter how passionately or frequently he sang these words, it would never be enough to thwart the world’s appetite for war—while the band behind him blazed like hellfire. For days after, critics would debate whether the performance had been brilliant or embarrassing (why bother to protest a war, some asked, when the song’s lyrics couldn’t even be deciphered?), but this much was plain: Dylan’s appearance was also the only moment of genuine rock & roll abandon that the Grammy Awards had witnessed in years.
    Moments later, a deliriously amused Jack Nicholson presented Dylan with his Lifetime Achievement Award. Dylan, dressed in a lopsided dark suit, stood by, fumbling with his gray curl-brim fedora and occasionally applauding himself. When Nicholson passed the plaque to him, Dylan looked confused. “Well, uh, all right,” he said, fumbling some more with his hat. “Yeah. Well, my daddy, he didn’t leave me too much. You know, he was a very simple man. But what he told me was this: He did say, ’Son . . . ’ ” And then Dylan paused, rubbing his mouth while silently reading what was written on the plaque, and then he shook his head. “He said so many things, you know?” he said, and the audience tittered. “He said, ’Son, it’s possible to become so defiled in this world that your own mother and father will abandon you. And if that happens, God will always believe in your own ability to mend your ways.’ ”
    After that, nobody was laughing much. Dylan gave a final tip of his hat, spun on his heels, and was gone. One more time, Bob Dylan had met America, and America didn’t really know what to make of him.

    THE FIRST TIME I met Bob Dylan was in the autumn of 1985—the day he showed up at my front door. He looked like I hoped and feared he would: That is, he looked like Bob Dylan—the keen, fierce man who once tore apart known views of the world with every new song he delivered.
    What brought Dylan to my door was simply that we had an interview to do, and since he had to come to Hollywood anyway that day, he figured we may as well do it at my place. While this certainly made the meeting more thrilling for me, it also made it a bit scarier. More than twenty years of image preceded Dylan on that day. This was a man who could be tense, capricious, and baffling, and who was capable of wielding his image—and temper—at a moment’s notice in a way that could stupefy and intimidate not only interviewers, but sometimes friends as well.
    What I found instead was a man who didn’t seem too concerned with brandishing his image, even for a