Mike Hobo: I get a lot of mails from visitors of my site, so it’s more like a public answer to me. It’s not always possible to reply on each and every e-mail individually. Also the 10 years anniversary just feels right to do this interview right now.

JJ: 10 years seems like a mighty long time in terms of the internet.

MH: Nothing compared to 45 years as a recording artist (smiles). No, but I am really thrilled that my site is still around and more popular that ever.

JJ: Tell us a little bit about how it all started in 1997.

MH: I first got in touch with the web in ’96, and I instantly wanted to know everything about how I could create web pages myself. Back in the mid-90s there weren’t that many books or other sources on that topic available, so I collected every little piece of information I could get from anywhere. Webdesign and FTP were the two things I figured out first, but I didn’t know yet what the content of my website should be. I never really wanted to do a “personal homepage”, which were very popular then. I rather wanted to publish information that I would like to find as a web surfer, so I ended up doing this very first generation of the site which was called “The 100% Pure Cult Website”. It was hosted on the free Geocities webspace which is now part of the Yahoo network.

JJ: Was that already a Bob Dylan website or related to Dylan in any way?

MH: Bob Dylan was one central part of the site, but it also featured Charles Bukowski, Quentin Tarantino, and – believe it or not – even Beavis & Butt-head (laughs)…

JJ: A pretty wide range of information…

MH: Well, first it only contained very basic information on the individual topics, some of them only consisted of one single web page. It just collected all the stuff that I was interested back then and that I had something to say about…kind of an early blog as you’d call it today.

JJ: When and why did the focus of your website change to Dylan?

MH: Having been a Dylan fan for years, I was always trying to find websites on him. There haven’t been too many of them at that time, so I extended the information on my own site. In the first years however that wasn’t much more than a biography, notes on album releases, and a picture gallery.

JJ: Was your site already known or popular at this time?

MH: I really don’t know. From 1996 to 1998 the majority of websites was built in static HTML, there weren’t any interactive features such as a discussion forum or a song comments database. Also I had no statistics tool to measure or monitor the visitors and hits. We’re talking about a pre-Google era here! (smiles)

JJ: When did your site take off to where it is now?

MH: As my website’s information on Bob Dylan grew, I realized that I couldn’t possibly ever permanently update all the topics of my site. It always was and still is my personal project, and there’s no editorial team or newsroom behind it. So I had to focus on what I loved the most, and where my knowledge is big enough to share it with the people out there. (…) Somewhere around the year 2000 I relaunched the site dedicated to Bob Dylan only. In the meantime more and more sites started to use PHP and MySQL databases to produce more dynamic web pages, and so did I. I switched from static HTML to dynamic web programming and it was all worth it: The more I learned about what you could do technically the more ideas I developed for my site. I invented a new song rating method, a forum to post comments on each and every officially released Bob Dylan song, among many other new features. The latest one is a free Newsletter that informs about website updates.

JJ: Earlier you told me that you get a lot of e-mails from visitors. What is it that people want to know or tell you?

MH: A question that always comes up is the one for Dylan’s address or they want me to forward any kind of information to him. I really don’t know what makes people think that I could possibly be able to do this. And even if I could, of course I would never do that.

JJ: Why?

MH: Because I like the image of Dylan that I have in my mind, and of course I admire him for the valuable work he has created and shared with all of us. Being a world famous personality like him must be hard enough to deal with on a daily basis, I would never want to bother him in any way. I’m sure he’s a really nice person, but when you’re literally stalked and sometimes even offended by fanatics of any kind it scares you and you just want to be safe and left alone. Everybody should respect that and be thankful for the great music.

JJ: What other kinds of e-mails do you get?

MH: All different kinds of personal stories related to Dylan. Once I got an e-mail by a woman telling me of a close 56 years old friend that had died of a very rare disease. She wanted Bob to know that the music he had been listening to during his final hour was the “Saved” album. Those were the last words he had heard before he closed his eyes and died. That one really touched me the most of all the e-mails I’ve received during the past decade. I couldn’t help in any way, but the story will always stay in my mind…

JJ: Have you ever had contact with anybody who knows or worked with Bob Dylan?

MH: Yes, one of the greatest moments was when I got a personal e-mail from Al Kooper! I should print it and put it in a golden frame (laughs)…No, but I was really proud of it then.

JJ: What did he write?

MH: I was looking for quotes on Bob and found Kooper’s e-mail somewhere on the web. Of course I did not expect any reply at all, maybe just a general “thank you” of his management. But he actually replied himself!

JJ: What did he write?

MH: He was very polite, but didn’t want to comment on his work with Dylan. I understand that he might have been interviewed too often on this matter, and be tired of it. Take any book about Dylan and read it there (laughs)!

JJ: Apart from Kooper did any other musician or celebrity contact you?

MH: I’ve received e-mails from Daniel Lanois, Brian Stoltz (who played on “Oh Mercy”), Kenny Aronoff, and Rob Stoner. I’m also in permanent contact with Bill Cohen, who worked at Greystone Park when Bob Dylan visited Woody Guthrie at the hospital. Bill became a very dear friend of mine.

JJ: Are there any future plans for your website that you can already tell us about?

MH: The fan community milliondylanfans.com will probably be integrated into my site. Plus I would love to organize a Bob Dylan Website convention, but I don’t really know how or when to do it right now. If anyone wants to contact me on this issue, he should feel free to do so…

JJ: Thanks for the interview, I hope the result will end up on the site. I really appreciate your work.

MH: Thanks a lot.

(Joey “JayJay” Jampton is a communication student at UMD)

“At some point during the conflict, authorization came down from above allowing ‘nose art’ on the planes, as an homage to the brave airmen of WWII. We had a captain in our unit who was a talented artist and he began painting the planes in our group. On mine, he painted a silhouette of a dark knight on a black horse, both with red eyes. As he was painting it, I suggested he title it by painting, in swooping letters under it, “Masters of War”. I told the captain it was the title of Dylan’s bombastic indictment of the military/industrial complex. He thought that was great, so he painted it on my plane. I thought it was pretty good black humor, so I wrote to my brother and told him about it. He wrote back, suggesting I write to Dylan and tell him about it. He included Dylan’s address (don’t know how he got that). So, I did.”

Guy and Bob may have still been corresponding with one another, anyway he still had Bob’s current address, after 30 years. Doug gave it a try and wrote a letter. Nobody could really have expected any response to it in the first place, and Doug probably didn’t even think of it any longer as one of the clerks in his hangar asked if he’d gotten his postcard. Six months after Doug had returned from the war, and eight month after he’d written to Bob Dylan, he actually received his personal response (Photo by Doug MacKenzie):

“The post mark was from Italy. I started reading the post card…’Dear Doug, Excuse the post card, that’s all there is to write on right now. Thank you for the letter describing my song on your airplane. Good luck wherever you go, G-d’s guidance will never let you down – Stay in good health and thanks again for writing. Bob Dylan’.- Needless to say, I was bowled over. I know it wasn’t a hoax as I told no one about my letter to Dylan (except my brother). I know no one in Italy. And I’ve seen Dylan’s handwriting before. So, I know it’s genuine.”

After thanking Bob for his reply, Doug received yet another letter, this time on plain lined paper:

“Dear Doug, Thanks for writing back. I’m glad to hear you finally made it safely home. The world isn’t very safe anymore. We owe a lot to people like you, who put themselves in harm’s way for their fellow countrymen. Thanks again for writing. Yours, Bob Dylan”

I would like to express a very honest thank you to Doug MacKenzie for sharing this personal story with us. He informed me that he had “only told close friends about this, and shown them the documents,” and “I had occasion to write him one more time, and again received a reply. So, I’m sure he remembers my brother. My brother is also like Dylan in that he has a magnetic aura about him. He makes a big and lasting impact on people. So, I can see why Dylan would remember him.”

MIKE HOBO: Cordelia, you were born in 1961 and your parents were hanging out with Bob Dylan at that time?

CORDELIA SATTERFIELD HANNA: Yes, my parents, David and Bernella (Nell Levin) Satterfield were very close friends of his in Greenwich Village in 1960-61, where I was conceived. I was born in December 1961, so I don’t remember him, but my parents knew him while my mom was pregnant with me and when I was a baby, and I grew up hearing stories about him.

MH: Is there a particular story you’re thinking of?

CSH: The story I always grew up with was that when I was born, Bob held me and said to my dad, “What’s his name, Dave?” to which my dad replied “It’s a girl, Bob, and her name is Cordelia”, to which Bob responded “Well, when I have a kid, it’s gonna be a boy and I’m going to name him Jessie”, which of course he did. I ended up naming my son Dylan in his honor.

MH: What was the connection between your parents and Dylan?

CSH: My parents knew Dylan before he was famous. They are folk/old timey musicians, and they spent a lot of time with Dylan playing music, hanging out. My dad and Dylan had a great intellectual connection, were both interested in folklore and ethnomusicology, and liked the same music: folk, blues, and music from the British Isles. Also my parents were to become radical political activists, working on the anti-war movement and civil rights, so they were of the same political persuasion.

MH: Nell, as your daughter already pointed out, Dylan wasn’t famous yet. How did you get to know him?

NELL LEVIN: When Cordelia was three months old, we made a trip back to NYC from Hanover, NH where we were living while David finished college. We went right to the Village and stayed with friends who lived a block away from “Positively 4th Street” where Dylan was living at the time. We quickly found Dylan at the Folklore Center on Macdougal, his usual hangout (besides the Kettle of Fish). We invited him back to the apartment with us. In the early period when we were hanging out, we were just a bunch of young kids making the scene, staying up all night to pick music, share songs, hang out and talk, go club hopping, the usual stuff kids do.

MH: Did Dylan ever reveal his real name or mention why he changed it?

NL: He never mentioned his real name. He was busy creating his identity at this time and a large part of that was telling everyone he was an orphan from New Mexico. We didn’t hear his real name until several years later and of course were surprised that he was a middle-class Jewish boy.

MH: Has he then already played any of his own songs to you?

NL: He sat there in our friends’ living room and played for us most of the songs off Freewheelin’ including “Don’t Think Twice”, “Blowin’ in the Wind”, etc. This was before the album was released. We were blown away. Little Cordelia heard all these songs when she was three months old which would have been March 1962.

CSH: Kinda cool to know that I heard Bob Dylan’s music as an infant before the rest of the world did!

MH: Dylan also learned to play various kinds of traditionals, folk and blues then.

NL: He was such a good student of all styles of music from Hank Williams to British and Celtic folk, to blues greats, and he knew all these styles, and studied them and learned them all, and this was how he was able to fuse it all together into his unique style. One night we went over where Dylan was crashing and he played us a recording of Hank Williams’ bluesy tunes. This was the first time I had heard Hank Williams and it changed my life. I have Bob to thank for turning me on to Hank. When I read Dylan’s book, I was impressed, once again, with his deep knowledge, understanding and respect for traditional American music. This was the music that we young folks were really into during that early period. And it is the music that some of us are still into today.

MH: What else were you listening to at the time?

NL: At the time we knew Dylan we were listening to the “Harry Smith Anthology of Folk Music” and the Smithsonian field recordings of the “real people”, mainly in the South. We played old time string band music à la the “New Lost City Ramblers”, a group that Dylan praises in “Biograph”.

MH: Cordelia, your father David Satterfield was a singer as well, what was Dylan thinking about him?

CSH: My father was a really great natural talented singer, a great interpreter of Ballads from the British Isles, as well as having a real feel for the Blues and Bluegrass. Dad was a poor boy from Indiana, so he grew up among black folks, and his ancestors hailed from Scotland and Ireland, like Bill Monroe, father of Bluegrass and many Appalachian folk musicians. I think Dylan knew he was the real thing. That was why he sang so good. My mom tells me that Bob loved my father’s singing, and thought he was a stellar talent. I don’t have any archives of my folks playing with Dylan, unfortunately, only a couple of recordings of my dad survived, but if you listen to them, it is clear why Dylan thought he was one of the best singers he had heard at the time.

NL: David Satterfield and I did the soundtrack for “Guns of the Trees”, an early underground black and white film in the mode of John Cassavetes, directed by Village Voice film critic Jonas Mekas. Allen Ginsberg is also on the soundtrack. We performed under the names “Sara and Gaither Wiley”. Dylan does NOT appear on the soundtrack. We suggested to Mekas that he should use Dylan but he chose to use us instead. So goes history.

MH: When was the last time you met Dylan?

NL: Our last face to face encounter with Dylan was in 1963 when he came over to the apartment where we were staying in NYC to visit. By this time he had an entourage and it was apparent that everyone wanted a piece of him.

MH: Do you still listen to his music? Any favorite albums? What do you think of this newer stuff?

NL: If I listen to him, it is usually the earlier stuff. I have not been listening to his newer stuff. I recently played fiddle on a demo where the producer wanted me to sound like Scarlet Rivera on Desire, so I listened to that album several times in the last month. I can’t say I have a favorite album but I do know when I was younger that each Dylan release was a cultural event. His lyrics were dissected for arcane meanings, we listened to each album over and over, etc. This was during the sixties when I was living collectively with a group of political activists connected with Students for a Democratic Society. When “Like a Rolling Stone” hit the mainstream airwaves, we knew that this was going to revolutionize American culture. Unfortunately, this prophecy has turned out to be only partially true.

MH: Bob Dylan and his songs are still an important part of your life?

CSH: Dylan has always been part of my life – the background music to the film of my life…as I said, my son was even named after him, and I can’t really think about my dad without also thinking about Bob Dylan. We listened to Dylan all the time growing up, certain albums remind me of my dad so much, who died in 2000.

NL: Cordelia’s father, a brilliant man and a gifted singer whom Dylan admired, died at age 59 after many years as a practicing alcoholic.

MH: Have you ever discovered anything in Dylan’s lyrics that could be a reference to your story?

CSH: I think that in “Bob Dylan’s Dream” from 1963 he wrote about those early years in Greenwich Village, when he sings: “While riding on a train going West, I fell to sleep for to take my rest, I dreamed a dream that made me sad, concerning myself and the first few friends I had.”

MH: Have you ever contacted Dylan after 1963?

NL: I have not tried to contact him. I figure I will run into him somewhere, sometime. I live in Nashville, so I figure I will run into him eventually. I have not tried to contact him because it seems like it would be a hassle.

CSH: When my dad died in November 2000, Roger Salloom, a singer/songwriter and friend of my parents, tried to get to Dylan to let him know the news. He was never able to reach him, and I am not sure if Dylan would remember my parents from 45 years earlier anyway, although as my mom says, they were very close friends at one time, and my dad’s singing and knowledge of folk and blues made a big impression on Dylan apparently, so perhaps he would remember him. Maybe your website will help him remember.

MH: Your father and Dylan were about the same age, right?

CSH: Their birthdays are exactly a month apart. Also Bob and my dad had their motorcycle accidents within a few days of each other. My dad was in the hospital with a concussion. My mom broke her shoulder.

MH: A simple twist of fate?

CSH: Dad always felt it was syncronicity…

(Interview from June 2006 by Mike Hobo for “Mike Hobo’s Legendary Bob Dylan Website”; Reprint only with permission.)

For additional information please visit these websites:

Cordelia Satterfield Hanna: http://www.socalbirth.com/resource/childbirth-education-cordelia-hanna-cheruiyot.html
Roger Salloom: http://www.rogersalloom.com
Nell Levin: http://www.tennesseeprogressreport.org

Mike Hobo: When Woody Guthrie was your patient at Greystone, it wasn’t the first time you actually saw him?

Bill Cohen: Guthrie lived in Seagate, a gated Jewish Community in Coney Island, Brooklyn/New York. He used to play on the boardwalk. I used to watch him as a kid, eating my hot dog from Nathan’s. To see him years later at the hospital, read his medical file, and to know that he had a terminal illness was a heartbreaker.

MH: In his book “Woody Guthrie: A Life” Joe Klein writes that Woody called the hospital “Gravestone”?

BC: When Dylan describes the ward that Woody was on, he was being kind. The stench of the ward was unbearable, really horrible. Feces, urine, and vomit all blended together in a locked ward of 50-75 sick people. But we had accurate medical records on every person in the hospital. Perhaps it was an imminent “gravestone” for Woody, but I can assure you that his medical care was excellent. He was not a psychiatric patient. He was a person with a horrible medical illness.

MH: And young Bob Dylan still did visit him occasionally.

BC: Young Dylan did come to see him. I do not remember Pete Seeger, Cisco, or any of his friends being there, but Dylan was. His wife Margie was a lovely woman who travelled all the way out to see him. Dylan is a fantastic human being who has done so many things in life, and never asked for credit.

MH: When did you first hear about Dylan?

BC: After I came back from Korea, I moved into the village and shared an apt. with a friend. His name is Buddy Friedman, who was later to become very famous in Comedy Club ownerships. We lived on Christopher Street, down near what is now 12th ave. Buddy knew everyone, and we spent a lot of time in the clubs and coffee houses. I met Dave Von Ronk, who was very popular and could sing the blues like no white man ever could. The Von Ronks were very good to Dylan and let him live with them on Montague Street in Brooklyn. It was a short walk over the Brooklyn Bridge into the Village. I saw him in clubs and he was still nobody, but people were beginning to recognize his talent. I think that Joan Baez was most instrumental in getting his career started.

MH: Did Dyan’s music already fascinate you in any way?

BC: I thought that he was really great, and had tremendous intelligence. A lot of the folksingers of his time were good, but didn’t have much to say. Dylan was a voracious reader and understood much of life from the bible, shakespeare, the Greek Literature, and all the newspapers he could find. I have been a fan of his from the very start in the village, and have every album he has ever published. I have seen him every time he was in NY, or NJ – I guess for over 40 years.

MH: Have you ever met Dylan in persona or talked to him during his hospital visits?

BC: I have never personally been, or introduced myself to Bob Dylan. I know about his comings and goings at Greystone, and have seen him. He was there to see Woody. It was a very disturbing sight for him. I could not intrude and tell him that I knew who he was etc. – I was a Doctor, he was a visitor. It would have been very intrusive to go over and tell him that I was a fan and admirer of his. He is very polite, but that was not the time or place. In addition, I would not have been able go discuss any aspect of the patient with him, since he was not immediate family. It was just awkward. It just wasn’t right.

MH: Now those days are long gone. After 45 years you are still a fan? What do you think of Bob Dylan today?

BC: He is a brilliant man. No matter what criticism anybody levels at him, he never responds, is never rude, or a Hollywood celeb. You will never ever hear any scandal regarding his life or behavior.

MH: Thank you very much for contributing a very valuable feature to this website and the Dylan fans out there.

BC: I loved to share this information and these thoughts with you.

Bill has also contributed to the song comments section of this site.

In addition to this interview I would like to show you this unaired clip from History Channel about Woody Guthrie at Greystone Asylum:

Read more about the interview, and view the video clip at: http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=659177n