Bob has always had a great passion for engines, cars, but above all motorcycles.
Dylan's chrash it’s the most analyzed motorcycle crash in pop-culture history, but details have been as hard to pin down.
Or maybe the crash was a tall tale. Bob Dylan tumbled from a Triumph motorcycle on a sunny Friday morning on July 29, 1966.
Looking over Robbie Robertson's memoirs of The Band circa 1967 while recording at Big Pink in the West Saugerties not far from Dylan's home we get a different impression of Bob's health. Bob is driving the blue 1964 Ford station wagon. He'd stopped wearing a neck brace and was able to turn his head. He was able to record music and play guitar so nerve damage was minimal or non existent. A minor neck fracture can heal in 6 to 8 weeks so it seems Bob's neck injuries were correctable and not as drastic as the press made it seem. It suggests strongly Bob used the accident to stop the touring abuse and regain control of his career. No one can fault him for that.
In his 2004 autobiography, Chronicles: Volume One, Dylan wrote, "“I had been in a motorcycle accident and I’d been hurt, but I recovered. Truth was that I wanted to get out of the rat race. Having children changed my life and segregated me from just about everybody and everything that was going on. Outside of my family, nothing held any real interest for me and I was seeing everything through different glasses.” And that's about as close to an official account of the crash we have.
Dylan had mystery surrounds the motorbike accident. No ambulance was called, he didn’t visit a hospital, and there is no police record of the accident.
His first wife was driving behind him and it is said he was taken to a nearby home where he was tended to by a doctor.
Rumours abounded. Was it a hoax? An excuse to take time off? Had the injuries been more serious than reported? Was Dylan secretly desperately incapacitated? Maybe permanently? Or was it a cover up to conceal a drugs scandal?
WHEN SOMETHING’S NOT RIGHT, IT’S WRONG
"The first expensive thing I bought with my first big paycheck was a baby blue 1966 Ford Mustang convertible. But a guy who worked for me rolled it down a hill in Woodstock and it smashed into a truck. I got 25 bucks for it."
"So the best kinds of songs you can write are in motel rooms and cars . . . places which are all temporary. ‘Cause you’re forced to do it. Rather, it lets you go into it."
Dylan had married Lownds, a former Playboy bunny and model in November 1965. A quiet, reserved type with no interest in celebrity or the trappings of fame, Sara presented a chance for calm domesticity, the absolute opposite of anything Dylan had so far known in his adult life.
The pair were both in relationships when they met in 1964; Sara married, Dylan tied to folk singer Joan Baez. In his autobiography, he wrote that when he first saw folk singer Baez on television, “I couldn’t stop looking at her, didn’t want to blink.” When they actually met in the early 1960s she became a huge supporter, insisting they duet onstage,
As he went on to eclipse Baez in terms of career stature, Dylan did not return the favour. in his own way, apologise, saying he felt “very bad” about how the relationship with “Joanie” ended.
