Transcripts

BOB KELLIHER: Hibbing hasn't changed much since Bob Dylan left town. Sure, newer storefronts and factories give the town a slightly different look from the 1950s, but the same ornate brick high school building where the young Robert Zimmerman attended sophomore Latin club meetings still fills daily with students just blocks from downtown. The piano he once broke in the school auditorium was fixed and is still played. And the downtown music store where Dylan bought his first guitar more than 40 years ago is still a downtown music store.

JERRY ERICKSON: Well, I went to school with Bob. In fact, we were even on the same bowling team in high school.

BOB KELLIHER: Jerry Erickson now owns the store. Erickson's firmly established in his middle ages with a slim build, but just a memory of his youthful hairline. In interviews, Dylan has recalled playing polka to the hometown crowds, but Erickson remembers Dylan for rock and roll.

JERRY ERICKSON: He was a Little Richard fan and stuff like that. He didn't really get into the music he does today until he went down to the U.

BOB DYLAN: (SINGING) May God bless and keep you always. May your wishes all come. Do always do for others and let others do for you.

BOB KELLIHER: Hibbing's been slow to embrace its prodigal son. He was a rebel at a time and place where conformity was generally enforced. There's no Bob Dylan statue or street here, not even a mention on the welcome sign at the edge of town, but Dylan is beginning to pop up here and there.

NANCY RIESGRAF: A picture of his mom and dad. This is a photograph of him. I think it's in the sixth grade. They had a little band.

BOB KELLIHER: Nancy Riesgraf points among the dozens of posters and pictures in the library's Dylan Room. Visitors can browse through biographies, compact disks and photos spotlighting the life and career of Bob Dylan. A single copy of the 1959 Hematite, the school's yearbook with Dylan's senior picture is kept under lock and key. Riesgraf says visitors from around the world show up to see the library's display to visit the school or gaze at his boyhood home.

NANCY RIESGRAF: I think it surprises people, especially when you're willing to come to Hibbing when there really isn't a whole lot here in his memory. I think people are surprised that they're willing to travel here for so little.

BOB KELLIHER: Hibbing is Mecca for Pam and Brian Clark, longtime fans from Warrington in the North of England. The Clarks say they have seen Dylan in concert dozens of times, but never in the United States.

BRIAN CLARK: But I've always wanted to see him in the United States. And when I saw Duluth on the tour list, I thought, that's the place.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

PAM CLARK: I wouldn't have missed it for the world. I mean, I love going. I really do appreciate it all. I've sat at concerts and cried. It just gets you.

BOB DYLAN: (SINGING) Guilty undertaker sighs. The lonesome organ grinder cries. The silver saxophones say I should refuse you.

LINDA STROBACH: They didn't know that Bob Dylan was from Hibbing, but I was just really shocked that people were kind of quiet. They didn't really push it.

BOB KELLIHER: Linda Strobach manages Zimmy's, an upscale restaurant and bar dedicated to Bob Dylan. Inside, vintage Dylan photographs and concert posters spot the walls. Dylan music flows from the jukebox. Strobach says when she moved here a decade ago, she was surprised how little Hibbing had done to mark the home of the town's most famous of famous sons. More surprising, she says, may have been the antagonism some felt towards Robert Zimmerman, an antagonism many believed was returned by the star who has talked in terms of escaping the town and its iron mines.

Dylan detractors, she says, included town elders who didn't like Dylan's teenage attitude, motorcycle or music. And in time, some classmates felt ignored by their one-time friend.

LINDA STROBACH: Boy, the other 99% of the population has just had a great time with his career, and there's so many people that have been so supportive and elated about what he's done in the music industry. So it's such a small percentage. We hate to even bring it up here in Hibbing. It seems so ridiculous that that's been fueled so many years and really unjustifiably.

BOB DYLAN: (SINGING) Then you better start swimming or you'll sink like a stone. The times they are a changing.

BOB KELLIHER: Times have changed in Hibbing. The Conservative leaders of the '40s and '50s are long retired or gone. Yesterday's baby-boomers are today's civic leaders and business people, and many of them will be in Duluth tonight to see at last their hometown hero, Bob Dylan in concert. In Duluth, I'm Bob Kelliher, Minnesota Public Radio.