WHY CLAUDIA CRASHED TRYING TO LEVY A ‘TAX’ ON BOB’S LIFETIME OF WORK?

Claudia Levy, the once-blonde bombshell who tried to blow a hole in Dylan’s sale of his songs, has earned quite a bit of celebrity off him over the years.

She was pictured at the launch of Scorese’s bleary Rolling Thunder fantasy film, for instance.

She also did an interview with Ray Padgett in Flagging Down the Double E’s.

It read, in parts, like a mash-up of Tangled Up in Blue and Highlands … “I first met Jacques in the grocery store. I don’t know why I gave him my phone number.

“I met Bob in the Dante Café, where I was working as a waitress … I said, “You look very familiar to me. Are you a dancer?” … I could see he was writing and it looked to me like he writing poetry or something … so I said, “Oh, are you a poet”? He said, “Well, I like to write.”

She drops names like fame bombs too… Allen Ginsberg, Jack Elliott, Abbie Hoffman, Joan Baez, the list goes on. And it’s all absolute fact I’m sure, just as she admits ‘The thing is, I was basically quite extraneous. I just watched everybody more than anything. I was having the time of my life’.

And what a fabulous time it all was for Claudia, just as it would have been for anybody who got the chance to jump on Bob’s almost psychedelic bus and dance and pose and sing and create theatre and film and music and poetry along with some of the most avant-garde names of the mid-mad 1970s.

I know many people disagree with me, but I found Rolling Thunder by Scorsese – one of my favourite film-makers – a bit misleading to say the least. People say I didn’t get the joke… and maybe I didn’t.

But the film does not really tell you what it was like for people like Claudia and the crew, hangers-on and ‘helpers’. The footage for instance is attributed to a rather angry film-maker who in reality is Martin Von Haselberg, husband of Bette Midler.

And, some say, Martin was actually playing the part of Jacques Levy whose influence on the tour was massive and included filming!

Then there is, of course, a politician who turns out to be the actor Michael Murphy.

Then Sharon Stone claims to have burst into tears when she realised that Bob’s Just Like a Woman was not based on her.

All I can see is that these non-people, misleading characters and bitter-sweet fantasies were ham-fisted attempts to capture Dylan’s mystical use of masks and white faces on this strange-days tour.

But what masked the real reason for Claudia to go after seven million of Bob’s $300m back catalogue? Was it the mask of greed? Opportunism? Or a genuine belief that Jacque’s estate was owed that money?

I’m sure it has to be the last one.

However, In January of this year, Dylan lawyer, Orin Snyder, called the Levy lawsuit ‘a sad attempt to unfairly profit off of the recent catalogue sale’.

“The plaintiffs have been paid everything they are owed,” Snyder said. “We are confident that we will prevail. And when we do, we will hold plaintiffs and their counsel responsible for bringing this meritless case.”

It is certainly true that when Bob was having writer’s block in the 70s he enlisted Jacques to help out. Until then Jacques had mainly been famous for directing the New York production of Oh! Calcutta! British drama critic Kenneth Tynan’s sex-mad review of everything a bit below the belt, so to speak.

Jacques had done the rounds and certainly wasn’t short of money. He’d earned a few million for sure.

He died in 2004 and an obituary in the UK Guardian newspaper had this to say, “much of Desire’s success lay in the interplay between Dylan and Levy and since then Dylan and his musicians have often reworked Levy’s contribution. In 1975, Levy effectively stage-managed Dylan’s Rolling Thunder Revue.”

But a few days ago the desire for a bit more dosh floundered: A judge in New York ruled in Bob’s favour.

Judge Barry Ostrager of the Supreme Court said the agreement drafted between Dylan and Levy in 1975 made it clear that he was not a participant in ownership of the material, and that his profit participation would consist of a share of songwriting royalties.

The court noted that Levy’s estate has continued to receive royalties from the co-written songs, before and after Dylan’s catalogue sale with no ownership conferred.

Ostrager quoted from the ’75 agreement, which describes Levy as an “employee-for-hire” as a lyricist — noting that the word “employee” was used for Levy “approximately 84 times” in the contract.

“We’re pleased with the decision,” Dylan’s attorney, Orin Snyder, said. “As we said when the case was filed, this lawsuit was a sad attempt to profit off the recent catalogue sale. We’re glad it’s now over.”

And so, what was a grand collaboration – between one of the world’s greatest artists and one of not such grand reputation but certainly of dignity, style and ability – has been tarnished by unnecessary exposure to the iron will and steel of America’s judicial system.

And a woman who certainly had quite a lot has been shown in no uncertain terms that she couldn’t have it all.

Or even a $7 part of it…

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