Another side of Bob’s rough and rowdy ways … how 50 year old photo told the right tale

In 1964, Bob Dylan’s Another Side was released much to the discomfort of people who had already claimed the youngsinger as their new god of traditional folk.

Little did they know how he was about to really rock their their staid beardy banjo-ey world twelve months later.

They just stuck their fingers in their ears and said young Bob  had “lost touch” and was trapped by fame.

Meanwhile, photographer Ian Berry, from the scruffy UK industrial city of Preston, Lancashire, had made his reputation by exposing the horrors of South Africa, Sharpeville in 1960. Photography was his own way of making a protest.

In 1964 – when Bob was showing his other side – Ian was schlepping around Paris and London. Then, one day, he took what he thought was a good photo of the UK’s smokey cellar club life.

Funnily enough Ian says that in the 60s he had only a sketchy vision of Dylan’s existence.

But roughly 50 years later their paths crossed in a most unexpected way.

That photograph became the cover of Bob’s stunning Rough and Rowdy Ways.

Today, Ian, who is in his 80s, admits that he still doesn’t know a lot about Dylan and his music. But he said: “A record cover for Dylan is a great compliment.”

His photo shows a well-dressed couple dancing in a club – a man leans over a jukebox behind them.

And the historic photograph has all the romance of the hedonistic Sixties.

Ian took the picture at an old underground club on Cable Street in Whitechapel in East London.

He had been commissioned to get images of black culture in England. “I was working quickly, and in very poor light, shooting away with a 35-millimetre camera,” he says. “I knew at some point I’d have to leave because I hadn’t asked permission to be there.”

After about 15 or 20 minutes , he says people started throwing beer bottles at him.

Rough and rowdy ways, so to speak!

Today, Berry’s vast archive is controlled by the Magnum Photos agency. The agency previously made a deal with the Dylan camp for Bruce Davidson’s 1959 photograph of a young couple making out in a car, which appeared on the cover of 2009’s Together Through Life.

Although Ian isn’t that familiar with Dylan’s music, his wife is a big fan. “She’s more enthusiastic than I am,” he said. “But of course I’ve regularly listened to ‘It Ain’t Me Babe’ and so forth, but they are her records rather than mine.”

Dylan is possibly the most prolific artist alive. He has made 38 studio albums, 91 singles, 40 music videos, many films, 11 books, a Nobel Prize, the American Medal of Freedom from US President Obama and has performed thousands of live concerts.

He has been the hokey, the mountain man, the rock god, the Southern preacher man, gospel performer, country god, the cowboy, the wild child, the Lothario, the drunk, the addict, the river boat captain, the general, the old blues man, the hippy, Elvis, the crooner, the punk, the eccentric… his guises are as many as his musical abilities.

The title Rough and Rowdy Ways is a homage to Jimmy Rogers.

Picture of Ian by Daniele Mattioli, cover art originally Ian Berry, Dylan pic, Pixabay

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