Ranger's Command from Gooding Apartement or Gerdes

[BobTGuevara]

Well, I hade some bigger discussion with a fellow trader while back about Dylan's recording of Ranger's Command. At the end, we were just unable to get out the definitely venue. I'll post here the e-mail, I sent him, going through all the sources once again:

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Hi Rob,

It's pretty tricky about Rangers Command.
Let's list all the facts and sources once again:

What we know from the recording itself is, that Ranger's Command is from a different recording than the Cynthia Gooding Apartment Tape, 'cause Long Time Man Feel Bad is cut after nearly two minutes before Bob stopped playing. Also the quality of Rangers Command is different (IMO better). I'd even say that the quality is very similar to the one of the two Gerdes Folk City '61 Songs (Frisco Bay Blues and Great Devide).

That would let us guess, that Rangers Command is really from Gerdes Folk City.

But there's no audience applause after it, though there is some on the Gerdes '61 tape. Instead if it, there's after Bob finished playing Rangers Command some low background talking of at least one male voice, then Bob mumbles something and then a female voice says "One of ... one of Woody Guthrie's songs". This voice is pretty similar to Cynthia Goodings voice.

That would let us guess again that Rangers Command is though from the Cynthia Gooding Apartement Tape.

Now we take the sources to help:

home.att.net/~youngbutdailygrowing/sets/1961/610926.02.html says that Ranger's Command is from the Appartement Tape, not from Gerdes Folk City.

home.att.net/~youngbutdailygrowing/sets/1961/610929.02.html says that a Rangers Command from Gerdes Folk City DOES circulate. Together with the scource above we can also say that IF our Rangers Command is from Gerdes Folk City, then probably NOT from the same date as Frisco Bay Blues and Grate Devide.

home.att.net/~youngbutdailygrowing/sets/1962/620213.01.html says clearly that Rangers Command is NOT from the Appartement Tape.

freelib.org/dylan/61-09-29.html says that Rangers Command is probably not from Gerdes Folk City and affirm that the voice is probably from Cynthia Gooding. This source says that Rangers Command is probably even from the Gooding Radio Show, but lists at its date October 1962, though there was no Gooding Radio Show with Bob.

freelib.org/dylan/62-02.html doesn't list Rangers Command and affirm that Long Time Man Feel Bad is cut.

www.bjorner.com/DSN00020%201961.htm#DSN00080 doesn't mention Rangers Command.

www.bjorner.com/DSN00150%201962.htm#DSN00170 lists Rangers Command as being on the Appartment Tape.

perso.wanadoo.fr/bobdylan/DYLAN%202002/songs/R/RANGER'S%20COMMAND.htm lists it on both, at Gerdes Folk City and on the Appartement Tape.

www.geocities.com/aballadofathinman/session1961.html (scroll down to Sept - Gerde's Folk City, New York, N.Y.) also says that Rangers Command from Gerdes Folk City circulates.

www.geocities.com/aballadofathinman/session1962.html (scroll down to Feb. - Cynthia Gooding's apartement, New York, N.Y) doesn't list Rangers Command on the Apartement Tape.

That makes:
3 votes for the Apartement Tape
3 votes against the Apartement Tape
3 votes for Gerdes Folk City (2 votes for a circulating version)
3 votes against Gedes Folk City
1 vote for Cynthia Goodings Radio Show

Left possbilytis I can think of:

1. Rangers Command was recorded at Cynthia Gooding's apartemet, but not thogether with the rest of the tape. That can be just later the day or sometime else. To explain the different quality, it could be recorded with a different recorder, but it's not too realistic, that there was more than one recorder at Gooding's place.

2. Rangers Command was recorded at Gerdes Folk City, but for some reason there was no applause. That could be for example, because he played it as somekinda soundcheck before the actual performance. If it's really Gooding's voice at the end, it could be a) that she was there or b) that the copy of the recording went once through her hands and she recorded for some reason that comment over it.

3. Rangers Command is from the Radio Show recording, but was cut out (according to home.att.net/~youngbutdailygrowing/sets/1962/620200.01.html) there ARE edits. Or it's even from another Radio Show from October 1962. But for this third possibility I'm not able to explain the background-talking, what would be very strange on a radio-show recording exept it was somekinda soundcheck before the Radio Show too.


You might be able to explain the whole thing totally differet too. As long as not more recordings or sources turn up, it's just not possible to allocate Rangers Command definitely.

[...]

Greetings, Bob
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Now, I'd be very interested what do you guys think about it and whether one of you knows something more (please don't just post "this is wrong" or "it's from there and there" without any source/prove/ect.).


PS.: This probably won't be the only discussion like this I'll start about early recordings. I think this is the most tricky one though.

[William J. Clinton]

"Ranger's Command" is almost certainly from Gerdes.

It's not clear why the confusion began about this recording -- the documentation on it was clear -- but once the fragment of the Gerdes tape was attached to the apartment tape, the misattribution became common. I even bought into it, following Dundas' sourcing of the track rather than following my own judgment on the issue, and didn't remember that I'd done it until recently. (The error will be corrected in the next Field Recordings Guide update, which I hope to upload over the (US) holiday weekend.)

Credit for the correct sourcing of the "Ranger's Command" recording goes to George Rothe, who posted the information about it (and other tapes) on rmd in 1992 (!); unfortunately, rmd wasn't seachable that far back until fairly recently, and lots of misinformation about Gooding's tapes has sprung up. Here's the relevant segment.

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In the early spring of 1979 I was working for a book publisher in New York City (who, incidentally rejected two of Pickering's manuscripts. But that's another story!). One of my coworkers was attending an exhibition for an artist friend and was introduced to
Cynthia Gooding, also a friend of the artist. Through conversation she mentioned her involvement with Dylan in his early days. My coworker brought me into the conversation as 'a Dylanologist' he knew. (I shudder at the term) Ms. Gooding was intrigued. She had always wanted to meet 'one of those.' I called her the next week and she invited me to her upper east side apartment. She told me she had a few things of Dylan that I might enjoy listening to. I remember thinking it would be very unlikely she had anything new, but I took along a few blank cassettes and a portable cassette
player just in case. I also took the latest Sandy Gant discography for her to review.

Well, I got to the apartment and 'dumbstruck' is the only way to describe what I saw. Cynthia Gooding is a tall woman, easily six feet tall, good looking with a good figure and greying hair. She had a small bookshelf unit filled with reel-to-reel tapes. The spines of the tape boxes read like a who's who of Bleeker Street.
Names like Ochs, Paxton, Van Ronk, and of course Dylan stood lined up together. I gave her the discography. She gave me a bottle of red wine to open. After glancing at the first few pages, she said, "You're missing so much from the early days." She then pulled the first Dylan box from the shelf. She started to play it on her Sony reel-to-reel and realized it was all backwards. She said something about "not having played the tapes for years and years", and that
this particular tape was recorded for broadcast on a show she used to do for WBAI in the early 60's. I rewound the tape so it would play properly. By the opening bars I knew I had never heard this song before. I asked her if she would allow me to make a copy of the tape. She hesitated and told me of the bad experience her friends (the McKenzies) had had with a Dylan biographer (Scaduto) and that she would only allow me to copy the tapes if "Bobby or his office said it was alright." I knew my chances were less than slim
so I didn't pursue the topic. Instead I took out a pad of paper, a sharp pencil, sat forward, balanced my glass and listened closely for the next hour or so. This is what I heard:

GERDE'S FOLK CITY

RANGER'S COMMAND
SAN FRANCISCO BAY BLUES (with JACK ELLIOTT)
THE GREAT DIVIDE

SEE THAT MY GRAVE IS KEPT CLEAN
BRAZO'S RIVER
(talk about the New York Times review 9/61)
DINK'S SONG
('short story')
HE WAS A FRIEND OF MINE

PRETTY BOY FLOYD (with JIM KWESKIN)
LITTLE GIRL (BLACK GIRL) (with JIM KWESKIN) (fragment)
SALLY GAL

(The double spaces denote each side of tape.)

I suppose the talk about the Times review is what dates this tape. I was amazed at the quality of the sound. The tape of Ranger's Command, now in circulation, is so muddled and a far cry from the
quality I heard that night. I don't remember what the 'short story' was...though at the time I swore I would never forget!

We went to dinner at a coffee shop across the street from her apartment. I treated her to a cheeseburger deluxe. All through the meal she asked me what she should do with the tapes. Having no expertise at negotiating I thought it safer to stay away from the
subject. I also thought that Sandy Gant would be much more effective at procuring this find. I got the impression she wanted me to make a 'bid' on the tapes. My bank account was emptier than my head.

We returned to her apartment, opened a second bottle of red wine, sat down and listened:

GOODING APARTMENT

BALLAD OF DONALD WHITE
(talk about Gibson guitar)
WITCHITA
ACNE, A TEENAGER IN LOVE (duet with someone else)
ROCKS AND GRAVEL
LONG TIME MAN (fragment)

Ms. Gooding did not remember who was singing on the duet. I was a little disappointed at the quality of the apartment tape. While it was clear, it bore no comparison to the Folk City performances we
heard earlier. She told me of how Dylan sang the songs from the apartment tape to her young daughter and he would frequently sing to her when he visited.

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There's more, at

www.google.com/groups?q=insubject:Gooding+insubject:Tapes&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&selm=1992Sep03.165138.8907%40utoday.com&rnum=1

I thought I'd seen somebody repost this recently, but it didn't show up in a Google search. Perhaps my memory is playing tricks, perhaps it was on one of the Dylantree boards.

Anyway, I hope this settles the question.

Bill

"I am William J. Clinton, and I approve this message."#nosmileys

[BobTGuevara]

Thanks a lot, Bill, though I knew the Rothe letter already (available at home.att.net/~youngbutdailygrowing/sources/grothe.letter.html too, from where I took many information for the writing above).

I'm still not sure (though I personally tend to believe on Gerdes too), 'cause the missing applause and instead the female voice saying "One of ... one of Woody Guthrie's songs".
Like written above, this is theoretiaccly explainable, but still strange, IMO.

The most probably thing is, I think, that Ranger's Command IS from Gerdes, but from another date than the two other tracks (Frisco Blues and Great Devide probably from Sept. 26 and Ranger's Command probably from Sept. 29).