"Slow Train Coming" (Bob Dylan)
Not one of my favorite Dylan albums, in fact, quite near the bottom of the heap, but an interesting tale nonetheless.
The concept was very concrete as he expressed it to me. As he explained it, this album was to be Dylan’s exploration of Christian ideas through his words and music. I recall being amazed to hear this. The graphic style was meant to have an engraved look - which pen and ink (my specialty) certainly mimics. Dylan’s concepts for the illustration were clear - he requested locomotive train coming down tracks that were being laid by a crew, and there was to be a man in the foreground holding a pick-ax. The axe was meant to be a symbol of the Cross. In my original sketch, I rendered the ax as it would naturally be, but I recall my friend insisting that I extend the top of the ax so that it more resembled a cross. I thought that was too obvious and argued for a more subtle approach, but in the end the ax was extended. I did, in fact, finish the rendering that afternoon and after my friend took the piece, I never saw it again. I never met with anyone face to face at the record company, nor did I meet with Dylan.
My friend delivered the illustration to Columbia Records, and I believe it was about a week later that I heard back from him that Dylan had seen it – and he liked it! He wanted to use it as it was, however the record company wanted to give it another go, and I heard they used their own team and presented Dylan with new pieces in a style quite similar to mine (!!). He rejected them, and so, in the end, my piece was the one went to press, with no changes from my original.
Years later, my parents were sitting on the deck of their house in Malibu, and a man was walking up the beach alone. My father recognized him as Bob Dylan. My mother (who is a character) waved him down. He actually came up to their house and she announced herself as “the mom of the artist who illustrated Slow Train Coming”. She had a copy of the art on the wall, and he came in to see. She said he was “modest and interesting”.
[Click to read more of The Rock and Roll Report » Cover Story - Bob Dylan’s “Slow Train Coming”, with artwork by Catherine Kanner]
Sometimes being in the right time/place is more important than anything else.
