Columnist Joe Delaney: Tracing Dylan’s rock roots from Zimmerman days

Joe Delaney

Thursday, Aug. 23, 2001 | 8:23 a.m.

Joe Delaney's column appears on Thursdays and Fridays. Reach him at 259-4066 or joe@lasvegassun.com

Bob Dylan performs at the Hard Rock hotel at 8 p.m. on Friday ... Receiving the Kennedy Center honors several years ago seems to have added new momentum to an already legendary career ... Having him in Las Vegas begets a story, one worth retelling.

The late John Hammond was one of the great visionaries in the popular and jazz recording industry, with Columbia Records, now Sony. Hammond produced records with the great Bessie Smith; Billie Holiday was a Hammond discovery ... He was at the Apollo Theater when Ella Fitzgerald, then a teenager, won an amateur contest ... The next morning three cars started out to be the first to try and adopt Fitzgerald from an orphanage in New Jersey ... Hammond's car was the second to arrive.

Drummer Chick Webb who led the orchestra in New York City's Savoy Ballroom arrived there first and eventually adopted Fitzgerald, who recorded with Webb's orchestra for Decca, now MCA, including her career launcher, "A-Tisket, A-Tasket" ... When Webb died in 1939 Fitzgerald led the orchestra for a few years before becoming a concert artist, a jazz great.

Hammond, who arrived there second, did get to record Fitzgerald first, with his brother-in-law Benny Goodman's orchestra singing "Good Night My Love" ... Harry Mills of the Mills Brothers was driving the third car, arrived third ... He later joked that Fitzgerald could have been a Mills Sister.

It was Hammond who put Goodman with the conductor-arranger Fletcher Henderson and was a factor in the big-band era that started in the mid-1930s ... Hammond was the first to back the Count Basie Orchestra, brought Basie to 52nd Street in New York, and paid for a CBS radio-network wire for a national broadcast ... But that is another story.

Hammond put together Roy Eldridge, singer Anita O'Day and the Gene Krupa Orchestra for a series of hit recordings that included "Let Me Off Uptown" ... I was in New York City and was late for a lunch date with Hammond and he was trying to locate me to sit in on an audition, two new artists, a girl from Detroit and a boy from Minnesota.

Aretha Franklin was the girl, there with her preacher father ... They had the first 15 minutes ... Bobby Zimmerman from Hibbing, Minn., decided that day he would take the name Bob Dylan ... Dylan stayed on with Hammond at Columbia ... The label was not that impressed with Franklin and Hammond placed her with the Atlantic label ... I liked her, did not care for him.

George Benson and Bruce Springsteen were Hammond's final contributions ... Springsteen hit with the first release then had quite a dry spell during which time industry critics referred to him as "Hammond's folly" ... The rest is history, a vindication for my friend ... You should read his book, "John Hammond On Record," published by Ridge Press-Summit Books.

Star-policy rundown

It's Bill Acosta (Flamingo Las Vegas); David Brenner, 8 p.m., Amazing Johnathan, 10 p.m. (Golden Nugget); Dylan, Friday (Hard Rock); Mac King, afternoons, Clint Holmes evenings (Harrah's); Sheena Easton and Olivia Newton-John in separate theaters (LV Hilton); Blue Man Group (Luxor); and Rodney Dangerfield, plus Rick Springfield in "EFX Alive" (MGM Grand).

Plus Siegfried & Roy and Danny Gans in separate theaters (Mirage); Lance Burton (Monte Carlo); Rita Rudner (New York-New York); Gordon Lightfoot (Orleans); Scintas (Rio); Steve Wyrick (Sahara); Gladys Knight (Sam's Town); Wayne Newton (Stardust); Loverboy (Suncoast); Charley Pride (Texas Station); Rick Thomas (Tropicana); and Melinda, First Lady of Magic (Venetian).

Back to school

Next Tuesday we start our 29th year teaching a three-credit course in hotel entertainment at UNLV's William F. Harrah College of Hotel Administration ... The late Leo Lewis, one of the co-founders of the hotel school, suggested us as a possibility to create a course in hotel entertainment ... It was then Dean Jerry Vallen who asked us if there could be such a course.

Thanks to the efforts of UNLV's Tourism and Convention Administration Chair Patti Shock, there are a number of courses on various aspects of the hotel entertainment field enabling students to concentrate in this area ... We're especially proud of two former students: David Saxe, brother of and producer for Melinda, First Lady of Magic, and Lu Ann Terrell, an expert at packaging shows and bus tours.

Children will be going back to school as well ... Always drive carefully, but be even more observant in school zones ... See you Friday.