Music

Dylan’s 1966 tour harmonica, artwork, photos, and a Rolling Thunder Revue pillowcase are among the items.

When a baby-faced Bob Dylan arrived in Greenwich Village in the early ’60s, he crashed for a stint with Dave Van Ronk and wife Terri Thal.

“Terri, definitely not a minor character, took care of Dave’s bookings, especially out of town, and she began trying to help me out,” Dylan wrote in “Chronicles: Volume One.”

Thal became the 20-year-old’s first manager — his only manager before Albert Grossman. 

“I had to get him gigs … I needed a way to show people what he sounded like. So I took him down to the Gaslight and I cut a demo tape,” Thal explains in a video made for Boston’s RR Auction house. 

She took that tape, “hitched a ride” to Springfield, Mass., and played it for a club owner there. “He laughed at me. He said, ‘He sounds like [Ramblin’] Jack Elliot. Why should I hire him?’”

Next try: Club 47 in Cambridge. “The manager said to me, I can hire Jack Elliot— why should I hire Bob Dylan? Nobody ever heard of him.”

Eventually, Thal landed the kid a gig at Gerde’s Folk City. “And that really got him started.”

More than half a century later, that couch-surfing kid is a Nobel Prize winner, living enigma, strange genius and the subject of a biopic, you might’ve heard of it, “A Complete Unknown.”

That reel-to-reel tape — containing some of his first originals, including the poignant “He Was a Friend of Mine,” witty, Guthrie-esque “Talkin’ Bear Mountain Picnic Massacre Blues,” and heartfelt “Song to Woody” — is a relic of his roots.

Billed as “Bob Dylan’s First Demo Tape,” it’s up for auction now via Boston’s RR Auction. Current bid, as of this writing: $21,675. (Is that you, Timothée Chalamet?)

The 1/4-inch Reeves Soundcraft Plus-100 reel-to-reel audio tape — recorded at the Gaslight on Sept. 6, 1961 — boasts six tracks total. The other tracks are an original, “Old Man,” and Dylan’s version of the traditional “Pretty Polly,” and Woody Guthrie’s “Car, Car.”

From what you can hear on RR’s posted video, the tracks are remarkably clear. Notably, Dylan sings the first line of “Song to Woody” — “Hey hey Woody Guthrie I wrote you a song” — with the “Guthrie” missing. Even hardcore Dylan fans might not know that he once covered “Car, Car.”

And it’s just one among a slew of Dylan-obilia included in the Boston auction. The “Bob Dylan and Bob Neuwirth Auction” closes March 12 at 7:30 p.m.

Also for sale: a Hohner Marine Band harmonica, key of G, that Dylan used (pretty hard, from the looks of it) during one of the most infamous Dylan eras: 1966. Dylan gave the harmonica to late rock photographer Barry Feinstein, who took some iconic Bob shots on that tour. 

While “A Complete Unknown” moves the “Judas!” shout to Newport Folk, the famous heckle actually came on May 17, 1966 at the Free Trade Hall, Manchester, England (eventually known as the “Royal Albert Hall” concert due to an error by a bootlegger). After the heckle, Dylan told his band to “play it f—n’ loud,” before blasting “Like a Rolling Stone.”

“It’s probably one of the only artifacts from the May 1966 tour that’s ever been offered,” says Bobby Livingston, executive vice president at RR Auction, in an auction video. 

Current bid on the talisman: $8,784.

Much of the Dylan-obilia here hails from Thal, Feinstein’s estate, and from the collection of late Bob Neuwirth. 

A figure in the early Cambridge folk scene, Neuwirth — portrayed by Will Harrison in “A Complete Unknown” — wore many hats, including a stint as Dylan’s tour manager, collaborator, and bandmate.

Neuwirth arrived in Boston in 1959 to attend the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, but eventually ended up a member of Dylan’s inner-circle featured in D.A. Pennebaker’s documentary “Don’t Look Back,” and the 1975 Rolling Thunder Revue tour.

Some Neuwirth gems up for auction include:

Neuwirth’s 1975 Martin D-41 acoustic guitar that he used on the Rolling Thunder Revue. It was gifted to him by Dylan for the tour, per RR’s site. 

Neuwirth’s stage-worn Nudie suit from 1976’s “Night of the Hurricane II” benefit concert at the Houston Astrodome. Also purchased for him by Bob Dylan. (Zimmy’s pretty generous, apparently.)

A Rolling Thunder Revue pillowcase. (This tour — which included Dylan’s Oct. 31, 1975 show in Plymouth, Mass., still heralded as one of his all-time best — had it all, apparently. There’s Rolling Thunder Revue bath towel in the Joan Baez exhibit right now at the Folk Americana Roots Hall of Fame.)

Among many iconic photos, an original semi-glossy 14 x 11 silver gelatin photograph of Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash backstage at Rutgers University — a.k.a. the famous photo where Dylan looks like he’s putting a spell on us. 

An original Bob Dylan mixed media painting of a topless red-headed woman, “Cassandra.” It’s described on RR’s site as “created in 2008 as part of his celebrated ‘Drawn Blank Series,’ accomplished in gouache and mixed media on 24 x 30 artist paper, signed at the bottom in paint by Dylan. Dylan’s vivid artwork portrays the topless, ample-bosomed, red-haired ‘Cassandra’ against a bright purple background.”

Dylan’s handwritten and signed lyrics for “All Along the Watchtower.” Per description: One page, 8.25 x 11.75, written in black ink and signed neatly at the conclusion, “Bob Dylan, 2013.”

And, from Thal’s collection, a “Dylan-signed Coloring Book Page with Doodles dating to circa 1961. Dylan signed the page: “All mine love, Bob Dylan.” The coloring page shows a boy viewing a rocket ship. Dylan gives him a beanie, cigarette, beard and glasses. He writes: ”To my forever fluent floored flora Terry, This day now 1st of August.”

According to RR’s description, this piece dates to Thal and Van Ronk’s wedding period. “Dylan embellished this page during a typical afternoon visit with then-girlfriend Suze Rotolo — leisurely time spent at the Thal-Van Ronk apartment, listening to records, playing penny-ante poker, eating dinner, and socializing.”

Lauren Daley is a freelance culture writer and regular Boston.com contributor. She can be reached at [email protected]. She tweets @laurendaley1, and Instagrams at @laurendaley1. Read more stories on Facebook here.

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