Bob Dylan Was ‘Kicked Out’ of Denver for Theft After a Disastrous Stay
Before Bob Dylan settled in New York to establish himself as a musician, he traveled to Denver. He’d heard about the thriving folk scene in the city and wanted a chance to make a name for himself. He didn’t have nearly as much success here as he did in Greenwich Village, though. He found audiences unwilling to listen to him, and he struggled to make money. Finally, he resorted to theft, which landed him in trouble.
Bob Dylan traveled to Denver after hearing about the city’s folk scene
In the summer of 1960, Dylan hitchhiked from Minnesota to Denver, Colorado. A friend told him the city had a strong music scene, so Dylan traveled west. His friend told him to look out for a man named Walt Conley, a singer and manager of a local club.
Conley wasn’t impressed with Dylan when they met. Per Westword, he described him as “looking like a character out of The Grapes of Wrath.” Still, he allowed Dylan to sleep on his floor while Tommy Smothers, one-half of the Smothers Brothers, slept on the couch.
Dylan began to share the bill with the Smothers Brothers, but the gig was short-lived. The audience didn’t like Dylan’s unpolished performances, and the comedy duo didn’t like that he was a “faux hobo.” Soon, Conley referred him to a different club in nearby Center City, but his reception was similar. He quickly returned to Denver, broke, and this time, Conley wouldn’t let him stay in his house.
Bob Dylan had to leave Denver after stealing from a friend
Dylan began staying at a hotel next to the Exodus, a popular folk club. Here, he met Dave Hamil, a banjo player, and Jesse Fuller, a blues guitarist. He began spending time with the two musicians, but their budding friendship came to an awkward end.
Hamil accused Dylan of stealing records from the home he shared with Conley. Because many of the records Dylan took were not to his taste, Hamil believed he intended to sell them. He and Conley confronted Dylan at his hotel room, but he denied the accusations. When they called the police, though, they found the records scattered in the alleyway outside. It appeared that Dylan had flung them out the window in a panic.
Conley did not press charges, but Dylan left Denver shortly thereafter.
“I was kicked out of Denver for robbing a cat’s house,” he later told a friend, per the book The Ballad of Bob Dylan: A Portrait by Daniel Mark Epstein.
He ultimately found success in New York
Though he had hope for the folk scene in Denver, Dylan ultimately found success in New York. Dylan played in a number of venues around Greenwich Village and he finally found an audience who appreciated him.
“New York City, the city that would come to shape my destiny,” he wrote in his book Chronicles: Volume One. “Modern Gomorrah. I was at the initiation point of square one but in no sense a neophyte. When I arrived, it was dead-on winter. The cold was brutal and every artery of the city was snowpacked, but I’d started out from the frostbitten North Country, a little corner of the earth where the dark frozen woods and icy roads didn’t faze me. I could transcend the limitations.”
