“The Helstrom household was a wooden shack three miles southwest of Hibbing on Highway 73, to which Bob would often hitchhike out after school. Matt Helstrom didn’t approve of his daughter’s young man any more than the Zimmermans approved of Echo, but when he wasn’t around, Bob would play Mr. Helstrom’s three guitars, or listen to his Jimmie Rodgers records, and sing her songs out on their porch. In Chronicles, Dylan describes Echo’s father as ‘The kind of guy that’s always thinking that somebody’s out to take advantage of him’, whereas her mother ‘was the kindest woman—Mother Earth.’ Martha Helstrom (a name Shelton never gives, always calling her, irritatingly, ‘Mrs. Helstrom’) liked Bob, looked on the relationship with equanimity, and felt that Bob ‘seemed much more humble than his family. Both Echo and Bob seemed so sorry for the working people.’ Bob’s brother, David Zimmerman, told Shelton: ‘Bobby always went with the daughters of miners, farmers, and workers. He just found them a lot more interesting.’”
Gray, Michael. The Bob Dylan Encyclopedia. New York: Continuum, 2006, 0826469337, page 305.
Photograph courtesy of Nancy Berget.
ads