“A Complete Unknown” — the movie about the early career of Bob Dylan, which has earned great reviews even from the most I-probably-won’t-be-impressed audiences who remember those days — shines a light on (among many other things) the singer’s on-again, off-again professional and romantic relationships with Joan Baez.
In 2025 the view is important, but removed: some dramatic license has been taken by the screenwriters and filmmakers, then reinterpreted by actors Timothée Chalamet and Monica Barbaro.
But Eric von Schmidt had an up-close-and-personal view of the duo’s intense, rocky dynamics.
He is the Staples High School graduate (and son of famed painter/ illustrator Harold von Schmidt) who followed a stint in the Army with a Fulbright scholarship to study art in Florence.
He was also a musician. In 1957 von Schmidt moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts, and fell in with the coffeehouse scene. He influenced Tom Rush, then Dylan. According to Wikipedia, he and von Schmidt “traded harmonica licks, drank red wine and played croquet.”
Eric von Schmidt, in his folk days.
Dylan gave von Schmidt a shout-out on his first album, for teaching him “Baby, Let Me Follow You Down.”
His own album — “The Folk Blues of Eric von Schmidt” — appears on the cover of Dylan’s LP “Bringing it All Back Home.”
Eric von Schmidt’s album (red and blue cover) is at the center of the table, just to the left of Bob Dylan’s hands.
The other day, Harvey Brooks posted this on Facebook:
It’s a poster from 1965. Created by (of course) Eric von Schmidt.
For many years, Harvey Brooks lived on Compo Road North — right around the corner from von Schmidt’s Evergreen Avenue home and studio.
Brooks, meanwhile, has his own history with Bob Dylan.
A noted bass guitarist, he was part of Dylan’s backing band on “Highway 61 Revisited” — the rock-infused album that changed Dylan (and music history) forever (and provides one of the key plot points in “A Complete Unknown”).
Other musicians at that session (and portrayed in the film) include guitarist Michael Bloomfield and organist Al Kooper.
Brooks was also part of Dylan’s early group that played at Forest Hills and the Hollywood Bowl in 1965. “Band” members there were Robbie Robertson and Levon Helm.
Harvey Brooks posted this photo, from Forest Hills Stadium on August 28, 1965, on social media. He’s on the left, with Bob Dylan and Robbie Robertson.
Eric von Schmidt died in 2007, after tragically losing his larynx to cancer.
(His art lives on. His magnificent “Birth of the Blues” — 7 works, showing the broad scope of American music, including jazz and folk — hangs in the auditorium foyer of Staples High School.)
Harvey Brooks now lives in Israel with his wife, longtime Westporter Bonnie Behar Brooks.
As for Bob Dylan and Joan Baez: Both are still going strong, in their mid-80s.
How does it feel …
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