Traveling exhibit unearths Dylan's roots

Sheehy and her staff also did extensive digging in Dinkytown, the Minneapolis campus neighborhood that was Dylan's haunt after he left Hibbing, but came up with little beyond a 1960 tape, recorded in someone's apartment, and a chair from the 10 O'Clock Scholar, a coffeehouse where Dylan and other local folk pioneers, such as John Koerner and Tony Glover, performed.

Sheehy's staff has prepared a map of Dinkytown, locating key Dylan spots such as Gray's Campus Drug (now the Loring Pasta Bar), where he lived in an upstairs apartment. (The exhibit has a similar map of New York's Greenwich Village, showing the clubs in which Dylan sang.)

Sheehy was able to confirm with the university that Robert Zimmerman was registered for four quarters - fall of '59 through fall of '60 - and declared music as his major.

"Dylan's American Journey" also tells the next couple of chapters of his much-chronicled story. Among the coolest artifacts from his early New York years are a 24-minute tape of his first non-club gig in Manhattan, at Carnegie Chapter Hall Nov. 4, 1961, in front of 53 people. In contrast to his current taciturn style in concert, he was very talkative.

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Hard-core music fans will appreciate seeing the handwritten or typed lyrics for several classic Dylan songs, including "Like a Rolling Stone."

And for the celebrity-obsessed, there's a silly letter that Dylan typed to Joan Baez's mom, pretending to be her daughter. It is presented next to a handwritten letter from Baez to mom, explaining the hoax, and saying she was having a lot of fun with her boyfriend Bobby.

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