After a major health scare in 2015, Ed Caraeff sold the rights to his iconic rock photographs and embarked on a “bucket list” trip across the country in his camper van, which he’s been doing for nearly seven years now. During a stop in San Luis Obispo last month, Caraeff came to the KCBX studio and talked about his life, work and travels.
blindly here to stand but still not sleeping my weariness amazes me i m branded on my feet i have no one to meet and my ancient empty street s too dead for dreaming you should know all the big bob dylan records before i was governor. and i know i think everything that willie nelson ever wrote. it was the all man brothers helped put me in the white house by raising money when i didn t have any money. for there s a man down there might be your man i don t know the allman brothers had been here, and bob dylan has not been here, but willie nelson has been here, and johnny cash has been here. we got married in a beater
everybody wants to rule the world i ve never had more faith in america than i do today. we have an america that in bob dylan s phrase, is busy being born, not busy dying .
he brought june cash down here to meet me. we always claimed she was my cousin. when willie nelson boat his autobiography, he confessed that he smoked pot in the white house one night when he was spending the night with me. and he says that his companion that shared the pot with him was one of the servants at the white house. that is not exactly true. it actually was one of my sons, which he didn t want to, you k know, get a rise from a pot smoker like him. there were people that didn t like my being deeply involved with willie nelson and bob dylan and disrepable rock n rollers, but i didn t care about that
on he s a kindred spirit to me of a rare kind. kind of man you don t meet every day that you re lucky to meet if you do. bob dylan has been one of my best friends, along with willie nelson. probably he and bob had a lot of good ideas to exchange, because they come from entirely different places. but jimmy and i basically come from the same spot. we had been invited to this party that governor carter was throwing for bob dylan. so we got there just as the last guest was leaving. bob dylan and his band had already gone home. and i m sure i had taken off my dress-up clothes, kind of. there s this guy standing on the porch. he had on this old pair of levi s, holes in them. no shirt, no shoes. i thought, who s this bum hanging out at the governor s