The Duluth Armory is once again offering tours of the facility as part of the Duluth Dylan Days. Saturday May 25th, guests will get the chance to step back in a special time in Duluth's history.
By 1961, Joan Baez, the dark-haired waif who had captured the spotlight at the first Newport Folk Festival just two years earlier, was folk music's virginal superstar, leading the coffeehouse culture of a new American generation. And an unknown, unwashed, Woody Guthrie—worshiping kid from the Minnesota suburbs named Bob Dylan had just arrived in Greenwich Village. In an excerpt from his forthcoming book, Positively 4th Street, DAVID HAJDU recalls the prickly beginnings of the Baez-Dylan relationship, the strange symbiosis between her voice and his music, and the triumphant, magical appearance at Freebody Park that made musical history
From the column: "I am so excited to be living here in the hometown of such a great artist. So should all the people here. But many maybe don’t even know of the connection."
The handoff, from developer Sherman Associates, marks the end of a decade-plus process that turned an ailing landmark into one of the city's top venues for the arts.