Charlie Daniels and A Complete Unknown - Soapbox Jr.

April 1, 2025 marked the 11th anniversary of 'Off the Grid – Doin’ It Dylan,' the CDB’s tribute to Bob Dylan. An April Fool’s Day release? Sure. A joke? Not even close—at least not to those who knew how much Dylan meant to Dad’s musical journey.

If you’ve read ‘Never Look at the Empty Seats’ or heard any number of interviews Dad discusses his early days in Nashville, then you know Dylan was a pivotal figure in Dad’s early career.

For those of you who don’t know, here’s the short version:

In 1967, Dad moved to Nashville chasing work as a studio musician. His friend Bob Johnston—then running Columbia Records’ Nashville division—was producing Dylan’s 'Nashville Skyline.' Dad, a huge Dylan fan, begged Johnston to put him on just one session. He got it.

After the session, as Dad packed up for a gig at a club across town, Dylan asked where he was headed. Johnston told him Dad was only scheduled for one session and another guitar player was coming in for the next one. Dylan replied, “I don’t want another guitar player, I want him.” Nine words that as Dad put it changed his life. 

That one moment gave Dad the confidence he desperately needed—and helped steer him toward his own path.

That story’s been on my mind lately, especially after watching ‘A Complete Unknown’, the new Dylan biopic based on the book “Dylan Goes Electric.” It’s not a straight cradle-to-now story, but it focuses on a defining five-year period—from Dylan’s arrival in NYC, meeting his hero Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger to his controversial set at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival.

The film doesn’t sugarcoat anything. Dylan comes off as a brilliant, complex, aloof and often emotionally distant artist—particularly in his relationships with his girlfriend and fellow folk artist Joan Baez – with whom he has an affair - and others. But he’s also portrayed as a restless creative spirit refusing to be boxed in, it also manages to stun conventional thinking when they drop the fact that Dylan’s record sales were rivaling The Beatles.

Timothée Chalamet plays Dylan with intensity, and Director James Mangold sent Dylan a copy of the script to make sure it stayed honest, even when unflattering. Dylan sent back his script with notes, but did not demand any major changes to how he was being portrayed.

No, Dad isn’t mentioned. The ‘Nashville Skyline’ sessins happened a few years after the events in the film—but the story lays the groundwork for what would become their creative intersection.

It highlights Dylan’s artistic rebellion—turning away from acoustic folk purists like Pete Seeger and Alan Lomax, who wanted to keep the genre acoustic and pure. But Dylan had other plans. He started blending electric instruments into his sound as early as ‘Bringing It All Back Home,’ before going full tilt on ‘Highway 61 Revisited.’

One of the best bits in the film is the recreation of Al Kooper’s iconic organ riff on “Like a Rolling Stone.” Kooper, who was a young and hungry guitar player and acquaintance of producer Tom Wilson who desperately wanted to be on a session – seems like that happened a lot.

When he realized he wasn’t going to unseat Mike Bloomfield on guitar, Kooper just sat down at the Hammond B3 and started riffing—learning on the fly. The ease at which the film depicts the event are a little suspect. Kooper just sat down and started playing, but it is my understanding from other sources that he had never played organ, or any keyboard that I am aware of, so he played around with ideas until it was time to record and ended up capturing lightning in a bottle and creating one of the most recognizable melodies ever played on a Hammond B3.

I’ll leave the ending of the film to be experienced for yourselves, but suffice it to say that it deals squarely with Dylan’s quest for artistic freedom and following your instincts.

For reasons unclear, Tom Wilson did not finish recording, ‘Highway 61 Revisited.’ It’s not depicted in the film, but Dad’s friend Bob Johnston took over for the rest of the recording and then some.

Dylan’s evolution didn’t stop there. After a tough start recording Blonde on Blonde in New York, Johnston convinced him to finish it in Nashville with top studio musicians—like Charlie McCoy and others who earned the nickname “The Nashville Cats.”

That shift to Music City led to ‘John Wesley Harding,’ ‘Nashville Skyline,’ and eventually ‘Self Portrait’ and ‘New Morning’—albums that helped define Dylan’s “Nashville era.” Dad was a part of that. Dylan saw something in him—and said so out loud at just the right time.

Dylan actually mentions Dad in his book, ‘Chronicles: Volume One,’ “When Charlie was around, something good would usually come out of the sessions,” that’s high praise from someone who is pretty low-key.

Dad and Dylan only saw each other again once and that was when Bob was in Nashville performing songs from his Frank Sinatra tribute albumin 2015 – yes, seriously. They got to visit for a few minutes before his show.

There’s one more aspect to the ‘Nashville Skyline' story that Dad so often told that I only recently learned about, and that was from an interview with guitarist Wayne Moss. Wayne was the picker in Dad’s recollection who couldn’t make that first ‘Nashville Skyline’ session. 

In the interview, Moss stated that he was actually fired from the sessions because Dylan would take stretches of time in the session to go work on lyrics, and Moss who was used to a more traditional session style, so he was getting frustrated which was getting on Dylan’s nerves, so one of the Bobs – and I’m assuming it was Dylan said to just send Moss home and decided he wouldn’t be needed. Whether that was before Dad was brought in, I’m not sure.

Nashville studio musicians have sessions down to a science. They’ll listen to a demo, the bandleader writes out charts which then each musician may tweak a little here or there, they run through a couple of times then when everyone is ready, they’ll lay down the track, fix any rough spots by punching in a guitar lick or solo that didn’t go how the musician expected, then they’ll do overdubs, but the process has a definite structure.

That wasn’t the way that the Bobs did things. Neither Dylan nor Johnston was that ridged, they preferred to let things develop naturally and experiment with ideas.

So, did it happen the way Dad remembered, or the way that Wayne remembered?  

I’m guessing it’s a little of both, and the only difference is the perspective. 

Dad always thought that the session he was included on was the first one for the album, but maybe there had been one more and that’s when Wayne got sent home, and when Dad begged Johnston for a spot, it was after the drama with Wayne, and since Dad worked out so well, that Wayne was told he wouldn’t be needed. 

I’d love to be able to get Dad, Wayne, Dylan and Bob Johnston together and analyze the chain of events to sort out what really happened.

This has been much less about Dad than most of my writings, but for me it was a fascinating insight into the man who -probably unknowingly – gave Dad the much needed validation to seek his own creative freedom which he did soon after by forming his own band to do his own thing HIS way.

And while I’m thinking of it, no, “Like a Rolling Stone” isn’t on 'Off the Grid,' but Dad and Darius Rucker did cut it for the ‘Deuces’ album back in 2008 which was re-packaged after Dad’s passing as ‘Duets’ in 2021.

Thank you, Bob Dylan—for your fearless creativity, for inspiring Dad, and for giving him a moment that helped change the course of his life, or he could have ended up “a complete unknown” and a powerful musical voice would have been lost.

But when opportunity came kn- kn- knockin’, Dad answered the call.

What do you think?