Motorcycling Musicians
by J.Macon King
Much has been made of Dylan’s motorcycle accident after which his health dictated that he stopped touring and most appearances— for eight years!?
Journalist and vintage motorcycle enthusiast Ben Branch reported in his Silodrome Brit-based website, “He had a low speed accident on the 29th July 1966. There is some mystery surrounding the accident as an ambulance was never called and Dylan was never hospitalised. It was later reported that he fractured a few vertebrae in his neck and had some facial abrasions but the veracity of these rumours was never confirmed.” More mysteriously, “Dylan dusted himself off after his accident and never stopped riding, he was photographed last year around the [2011] date of his 70th birthday in the saddle of a large, delightfully retro Harley-Davidson.”
Odd but true: A mere three months earlier to the day, Dylan’s musician friend, and Joan Baez’s brother-in law, Richard Fariña was killed in a terrible motorcycle accident. Could this tragedy have sparked the excuse Dylan needed for getting away from it all because of his seemingly minor, but media fueled, motorcycle accident?
Dylan had stayed in Carmel, CA with his girlfriend, Joan Baez. Joan’s 17-year-old sister Mimi, married Richard Fariña, a recognized folk singer, composer and poet. Only three months before Dylan’s accident, Richard was tragically killed—as a passenger—on a Harley Sportster motorcycle in Carmel Valley.
— On April 30, 1966, two days after the publication of his [debut] book, Fariña attended a book-signing at a Carmel Valley Village bookstore, the Thunderbird. Later that day, while at a party to celebrate Mimi’s 21st birthday, Fariña saw a guest with a [Harley] motorcycle and hitched a ride up Carmel Valley Road east toward Cachagua. The bike crashed within a mile or so. According to [his friend, sci-fi author Thomas] Pynchon’s preface to Been Down So Long it Looks Like Up to Me, the police said the motorcycle must have been traveling at 90 miles per hour, even though “a prudent speed” would have been 30 miles per hour. He was thrown from the back of the bike and killed instantly [the driver survived]. Music journalist Ed Ward wrote, “If Richard had survived that motorcycle accident, he would have easily given Dylan a run for his money.” Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Fariña —
A few years later, Duane Allman was involved in a more publicized and more bizarre motorcycle accident, literally with a wrecking ball, in Macon, Georgia. The crash resulted in fatal injuries to the brilliant Muscle Shoals musician, abruptly ending his life and career on October 29, 1971, when he was just 24 years old.
Further reading: Positively 4th Street: The Lives and Times of Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Mimi Baez Fariña, and Richard Fariña. by David Hajdu.
For interview with writer David Harris, who married Joan Baez, worked at Rolling Stone Magazine in the day, spent time in prison for activism, and his thoughts on Hunter S. Thompson, Jann Wenner, Bill Walsh and the 49ers, and many more see here. From the 60’s to the ‘9ers with David Harris
In 1964 carney movie Roustabout, Elvis rides (a lot) the more sedate Honda Superhawk 305. With “his boss” Barbara Stanwyck. One of his more entertaining and interesting movies with a great soundtrack. Quentin Tarantino agrees.
J.Macon King has performed in several San Francisco rock bands (that you’ve never heard of) as lead vocalist, rhythm guitarist, songwriter and bandleader. He is currently jamming with the Groovy Biscuits, a classic rock cover band.
In his novelized memoir Circus of the Sun King wrote much about the 1979 San Francisco music scene and motorcycling. Coincidentally? in a disturbingly odd flashback: one chapter contains loving descriptions of the exact area and canyons where the 2025 L.A. fire has now devastated—Pacific Palisades to Malibu— with a conversation on the horrific Malibu fire of 1970.
King has ridden motorcycles since age 15, raced for Kawasaki, and has owned thirteen motorcycles. His current ride is a tricked out Ducati Multistrada 1200S Pikes Peak, his third Ducati. Hunter S. Thompson infamously and superlatively test drove a Ducati 900SP to review for a “Cycle World” magazine, entitled “Song of the Sausage Creature.”
https://magazine.cycleworld.com/article/2012/12/1/song-of-the-sausage-creature
See MillValleyLit interview with Peter Coyote here.
