Memoir by Bob Dylan’s Road Manager Planned

A memoir by Bob Dylan‘s longtime road manager, who died in 2001, is being completed by his son. The book will detail Victor Maymudes’s decades-long relationship with the singer-songwriter, whom he first met in 1961 when Dylan was still a struggling folksinger.

According to Rolling Stone, Maymudes started writing the book not long after a feud with Dylan in 2000. He signed a publishing deal and recorded 24 hours of his stories and memories before dying of a brain aneurysm in 2001. His son Jake is hoping to self-publish the book with money raised on Kickstarter. “He could tell stories until your ear fell off,” he said. “I have 24 hours of him telling the most mind-boggling stories.”

Maymudes first met Dylan in New York City, where he was managing scene-makers like Wavy Gravy and Ramblin’ Jack Elliott. “One of the reasons they got along so well is because my old man had a little bit of insight into this new world that Bob was kind of jumping into,” Jake said, adding that his father was a “concert promoter and entrepreneur.”

Throughout the ’60s, Maymudes “served (without any official title) as [Dylan's] road manager and all-purpose best friend/sidekick,” according to Rolling Stone. He left for a while but returned in 1988 for Dylan’s Never Ending Tour and stayed with him until their fight in 2000.

Jake Maymudes promises that the book will chronicle his dad’s entire time with Dylan — from getting the music legend from show to show to securing the weed that he famously smoked with the Beatles. He was also there during Dylan’s infamous appearance at the Newport Folk Festival and his first plugged-in tour of Europe with members of the Band.

Even though Maymudes and Dylan parted on bad terms, the former’s son said it wasn’t an isolated incident. ”Over the years they had several big fights, and they always got back together,” he said. “My dad’s abrasive. Bob’s abrasive. They’re two grumpy old men. They f–king flip out, and then get over it. At one point they could only talk to each other in a room full of lawyers, but my father wanted to rectify the situation before he died. He couldn’t believe that he and his buddy were acting like such idiots.”