What was Bob Dylan’s link to Gallup? September 14, 2012

Leslie Linthicum, a columnist for the Albuquerque Journal, explores the persistent rumor that legendary singer / songwriter Bob Dylan spent a little of his childhood in the Route 66 town of Gallup, N.M.

 It is a legend there — repeated, debated, scoffed at and wondered at — that Dylan lived as a child in the railroad town on Route 66 on New Mexico’s western flank. People of a certain age can tell you about spotting him here or there in the 1950s when Gallup was a bustling little border town. There’s been talk of his photo appearing in the Gallup High School yearbook, although the singer, whose real last name was Zimmerman, graduated from high school in Hibbing, Minn.

Apparently the rumor was started nearly 50 years ago by Dylan himself, apparently to add mystique or color to his backstory. The Gallup angle was debunked by Newsweek magazine as early as 1963, but the story never went away.

Regardless, it begs a question — why did Dylan pick Gallup as a part of his early biography? One plausible explanation:

The Gallup Journey magazine mused on the Dylan myth several years ago and surmised that Dylan and his family must have made a childhood trip through Gallup along Route 66 and seen the Western-wear store owned by another Zimmerman family.

“Well, what did he see as he drove through town? A huge sign stuck smack-dab in the middle of a town filled with Indians and cowboys that said ‘Zimmerman’s.’ And when it came time to invent a persona to match ‘the freewheelin’ Bob Dylan’ he thought back to that sign and the town where he saw it.”

The store is Zimmerman’s, at 213 W. Historic Highway 66. And it’s still operating all these years later.

I read Dylan’s recent biography “Chronicles, Vol. 1,” and don’t recall him mentioning Gallup in it.

However, the book made clear that as a young man he was a sponge, soaking up stories and influences from all over. He cited everything from Civil War ballads to Gorgeous George, the professional wrestler, as inspirations to his career.

I found no songs in Dylan’s extensive website database mentioning Gallup. However, several other Route 66 towns made their way into his tunes. Chicago is mentioned in “Cold Irons Bound” and “The Death of Emmett Till.” Dylan recorded “St. Louis Blues.” Amarillo is mentioned in “Brownsville Girl.” Santa Fe comes up in “Billy 4″ and “Santa Fe.”

And Dylan name-checks Albuquerque in “Wanted Man,” which earned a lot of notice when Johnny Cash covered it: