By: JOSEPH KELLARD
Today, more than 40 years later, Levinson sits and talks frequently with various people who have some significant connection to his teen idol, Bob Dylan.
The talks about Dylan the musician and the man are the centerpiece of a radio show and college course that Levinson hosts with his wife of 14 years, Arlene. For Levinson, the recent developments of acquiring a microphone and a classroom to talk about his favorite musician are the culmination of a decades-long study of Dylan's work. The Oceansider characterizes these experiences as "a great, fun, enjoyable ride," and plans to capture them in a book.
First came the Levinsons' radio show, "Positively Dylan," which has aired every Friday from the WHPC-FM (90.3) studio at Nassau Community College since September 2000. Since his boyhood, Levinson wanted to be on radio in any capacity, and after hearing a show centered on the Grateful Dead, he pitched one on Dylan to a receptive NCC administrator.
Every week during the hour-long show, from 7 to 8 p.m., the Levinsons welcome someone who knew, worked with or wrote about Dylan, such as biographer Howard Sounes, radio personality Peter Fornatale and musician Christine Lavine. Of course, the show airs many Dylan tunes, including requests from listeners, and Arlene selects from the many Dylan covers performed by musicians from Jimi Hendrix to Dave Matthews.
In 2002, the Oceanside couple initiated "Discussing Dylan," an undergraduate course they conduct at the New School for Social Research in Manhattan. Here too, during their weekly two-hour class, the Levinsons bring in musicians, biographers, photographers and movie-makers to discuss Dylan and their own work. Guests have included author Larry "Ratso" Sloman, who wrote a book about his tour with Dylan during the 1970s, and Jacque Levy, who brought to the class never-before-heard out-takes from "Desire," an album on which he collaborated with Dylan. The course never repeats any material or guests, so some students re-enroll and join the growing number of newcomers.
"During our first semester teaching the class, it was difficult getting guests," Arlene explained, "but now all of a sudden we have these people who worked with Dylan asking us if they can come in and talk. And people who take the class say that it's amazing that they're sitting with people who they've read about many times, and they're going out for drinks afterward."
Arlene's husband has mutual feelings. "I'm sitting next to people with artistic talent that no one else has and who have moved America and will be talked about for 100 years from now," he said with semi-disbelief.
While the young yet politically minded Levinson was initially attracted to Dylan's unique style and voice, it was the issues he sang about and his historical and social impact that would deepen Levinson's interest in one of rock music's icons. "Dylan was observing social and political events and was saying things articulately that needed to be said about poverty, corporate greed, the insanity of segregation, the hopelessness of war, the fear Americans lived in of the atomic bomb and being annihilated, and the importance of politics as a way to change things, and the hopelessness that politics would change things," Levinson said from his den, where he was writing a book review for ISIS, a magazine offering the latest Dylan-related news.
As Levinson explains the changing times of the 1960s, Dylan emerged from a group of leftist folk performers from previous decades, including Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger, bringing some of their themes into a time "when a huge part of the youth of America wanted to say those things and to make changes. Dylan was able to bring everyone together under those umbrellas and get things moving."
Of course, Levinson has all 45 of Dylan's official albums, and he has compiled some 200 bootlegs. Although he has never met the man, he's gone to about 20 of his concerts, the first in 1966 at Island Garden in Hempstead, and most recently at the Hammerstein Ballroom last August.
A director of finance for Hebrew National, Levinson makes it known that he's passionate about Dylan but not fanatical, characterizing the latter as people who analyze all his lyrics for their many possible meanings. "It's music, not Melville," Levinson laughs.
Second to Dylan on his CD player are Bruce Springsteen and Paul Simon, and Levinson is a devout New York Mets and Giants fan, an avid listener to talk radio, and an insatiable reader of history, particularly books on the development of New York following World War II.
Levinson plans to write his own book on one of pop culture's most important figures, a Minnesotan who got his start in the Big Apple. It is tentatively titled "Bob Dylan's New York." It will focus on Levinson's experiences as a Dylan fan, and how it has culminated, so far, in his days on radio and at the New School.
"My goal, with Arlene's help," Levinson said, "is to get a book out about what this whole wonderful journey has been like, starting the radio show and class and meeting all the fascinating people who have come in and out of Bob's life."
