The Dylan Archivist Building an Attraction From All Things Bob
Photo Credit: Mark Davidson, a music historian and scholar who’s made his own music for years, is Director of Archives and Exhibits at Tulsa’s newly opened Bob Dylan Center.The goal is prompting any visitor be more creative in their life. Davidson’s the perfect choice – even if he prefers not wearing white gloves. Flickr / Brett Jordan
Skift Take
Mark Davidson, a music historian and scholar who’s made his own music for years, is director of archives and exhibits at Tulsa’s newly opened Bob Dylan Center. The goal is prompting any visitor to be more creative in their own life. Davidson’s the perfect choice — even if he prefers not wearing white gloves.
Word of warning to any would-be forgers of “authentic Bob Dylan lyrics”: Don’t let Mark Davidson see them.
After all, Davidson spends a lot of time studying the Dylan world, including the singer’s own scribbled or typed lyrics. Davidson can spot a forgery a mile away, including one case where a forger had apparently used “some sort of computer program” to imitate the quirks of Dylan’s Royal Caravan typewriter he used in the mid-‘60s.
“But there are later manuscripts in the ‘80s where Dylan might have been using the same exact typewriter, which is curious to me. And I want to know if he did,” Davidson ponders. “But I don’t have a Bob phone to ask.”
Davidson, 46, is the director of archives and exhibits and curator of the Bob Dylan Archive that is part of Tulsa’s Bob Dylan Center, which opened to to the public on May 10 and promises to turn Tulsa into the new global HQ of Dylanology. (Already music
