From: radioacti...@gmail.com   
      
   No one associated with Southern California radio would dispute that the late   
   Jim Ladd was one of the most influential rock DJs ever, at KLOS and other   
   important broadcast outlets.   
      
   "Gentleman Jim Ladd" died of a heart attack at 75 on Sunday, and admittedly   
   was hardly this radio junkie's (and underground rock journalist's) favorite FM   
   voice during the years [1980-91] when I was based in Los Angeles.  But I   
   ALWAYS was impressed with    
   the respect, even REVERENCE Ladd commanded amongst EVERY radio pro I ever   
   worked with (or even merely knew).  So Ladd was a natural choice for gentle   
   rocker Jackson Brown and his promoters to recruit as emcee for their Peace   
   Sunday at The Rose Bowl in    
   1982.   
      
   I am especially proud that I, along with my then-galpal Patricia Nagler, made   
   the scene that for that landmark Woodstock-style event.  (A transplanted New   
   Yorker, attorney Nagler had in fact attended Woodstock herself* in the late   
   summer of 1969, and for    
   a fortnight prior had been persistently trying to persuade me that Dylan   
   wouldn't pass on this affair as he had Woodstock, since Joan Baez WAS indeed   
   one of the first acts booked--though I remained stubbornly dubious, as no   
   local media coverage even    
   hinted at that glorious but remote possibility.)   
      
   Peace Sunday was staged on the 38th anniversary of D-Day, June 6, 1982.  And   
   as you'll hear in the linked video, Ladd DID display some quite-   
   ncharacteristic ignorance of important rock history when he seemed to declare,   
   over the P.A. as they exited,    
   that this musical pairing of frequent collaborators Dylan and Baez was   
   unprecedented...an especially glaring error inasmuch as Baez was a central   
   part of both of Dylan's famed Rolling Thunder Revue tours 1975-76, never mind   
   their extensive teaming    
   through the early '60s.  (Ladd's full outro is transcribed below, verbatim.)   
      
   I was not merely somewhere lost in the throng in the 100,000-seat football   
   stadium that sweltering Sunday afternoon, but rather up front.  Patricia and I   
   easily got backstage earlier, hanging out and hobnobbing for over an hour   
   while various early acts    
   were doing their musical thing for the almost-capacity crowd.  I even ended up   
   interviewing actor Ed Asner on camera at the request of a reporter-less   
   KNBC-TV crew, a different group than the NBC Today Show had dispatched, as   
   described below).   
      
   But by the time Dylan finally appeared about 5:30 pm, Nagler and I were again   
   out front on the grassy gridiron, she back midfield by the assembled   
   international media, and me finagling my way right up front beneath center   
   stage, slowly making my way up    
   during Baez's earlier solo songs (which are not on this shorter version of the   
   NBC Today tape), so as to shoot 7th-row-or-so Super8 footage.   
      
   In the Today footage linked below, you'll surely notice during the set-up Baez   
   tugging [!] on Dylan's hair halo, annoyed that he was distracted, turning   
   around to acknowledge an L.A. Times photographer acquaintance he eyed peeking   
   over the curtain to    
   snap a shot.  That very photograph would end up dominating the front page of   
   the Times's Arts-and-Entertainment "Calendar" section coverage the next day,   
   with, yep, a standing-Styble clearly visible right down front**, Super 8 movie   
   camera in hand.   
      
   Mr. Inscrutable and Baez would end up performing three duets***, each of which   
   is on the linked video.   
      
   Everything above I've related to many various Dylan fans over the decades, but   
   until today, I've never added what is in the following paragraphs.  So cue   
   your best impression of the late radio icon Paul Harvey, as here's "the Rest   
   of the Story", never    
   published until now.   
      
   It so happens that though there were numerous foreign news crews shooting that   
   day, only one sole, solitary tape of this performance has ever surfaced and   
   circulated among the planet's many thousands of dedicated Dylan collectors.    
   It was shot for the    
   Today show under the direction of the morning show's then-West Coast producer,   
   a Dylan fan himself, having instructed his crew to film one complete song by   
   each act...UNLESS Dylan appeared, and in such instance they were to shoot his   
   ENTIRE performance.   
      
   I only learned of all the Today aspects of this on Tuesday, June 8th, when I   
   visited the NBC studios in Burbank--which is actually several miles due south   
   of "Beautiful Downtown Burbank", as every Los Angeleno knows.  I was invited   
   to NBC ostensibly to    
   merely watch the footage, after plying my Dylanologist's clout on the phone,   
   setting up a screening session the morning after the concert.  This nice   
   fellow was appreciative I'd helped the KNBC crew with the Asner thing, and   
   though he skipped the concert    
   in favor of some family Sunday afternoon commitment, he wanted them rolling,   
   as stated, on Dylan's ENTIRE performance.  And with a couple brief drop-outs,   
   they did.   
      
   As it happened, when I got to NBC on Tuesday, this oh-so-accomodating fellow   
   had called in sick.  I offered to come back days or a week later, but his   
   assistant said no, I'll take you down to downstairs to an editing bay and you   
   can watch it without him    
   anyway.  But then she left me alone with the engineer.   
      
   As the genial-if-gullible was cuing up the tape, I pretended like I'd never   
   been in a TV station before, gee-whizing him about how it was unfortunate he   
   didn't have adequate equipment to make a duplicate copy.  The middle-aged   
   fellow responded, "Are you    
   kidding?  It's state-of-the-art here--I can run off a 3/4-inch copy so   
   pristine that you won't be able to tell it from the original!"     
      
   While recording a duplicate, we viewed the entirety of the Today crew's   
   tape--most of Baez's full set was on there too (but again, NOT on the version   
   linked below), she rather improbably INCLUDING in her lengthy set "Diamonds   
   and Rust", that Baez-penned    
   tribute to their long, rocky relationship which is arguably the best song ever   
   written about the future Nobel Literature laureate, and who would in mere   
   minutes be joining her onstage.   
      
   Needless to say, once the screening was over and he handed me the copy, I   
   hastened my departure, fearing the ailing producer's aide would soon reappear   
   downstairs and put a halt to my hoodwinking of the kindly-but-naive engineer.   
      
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)