Roll on, John
Celebrating the life and work of folklorist, photographer and influential Dylan associate, John Cohen
IN a famous sequence of photos used extensively on the sleeve of 1970’s Self Portrait, a bearded, smiling Bob Dylan messes around with chickens by a farmyard barn and stands in woodland, head turned to the sunny upstate New York sky. The images defined his bucolic retreat into family life in Woodstock for a generation of fans. But this was not Bob’s beautiful home, and this was not Bob’s beautiful life. The chickens actually belonged to the photographer John Cohen, who had snapped Dylan at his place in Putnam Valley, New York, back in 1966.