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    Bob Dylan's 'Mr. Jones' Dies at 63

    • Posted on Nov 28th 2007 12:30PM by Gaylord Fields
    • Comments (2)
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    Jeffrey Owen Jones, the man who has been commonly identified as the primary inspiration for the character of "Mr. Jones" in Bob Dylan's scathing 'Ballad of a Thin Man,' died of lung cancer in early November, according to a report in the NME. The 63-year-old Jones, who had interviewed Dylan for Time magazine in 1965, was most recently a film professor at the Rochester Institute of Technology.

    In Dylan's incisive putdown, which appeared on the 1965 album 'Highway 61 Revisited,' the singer-songwriter accuses Mr. Jones of being clueless and out of his league, with its chorus of "Because something is happening here/But you don't know what it is/Do you, Mister Jones?" It is also theorized that Dylan's protagonist may have been Melody Maker critic Max Jones, or perhaps an amalgam of several pop pundits with whom Dylan had differences of opinion.
    • Filed under: News, R.I.P.
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    Reader Comments(1 of 1)

    vote downvote upReportNeutral

    Mitchat 11-28-2007

    I think Mr. Jones was more than one person. Dylan himself has suggested that Mr. Jones is part him, too..

    Reply
    vote downvote upReportNeutral

    Tom Grastyat 1-12-2008

    I'm not sure they ever REALLY pegged any one person in particular to Mister Jones.

    But I sure give it a shot in my new novel, BLOOD ON THE TRACKS.

    The book's a murder-mystery. But not just any rock superstar is knocking on heaven's door. The murdered rock legend is none other than Bob Dorian, an enigmatic, obtuse, inscrutable, well, you get the picture...

    Suspects? Tons of them. The only problem is they're all characters in Bob's songs.

    You can get a copy on Amazon.com or go "behind the tracks" at www.bloodonthetracksnovel.com to learn more about the book.

    Reply

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