Were you ever nervous to work with any of these artists?
Not nervous. I told them all when I started that I didn't have a contract with them. I had a contract with CBS. I told [Bob] Dylan, [Johnny] Cash, [Leonard] Cohen and [Paul] Simon, "You want to get rid of me? All you have to do is say, 'There's the goddamn door.' You don't have to go through any shit because I don't have a contract with you." I think that took care of it.
Did the record company people come down to sit in on Dylan sessions?
They came down. The first time there was about five people, so I told Dylan, "All of them sons of bitches are in there. We're gonna go to dinner." We all went to dinner and left them for a couple hours, and they left. They came back a couple times, and I'd always turn the lights in the studio off and pretend like nobody was there. [laughter] I was with Dylan in the studio before I even recorded him yet. He and [Albert] Grossman and all the CBS people were there. I said, "Some time you've got to go to Nashville. I built a studio. There are no clocks. I've got everything working down there." He never would answer. "Mmm." He left and they came over to me and they said, "If you ever mention Nashville to Dylan again, you're fired." I said, "Why?" And they said, "We don't want him down there with that bunch of goddamn stupid people. You're doing a good job here." I said, "Whatever you want." I took him to Nashville and did Blonde on Blonde six months later. [laughter] The phones started ringing and I never bothered to answer them.
What was CBS' stance on Dylan going electric? Did you get caught up in the middle of any of that?
Only when I started Highway 61 Revisited. Clive Davis [A&R, later president of CBS/Columbia] and all those people said, "Pretty good, but all those guitars need to come off." We were in a meeting and John Hammond used to rattle a bunch of newspapers, and [Bob] Mercy would sit down there laughing. He ran the A&R department and signed [Barbra] Streisand, [Andy] Williams and [Tony] Bennett — he's the one that hired me. They were just horrible people. If you need a brain operation you go to a brain specialist, you don't go to a septic tank cleaner. All the music people go to people that can't sing, dance, write, perform or play. They can do nothing but steal your money and make bad decisions. That's the only thing those sons of bitches are good at.
Is it true that all the vocals on Blonde on Blonde are recorded live with the band? There are no overdubs on that record?
No overdubs. I had heard about [Dylan], but never met him. I went into the studio with him once with John Hammond. When I walked in and I said, "Bob, I'm Bob Johnston," he said, "Well, I'm Bob Dylan," and he stood up and smiled the sweetest, and I said, "Is that the way it's gonna be?" He said, "Why not?" And I said, "Great. What's this piece of paper?" It was a notebook and it had 22 takes of a song in it. I said, "What's this 22 here?" He said, "That's what we did." I said, "I just wondered why did you do 22 takes?" He said, "The musicians all say we've got to do this and that." I said, "I thought your name was Dylan. I thought you cleared your mind to get other stuff in and once is enough. You don't have to entertain that bunch of goddamn people." I turned around and walked off and he said, "Let's do it." They did a song. We finished and Al Kooper said, "10 or 15 more of those and it'll be great." Dylan said, "That's it." He never did another song twice for me. He blew my mind. He went into the studio about 9 in the morning, and he never came out until about 3 o' clock in the afternoon. He had malts, milkshakes and candy. I thought he was a junkie — I thought he was shooting up. He wasn't. At about 3 o'clock he came around and he said, "Is anybody here?" I said, "They're all here playing ping pong." I woke everybody up, got them down there and said, "One thing you do — you never quit playing. I can overdub you. I can't overdub Dylan." I said, "Whoever stops, go ahead and gather your instrument up and walk out the door." They said, "We've got to hear it." Dylan said, "It's G-C-D. G-C-D like that." The band said, "My God, we don't even know the song." I said, "Pick your instruments up." Dylan started playing and he did "Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands." When he got through with the first verse it was about two minutes. The band was used to doing three-minute records, and they thought that was the ending, so they played real big on the ending of the first thing and came down like that to end it, and Dylan went into the second verse. It was over 11 minutes long, and every time they did that and thought it was gonna end. That's what made that record so good. When they finished he came back and said, "Let's hear it." They played it back and he said, "Let's do the next one." I knew I had him. He never said anything about the sound. Nobody ever said anything about the sound.
One of the things I love about Blonde on Blonde is the fact that there are mistakes on that record. Was that ever discussed during playback?
