In the early 1960s, the United States was in a "police action" that not many of its citizens would support by the end of the dcaed; the counter-culture was picking up supporters; and the youth of the nation were moving decidedly left as they rejected their parents' baby-boomers values. This was the part of history that included the assassinations of the Kennedys and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the meteoric rise of the Beatles, the proliferation of the Beat poets and the advent of an artistic explosion in New York City's Greenwich Village. Into this world stepped Robert Zimmerman, a strange sort of folkie musician from Hibbing, Minnesota. Steeped in the traditions of Woody Guthrie folk and country music, Zimmerman was to become known to the world as Bob Dylan. Before he appeared into the scene, though, he was a high school student at Hibbing High School - the origin of this fine offering.
Offered here is a 1959 Hibbing High School yearbook belonging to a student named Marietta, in which the future cultural icon would inscribe note - "I'll write in Echo's name. Good luck in your acting career. Everyone knows you'll make a good one. Sincerely, Bob Zimmerman". Dylan's senior portrait appears on page 76, with his caption noting that he hopes "to join 'Little Richard'". We can say he did that - and then some! In good condition, with soiling and creasing to the signed page, and paper loss to the lower right corners of most pages, heaviest to the signed page but not affecting Dylan's signature or sentiment.
Accompanied by a Letter of Provenance from the yearbook's original owner, which reads, in part: "I went to Hibbing High School with Robert Zimmerman aka Bob Dylan in 1957, 1958 and 1959...His girlfriend Echo Helstrom was a good friend of mine and they were 'dating' for a period of time...We all wore black leather jackets. Sometimes Bob wore a shiny vest and cowboy hat...In our senior year, 1959, Bob and I and some others had Dramatics Class together and were in a play called Sob Story...The problem was that we had unsupervised practice, and when the 'cat's away the mice will play.' We used the time to climb up to the high school tower and talk and smoke Lucky Strike cigarettes instead of practicing. When it came time to perform the play, we were disorganized and hardly knew any of our lines...It must have been okay because the audience roared with laughter and applaus. Hence, [what] Bob wrote in my yearbook." Also accompanied by a full Letter of Authenticity from Beckett Authentication Services (BAS).