Settled in Sweden, the Man Who First Booked Dylan

REBECCA ROSMAN

Israel Young, known as Izzy, at his store in Stockholm. Mr. Young arranged Bob Dylan’s first concert in New York City in 1961./Casper Hedberg for The New York Times

STOCKHOLM — Bob Dylan won’t be visiting Sweden this week to accept the Nobel Prize in Literature, though he has sent a speech in his absence. The news of his no-show at the ceremony on Saturday disappointed fans — as well as one resident here who has old ties to rock’s poet laureate: Israel Goodman Young, the man who gave Mr. Dylan his first New York concert.

Mr. Young was the folk enthusiast who made possible the $2 tickets to Mr. Dylan’s Nov. 4, 1961, gig at Carnegie Chapter Hall; only about 50 people attended, but the event has earned its place in rock ’n’ roll history as Mr. Dylan’s first big break.

Mr. Young has lived in Sweden for more than 35 years and, at 88, takes a bus and a train every day to reach his Folklore Centrum in the Södermalm neighborhood of Stockholm. Part performance space, part treasure trove of memorabilia, this modest shop could be mistaken for an old living room, with dust blanketing the used hardcovers lining the shelves. This emporium is his second act; its first iteration on Macdougal Street was the epicenter of Greenwich Village’s 1960s folk music scene.

Mr. Young, known as Izzy, said that he didn’t regret being associated with that seminal show, but that he wished people’s memories of his career went beyond it.

Bob Dylan “is the only thing people remember me for,” he said with a shrug as he recounted their relationship one recent afternoon at his store.

Mr. Dylan was a regular customer at Mr. Young’s original Folklore Center, and his little-known song “Talking Folklore Center” described the lure of the place.

“His voice was like a bulldozer and always seemed too loud for the little room,” Mr. Dylan wrote of Mr. Young in his 2004 memoir, “Chronicles.” “Izzy was always a little rattled over something or other. He was sloppily good-natured. In reality, a romantic.”

Two years ago, when John Schulman, a book collector in Pittsburgh, sought rare archives documenting the 1960s New York folk scene, he contacted Mr. Young to see if he would sell some items he had collected — perhaps books, manuscripts, photographs or tape recordings — to the Library of Congress.

But then, a friend of Mr. Young’s intervened.

“I said, listen, that’s not what’s valuable here,” recalled Edward Bromberg, who first met Mr. Young in Stockholm more than 30 years ago. Mr. Bromberg told Mr. Schulman of Mr. Young’s diaries, which included details from that folk scene that are otherwise inaccessible. “He’s the Samuel Pepys of the Village,” Mr. Bromberg said.

Mr. Young, around 1960, at his Folklore Center at 110 Macdougal Street in Greenwich Village./David Gahr, via Library of Congress

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