Temples in Flames with Bob Dylan and Britta Lee Shain

Was Britta Lee Shain the muse of the Temple In Flames tour inspiring Dylan’s most magical performances in the pre-NET era?

Post by Trev Gibb.

Somehow over Christmas I’ve found myself reading Britta Lee Shain’s book ‘Seeing The Real You At Last: Life and Love on the Road with Bob Dylan’. I must be in that kind of mood because I’ve only recently finished Fred Seaman’s book ‘The Last Days of John Lennon’, which is pretty much the same sort of journal style study of a famous musician told from the perspective of someone where you’re not entirely sure they’re a reliable narrator. There’s one major cameo that both books share, PR genius Elliot Mintz.

Mintz is a fascinating character all on his own. His first ever interview to be broadcast nationally came after the assassination of JFK, when he discovered a classmate of his had known Lee Harvey Oswald while in the US Marines. The interview was the first character and background interview about Oswald in the US, and was picked up by the national and international radio broadcast networks. He later became an underground radio D.J. in the ‘60s and would go on to represent John and Yoko and be one of the central figures handling the aftermath of the assassination of John Lennon. He’d then go on to represent Bob Dylan for more than ten years and by the time Britta Lee’s path crosses with Bob Dylan, Mintz is a constant presence.

Bob Dylan with Eliot MIntz attending the 1990 Roy Orbison tribute show for

Britta Lee Shain paints herself as a lost soul. Beautiful and highly educated, yet drifting through a post ‘60s Hollywood waiting for ‘spring to come or for something to crack’. Meanwhile she holds down some pretty good jobs but dreams of being a writer. She’s somewhere between a Pamela Des Barnes courtesan and a femme-fatale, yet the book reveals a kind of naiveté about who she is, where she is and where she’s going. There’s no hiding the fact that a decades long obsession with Dylan has brought her closer and closer to the centre of the action, and it’s hard to think it all just happened by chance. Spring does come when a chance meeting with Bob Dylan’s tour manager ‘Ernie’ turns into a relationship that never really seems to be anything more than a transaction that results in a year of brief encounters with Dylan.

As ‘Ernie’s girlfriend’ she rubs shoulders with some iconic people, who all treat her well at first. She socialises with Dylan’s girlfriend Carole Childs and will eventually come between them. Slowly, from 86 to 87 she gets closer to Bob Dylan, feelings ‘appear’ mutual, but we only know her side. I can’t say for certain I believe everything in the book. It’s coloured by a besotted fanaticism, or Dylan Derangement Syndrome, but it’s a page turner with some surprisingly insightful moments and in the weaker parts merely intriguing, strange and a little stalkerish. One can only wonder how many times Dylan has been faced with these situations. How can he trust anyone? I think most avid Dylan fan’s can attest to falling somewhere on that spectrum at one time or another.

The book finds Dylan at a low ebb, something Dylan writes about in Chronicles Vol I. Things start rolling the Fall of 1985, with a chance encounter with ‘Ernie’ during a stroll down Melrose with her friend Karla. I can’t help but wonder if it was really Dylan. Britta traces the brief encounters through 86, the Hearts of Fire filming and recording sessions and on through the Grateful Dead tour and the Temple in Flames tour, which is where the action is.

Dylan’s encounter with the Grateful Dead shakes him up a little, the rehearsals in San Rafael, a Basesment Tapes for the ‘80s, are at times exhilarating as Jerry Garcia reminds him of all the different kinds of songs he’d written and how great they all were. He stumbles again 20 years later into a quite beautiful rendition of Ian and Sylvia’s The French Girl, takes some inspiration from some older songs, John Hardy, Stealin’, Blues Stay Away From Me and dusts off a completely unexpected Walkin’ Down The Line. He’s in pretty good voice and sounds a little more like the Bob Dylan. Meanwhile Britta’s getting closer.

Nearing the end of the tour with the Dead, on the night of Anaheim show, Britta’s hanging out on Bob’s bus watching Elvis films and smoking pot. Knocked out Loaded has just been released and she’s credited in the liner notes, and even appears to have played a part in choosing the album cover. That same evening a knock on the door of Dylan’s bus reveals Sara Dylan: “It’s so good to meet you, finally”, Britta says, ‘finally’ betraying really what was clear early on - she’s now at the centre of the web. She goes on to introduce herself as “Ernie’s girlfriend”, but Dylan knows otherwise: “Oh Breeda, you know that just isn’t true at all”.

Later Ernie says ‘Watch, Bob will play “Mr. Tambourine Man” tonight, for Sara and that night Dylan will open with Mr Tambourine Man, for Sara.

By this point some start to sense something’s off with the whole arrangement - ‘Look at you,’ Kooper replies. ‘All you can talk about is Bob. You’re a climber and a gold digger, just like all the rest!’ His girlfriend takes a shot, too. ‘I always knew you were a groupie!’ Surprised all of a sudden when the inner-circle start to turn on her after it’s clear (however reluctant she might seem to portray herself as this) that she’s a hanger-on/groupie in a transactional relationship with Dylan’s tour manager, and on the road to causing a cosmic rupture in the private life of Bob Dylan.

Everything falls into place after the tour with the Dead. Dylan invites her to come to Egypt before the shows in Israel with the Heartbreakers, but not before he has seconds thoughts. Britta is devastated. But ‘Ernie’ seems to fix things and she’s on the payroll as staff, fulfilling some of the role of that usually falls to Susie Pullen.

Dylan has various ‘supposed’ liaisons during the tour, including being accompanied by the late Mike Bloomfield’s wife. Later in London a ‘bimbo’ is flown in. Britta seems sidelined by all of this initially.

Somewhere down the line an intimate relationship starts to develop where’s Britta apparently contributing to set list picks and Dylan becomes more adventurous in what he plays.

There’s a fatalism in Britta’s story, on the run in the desert sunset with a dangerous man. Filmic vibrations reminiscent of Bonnie and Clyde, Carter and Carol, Alabama and Clarence, Lula and Sailor and Mickey and Mallory. Only a few years later Dylan’s You Belong To Me would feature in Natural Born Killers.

I came away from reading Britta’s book feeling sorry for her and for Dylan. For Dylan there’s no escape from his fame, from the projections of others on him and what they think his motives are. Even after her supposed romantic encounters with him, she continues to live in its shadow. There’s some slightly wild stuff about post-relationship demonic possession and other things that speak volumes about where a line can be drawn between interest in someones work and complete and total fanaticism. After everything (you’ll have to read the book), to then find her seeking an autograph from a man who doesn’t appear to recognise her anymore, feels awkward, desperate and strange.

Britta, halloween, dressed as Dylan (undated)

I’ll not delve further, but one thing I did take from the book and enjoy hugely, was she mentions specific shows and performances and comments how Dylan’s performances, become more and more transcendent as the tour (and their relationship) continued.

The true highlights of the Temples in Flames tour are the absolutely beautiful collaborations with Benmont Tench, who aside from Paul Griffin is probably the most perfect piano accompanist Dylan has ever had. She even witnesses the historic Locarno concert, where Dylan mysteriously rediscovers his calling on stage in the pouring rain. Here are some of Britta’s highlights (she apparently requested Desolation Row and suggests Tomorrow is a Long Time was for her).