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ON THESE PAGES: FRIENDS FROM THE
’80s and ’90s. At left is the super-group the
Traveling Wilburys featuring, from left, Otis
Wilbury, also known as Clayton (also known
as Jeff Lynne); Lucky, also known as Boo (and
as the subject of this book); Nelson, also
known as Spike (sometimes called George
Harrison); and Charlie T. Wilbury Jr., also
known as Muddy (and sometimes Tom Petty).
Below, at his induction into the Rock and Roll
Hall of Fame in 1988, Dylan harmonizes with,
from left, Al Jardine, Mike Love, Mick Jagger,
Bruce Springsteen and Mary Wilson.Charles’s Raelettes. Also during this time, Dylan would dedi-
cate his 1990 album, Under the Red Sky, to “Gabby Goo Goo,”
who was, he told absolutely no one, his toddler, Desiree.
Carolyn had started working for Dylan in 1978, and even-
tually began dating him—as had and did other African
American women in his entourage. “I think he [dated]
some of these black girls because they didn’t idolize him,”
the singer Maria Muldaur told Dylan biographer Howard
Sounes. “They were real down to earth, and they didn’t wor-
ship him. [They are] strong women who would just say, cut
off your [bull].”
Dylan was, by accounts, just as good a parent to Desiree
as he had been to his children with Sara, and she was later
given the choice as to whether to keep his surname as part
of her own—which she decided to do. Although Dylan’s
now almost feral instinct to keep his private life private was
well in play—and the wider world would not know of this
second marriage until years after it had ended—CarolynDennis later said in his defense, “To portray Bob as ‘hiding
his daughter’ is just malicious and ridiculous. That is some-
thing he would never do. Bob has been a wonderful, active
father to Desiree.”
She continued: “Bob and I made a choice to keep our
marriage a private matter for a simple reason—to give
our daughter a normal childhood.” The couple utilized a
California law that allowed them to keep their marriage cer-
tificate sealed from public disclosure, and in 1992 Dylan used
“R. Zimmerman” as his listing in the divorce settlement—
another file that was ordered sealed by a judge.
Why this marriage didn’t last longer probably has to do
with Dylan’s later-in-life (or perhaps, considering how far
he had come since Hibbing, lifelong) peripatetic nature.
After Bob decided to go without backup singers altogether,
Carolyn settled down at their home in Tarzana, California,
while her husband embarked, in 1988, on what would even-
tually be called his Never Ending Tour. He came home fromNEAL PRESTON (2)
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