Sources: Edlis , Bob Dylan Chronicles
“Are my eyes deceiving me or does he seem to have a brace on the right hand? Could this be from the mysterious hand mangling described in Chronicles?”
“It was 1987 and my hand, which had been ungodly injured in a freak accident was in a state of regeneration. It had been ripped and mangled to the bone and was still in the acute stage – it didn’t even feel like it was mine. I didn’t know what had befallen me, and this was a bizarre twist of fate. All potentialities had gone to pieces. With a hundred show dates scheduled for me starting in the spring it was uncertain that I would be able to perform. This was a sobering experience. It was now only January but my hand was going to need plenty of time to heal and be rehabilitated. With a cast on my hand that went nearly to the elbow, I realized that my playing days might well have faded out.” — Dylan, Bob. Chronicles. New York : Simon & Schuster, 2004, 0743228154, page 145.
‘Then it hit me….. Returning from the emergency room with my arm entombed in plaster I fell into a chair – something heavy had come against me. It was like a black leopard had torn at my tattered flesh. It was plenty sore…. I was on the threshold of nothing, ruined. This could be the last turn of the screw. The trail had come to a halt.’ (Chronicles page 156)
And on the prospect of how the injury affected the way he wanted to play guitar:
‘That wouldn’t be happening any more. The thing was, I needed two hands. If I couldn’t play, I wouldn’t be doing anything better than ever now. Nothing would be exactly right.’ (Chronicles page 162)
But, thankfully, the injury subsequently improved:
‘One day I went to the clinic where the doctor examined my hand, said the healing was coming along fine and that the feeling in the nerves might have a chance of coming back soon.’ (Chronicles page 170)
Until the damage hand was finally healed:
‘In time my hand got right…. The doctor encouraged me to play my guitar – that stretching my hand was therapeutic, actually good for my hand – and I was now doing that a lot. I could begin the shows that were scheduled for me, starting in the spring, and it seemed like I was back where I began.’ (Chronicles pages 173/174)
” So, what of the accident that occurred in January 1987? Well, for a start it couldn’t have happened in January 1987. Dylan talks of the tour with Petty the previous year and the concerts with the Grateful Dead. That tour and those concerts were in 1987 so the January after that year would be January 1988. He says ‘The shows with Petty finished up in December’ but actually the last date of the Petty tour was on October 17th 1987 at London’s Wembley Arena. He mentions the two hundred show dates to start ‘in the spring’ but actually what subsequently came to be called The Never Ending Tour was due to start in June 1988 and would run to 71, not two hundred (or even one hundred) dates that year.
Taking the above facts into account, the ‘January’ that Dylan writes about when he was walking around ‘with a cast on my hand that went nearly to the elbow’ and when he, ‘realized that my playing days might well have faded out.’ must have been January 1988. Agreed?
But hold on a minute, on the 20th January 1988 Dylan appeared on the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and, playing guitar, he jammed with George Harrison and Mick Jagger after shaking hands with Bruce Springsteen. It was all caught on TV for posterity, but no hand to elbow cast can be seen So perhaps it wasn’t January 1988 after all.” — John Stokes (Freewheelin 231, 2004)
source: Bob Dylan Chronicles Volume 1
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