Victor Maymudes the "Village" philosopher who as mentor, manager and friend guided Bob Dylan down the road from obscurity to icon in the early sixties, died peacefully on January 27^th 2001 in UCLA Hospital, Santa Monica, California. On that journey he was protected and comforted by the presence and courage of his children Aerie Victoria and Jacob. He was sixty-five.

Victor was the son of the respected liberal left-wing Los Angeles activists, Golda and Abraham Maymudes and the brother of August and Zicel; growing up the music and rhetoric of humanism, anti-fascism and civil rights was the food on their table. Late-sixties Victor stepped off the music stage to homestead in Northern New Mexico, his hands turned to chopping wood and carpentry, his heart to loving his family. 1986 until 1996 he returned to Dylan’s side as a personal manager. The last years of his life were spent traveling and writing his memoirs. The product of that effort, The Joker and the Thief, was scheduled for publication by Saint Martins Press in 2002.

Above all, Victor appreciated the value of music, the poetry in a well-turned phrase and a good joint.

"Song is the ultimate repository of human civilization," he maintained, "it's a resting place for one heart and translates the soul of culture for all."


Text by Linda Wylie, photo by David Maymudes