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 27th 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