Mr. Jones: 1944–2007

The inspiration for Dylan's "Ballad of a Thin Man" died in November.

Jeffrey Owen Jones was a father, scholar, college dean, Emmy Award winner, and magazine editor—all of which managed to fit into one paragraph of his obituary. But let the poet laureate of his generation write one nasty song about your cluelessness and that they'll remember.

Jones seemed to take it well. "'I was thrilled—in the tainted way I suppose a felon is thrilled to see his name in the newspaper,' Jones wrote in a story for Rolling Stone magazine some years later. 'I was awed too that Dylan had so accurately read my mind. I resented the caricature but had to admit that there was something happening there at Newport in the summer of 1965, and I didn't know what it was.'"

Via Grow-A-Brain.

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