"Joey" - photo 1
"Joey" - photo 2

"Joey"

Lot 110
27.06.2024 00:00UTC +00:00
Classic
Starting price
$ 17 000
AuctioneerCHRISTIE'S
Event locationUnited Kingdom, London
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ID 1236341
Lot 110 | "Joey"
Estimate value
$ 20 000 – 30 000
DYLAN, Bob (b. 1941), LEVY, Jacques (1935-2004). Typescript lyrics for "Joey," signed ("Bob Dylan" and "Jacques Levy"), inscribed to Marta Curro (1933-2012) and Jerry [Orbach (1935-2004)], [New York, c. June-July 1975]. [With:] GALLO, Joseph (1929-1972). Untiled, signed ("Joey Gallo #11916"), Greenhaven Prison, n.d. Watercolor on canvas.

Lyrics: two pages, 237 x 197mm (visible) with corrections and emendations to lyrics, possibly in the hand of Jacques LEVY, and additional notations in blue ballpoint, possibly in the hand of Bob DYLAN (sheets attached at margins with green tape, light toning, some soiling to mat). Matted and framed. Painting: 600 x 450 mm. (some warping to backing board, a few stray pencil marks and a few spots of mild soiling). Framed.

The near to final draft lyrics of the song "Joey," signed and inscribed by the authors to the couple who inspired Dylan to compose a song about the notorious gangster, Joey Gallo. The song, which appeared on Dylan's 1976 LP Desire, came into being after being introduced by Marta and Jerry Orbach by lyricist Jacques Levy. According to the Orbach family, Dylan had become fascinated with Gallo after visiting the Orbach's home in Greenwich Village after seeing a photograph of the gangster hanging on the wall. When Dylan asked about the photograph, Marta Orbach, who had been collaborating on the gangster's autobiography before his assassination at Umberto's Clam House in Little Italy in April 1972, told him everything she know about the former mob enforcer turned Manhattan hipster. The Orbachs had first met Gallo while Jerry Orbach had been doing research for the role of a gang leader in the 1971 comedy, The Gang that Couldn't Shoot Straight, but did not become acquainted in person until Gallo introduced himself at the restaurant Queen on Court Street in Brooklyn. The three became fast friends and Gallo became a fixture in the Manhattan literary scene. Marta once remarked that “Joey once asked me who I preferred, or Camus. I almost fell into my plate of spaghetti. A few days later Joey showed up at our house in the middle of the night and announced that he and I were going to write a book together.” (A watercolor city landscape, painted by Gallo while serving time at Greenhaven Prison in Brewster, New York, also hung in the Orbach home--further evidence of their brief, but close relationship.)

According to Orbach's children, Dylan and Levy were so taken by Marta's story that they proceeded to the Orbach's piano where they composed the song on the spot. Following the July 1975 sessions for Desire, where the song "Joey" would lead the second side of the LP, Dylan and Levy presented the present set of typescript lyrics. On its release on the 1976 album Desire, "Joey" was savaged by the critics for its perceived glorification of the mafia—a similar critique levelled at the first two installments Francis Ford Copolla's Godfather trilogy (1972 & 1974). (See Diamatto and Benson, Mafia Hit Man, 2021). Provenance: Jerry Orbach – by descent to the consignors.
Address of auction CHRISTIE'S
8 King Street, St. James's
SW1Y 6QT London
United Kingdom
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13.06.2024 – 27.06.2024
Phone +44 (0)20 7839 9060
Email
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