served as the first photographer for the Peace Corps in 1961, and his work has been displayed on the covers and in the pages of Life, Time, Newsweek, Paris Match, Playboy, and National Geographic. In 1968, he won a Grammy for the cover of Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits, and published a photo book called Elvis is Everywhere in 1991. Now 60, he lives in Birmingham, Alabama. His first encounter with Dylan was at the 1963 Newport Folk Festival.

Peter, Paul & Mary were huge, the Kingston Trio were huge, and both groups were going to be at the Newport Folk Festival. Then, in passing, little Bobby Dylan showed up to sing with Joan Baez and turned things around like Clay over Liston. That weekend looms as the turning point in his career. He came in there driving an old Ford truck, wearing a bullwhip around his neck, and sporting a wry, quizzical look; he left as the new king. He had the goods, but nobody really knew who the hell he was. And because he wasn’t that attractive, no one was crowding around him, either.

I was mildly familiar with his work at the time, and he was so approachable. There I was, standing a foot in front of him with a 35mm lens, and I said, “I’d like to do a story about you.” He said, “That’d be fine, that’d be cool.” He wasn’t guarded or anything like that. He wanted it. In those days not many people wanted to do a story about him, so when I suggested it, he was all for it. Too bad I didn’t follow up on it. I had no idea what sort of story I’d do; I just knew he was coming along, and that he was cool.

He shook up the world of folk music that weekend. On Friday, he did a duet with Joanie. The next night, Peter, Paul & Mary sang a couple of his songs, and Joanie also invited him up for her set. By the end of the weekend, he was centerstage. Peter, Paul & Mary were behind him, Pete Seeger was behind him, and Theodore Bikel was way behind him.

The next time I saw him was 1967, when I was married, living in D.C., and shooting pictures for Life every day. Dylan did a concert at the Washington Coliseum, which was about a six-iron shot right up the street from where I lived. So, me and the wife decided to check it out. I brought a Nikon with a 300mm lens and a couple rolls of film.

After a few tunes, I said to my wife, “This is great. I’m going to take a few shots. I’ll be right back.” I went to the backstage door and was told no one was allowed backstage. I just said, “Life magazine, out of my way, fuck you.” I just wouldn’t be denied; I was in the zone. I’d just shot a Life cover, and there were pictures of mine in the magazine every week. Whatever my aura was, it was enough to bullshit my way backstage; it didn’t take that much. Dylan was in that dirty blue spot, doing some song I can no longer remember. I put the 300 mill on him, and I could see the whole thing. His hair, his halo, his harp—the three H’s.

So, I went bang, bang, bang, bang—six or seven frames. No motor or anything. Then, I said, “Thank you very much, I’ll be leaving now.” I didn’t hang around. I just kept thinking, “It doesn’t get any better than this,” and went back to watch the rest of the concert.

When I got the pictures back, I went up to New York and showed them to John Berg, the art director at Columbia Records. He’d been dating my sister at the time. John flipped through the pictures and said, “That’s the next cover.” Everything should be that easy. It actually happened faster than the process of retelling it. A few months later, the cover was out.

I remember Berg asking me, “Is $300 fine for you?” I said, “Yeah, that’s great. Thanks a lot, John.” I got the check, cashed it, the album comes out, and that’s it. The darned thing is still in production. It was actually supposed to be the cover for Blonde on Blonde, but Dylan told his people, “No, I don’t want that to be the cover,” so it wasn’t. But his contract lapsed right when they were about to do the Greatest Hits album, so Berg snuck it in there when Bob didn’t have the power to stop it.

Four or five months after the album comes out, Berg calls and says, “Rowland, we’re up for a Grammy. Do you want to come to New York?” I said, “That’s great,” but the weather was lousy—huge snowstorm—and I declined. He said, “Aw, don’t worry about it. We don’t have a chance anyway.” The next day I got a telegram saying, “Congratulations, you’re now the Grammy-award-winning...blah, blah, blah.” Who knows? Maybe if I’d made the trip, we might have lost.

The Grammy shows up, and my name’s misspelled, just like it is on the album. Not only that, but the gramophone part was broken. I packed it back up and said, “Thanks a lot, but spell my name right and send me another Grammy.” Never heard from them again. What knocks me out now is that he’s turned out to be one of the icons of the ’60s. That makes me proud, along with the fact that it’s in the Library of Congress. I later asked a lawyer to check into unlawful enrichment. I mean, they sold 40 million albums, and I got 300 bucks. I think maybe they should give me a gold star or $20,000.

A couple of years later, when Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits, Volume II came out, Mary Travers’ husband duplicated my picture for the cover. It was almost the same thing, only not quite as dark or graphic, and Dylan okayed that cover for some reason. Berg said, “Bob, you little bastard. You didn’t want the other one, which was the same thing.” Bob just sort of tucked his head under his arm and was all sheepish about it. I guess he realized he was wrong.