Benford Standley Victor Maymudes and Little Feather Publishing is proud to announce that  Victor Maymudes has signed with St. Martin's Press to  publish his book of stories about Bob Dylan JOKER AND THE THIEF click to Press Release

Victor Maymudes and Bob Dylan (photo by Lisa Law)

I was working as a "ghost writer,"  if you will,  for Victor on his book about his years working for and with Bob Dylan.  Victor also had several other writing projects and below you will find the short synopsis on each of the books that he wanted to write over the next years and be part of his publishing company LITTLE FEATHER PUBLISHING.  Little Feather was to be a Publishing company that was to be family owned and operated.  Victor and I collaborated to created this idea and I always felt like a creative partner with Victor on this dream.  Most of the idea came together over the year we were working close on the Bob Dlyan book.

Victor was one of my best friends and he appreciated my visions of the Internet and we worked together to get his publishing up in cyberspace.  In the spirit of that and to help me take all that he told me come to some word to be read by maybe his family and friends, and for the archives of history I plan to begin to write my chapter on Victor and you will be able to read it right here.

                Victor was 65 years old when he passed away there in the Pacific Palisades.  I had spent many
                hours with him personally and on the phone the last couple of years of his life.  I know I was
                hearing stories about his life of music no-one had ever heard.  We had many times together where
                we would talk and I would help him go back and remember where he had been on the musical
                trail that he had made through his life.  I was helping him write his book about his years in the
                music business and work on a book about his years with Bob Dylan, which by the way, was
                only a chapter in a man that was no doubt part of the history of folk and rock and roll himself.

                In 1999, I became his Webmaster for a site we were dreaming up called LittleFeather.net.  The
                idea was to be a online publishing company that would publish  books by and about some of
                the characters that he had run into over the years, and several books that he wanted to write.  He
                wanted it to be a family company that his kids and friends could benefit from helping with and
                owning.

                Victor got his first guitar in 1949, hence began his musical career.  Victor produced the first concerts
                by Odetta.  In 1955, Victor was part of the energy that became the Unicorn, which was the first
                coffee house in Los Angeles.  It was on Sunset Blvd., and became the place where Allan Ginsberg
                and other new poets were reading their material.  Victor was always around the new cutting edge
                of music and in many respects was making it happen.  As a producer he was helping many young
                musicians make their music.

                In 1957, Victor worked again with Herb Cohen to open the Cosmo Alley where the whites and
                the blacks were first hanging out together.  "Marlon Brando, Dennis Hopper, Odetta, Peter Fonda
                and all the other 'hipsters.'   Lenny Bruce was working the Cahunga Burlesque and he would come
                down after work and do his own special comedy at our place," Victor once told me.

                He ran with Ramblin' Jack Elliot and Woody Gutherie.  It was Ramblin' Jack Elliot that took Victor
                to New York and introduced him to "the kid," who was in fact Bob Dylan.  Victor went on to work
                with and for Mr. Dylan for two plus decades serving as tour manager and wearing many other
                hats for Bob Dylan.  He was tour manager for some of the biggest tours like Rolling Thunder and
                when Dylan and the Band cut trails everywhere.  He was at the Monterey Pop Festival, with Dylan
                at the Pyramids in Europe, on the Never Ending Tour, there when Dylan posed for Andy Warhol,
                he built Bob's Bus (and Neil Young's and Waylon Jenning's bus)

                Victor worked with and was friends of folks like Paul McCartney, Will Geere, Johnny Cash, Al
                Cooper, Aldous Huxley,  William Borrows, Waylon Jennings, Hugh Romney  (Wavy Gravy),
                George Harrison, Tom  Petty, Joan Baez, the Mamas and the Papas, the Grateful Dead, The
                Beatles, The Band, Neil Young  Willie Nelson, Paul Simon, Pete Seeger, Harry Dean  Stanton
                to just mention a few.  His tales and times with Woody Gutherie, Will Geere and Ramblin' Jack
                Elliott, who first introduced Victor to Bob Dylan, is the kind of story that not only movies are
                made of...but are stories of what history is made of.

                The man was at the beginning and an intricate part of the Bohemian scene that gave birth to artist
                like Allen Ginsberg, William Borroughs,  Lawrence Ferlinghetti,  Gregory Corso and Gary Snyder,
                then he was there when the coffee house and folk scene were born in Los Angeles and in New
                York.  Victor had an important story that he wanted to tell and it is sad that his words are only
                in notes and now who he was is in memories.

A BOOK IN THE WORKS Children's book about a 170 lb. English  Mastief dog named Brutus  that goes on  tour with a rock and roll singer. Telling the story is a four year old kid that has  to stay  at home and hears the story  from the dog.

IT IS GOOD TO LOOK BACK will discuss how  jazz and poetry first fused, how this new art form influenced folk music, how folk became rock,  how rock helped to set the western world free, how the beats turned Bob  Dyan on, and how Bob turned the Beatles on before the Beatles changed the entire world.  From Victor Maymudes, the man who lived it, a book about music, revolution, politics and the fight for liberty of expression in the last four decades.

George Harrison and his friend Victor joined eachother above in 2001

Josh Hassle, James Rado & Victor Maymudes

MY LIFE STORY IN  ROCK AND ROLL  44 Years of Rock and Roll history from the man who lived it. GO TO MORE FLASHBACKS

Another book coming from Victor's pen

ALL FOR THE GOOD  by Victor Maymudes.  This is a story of four guys seeking the truth and the lies,  and the social impact of marijuana  and those that smoke the weed.