I had Keith Moon, & The Who in my office. Then he said "Bob (Dylan) wants a word with you!"

It was the end of May or early June 1978, and I was sitting and daydreaming in my office in Soho, London. London’s Capital Radio was playing on the cheap little transistor radio. It sat on a shelf by the window that looked out over Flaxman Court, the alley between The Ship pub and our office. I was probably listening to one of the great DJs, Roger Scott or Kenny Everett. I can’t remember. So, as I sat there staring into space, I sang along very badly to Paul McCartney & Wing's song, ‘With A Little Luck’. Anyone who may have heard me would agree that I was killing it, and not in a good way.  It is yet another amazing song by the brilliant Mr McCartney. It was from Paul McCartney & Wings’ fantastic ‘London Town’ album.

This is me with hair, sitting in our reception at Trinifold Management. I took this on one of my Nikon F2As cameras on self-time.

I was a teenager, and I had my own office in the management office of one of the greatest and biggest bands in the world, ‘The Who’. Suddenly, my friend and fellow music photographer, Matthew Taylor, bounced into my office. He was well known to the receptionist, Yvonne, so I had no prior warning of his impending arrival as he would charge in the main door and run down to my office, a bit like an enthusiastic kid. I guess that is why we got on so well; we were both very ambitious teenagers. Matthew was lovable, energetic and, at the same time, quite anxious. Let’s not forget that he was a brilliant photographer. He brought me out of my daydream with a bang as he ran into the office and stopped me dead at my attempt to sing along with the songs on the radio. He said, “Danny, Bob Dylan is coming to London for the first time in almost ten years!” I said, “who?” which I knew would annoy him and start him moaning at me. He knew I was only joking. I asked what the big deal was, and he said, “We just have to photograph him”. Of course, I agreed with him. Neither of us knew which record label Bob Dylan was on. We needed to know because the record label would be our way of getting photo passes in those days. We needed to go to a local record store and look at one of his albums to see what label he was on. So we both went out of my office, down the stairs and through Flaxman Court into Wardour Street, around the corner into Berwick Street.

Our office block was above the pink shop EL&N and next to The Ship. This was a recent photo. In the late 1970s, it wasn’t a pink restaurant but a drum shop owned by the wonderful drummer Bob Henrit. It was cunningly called Henrit’s Drumstore.

There were many record shops there. At that time, my mate, Shane MacGowan, who years later became the frontman for ‘The Pogues’, worked in one of them. We grabbed a Bob Dylan album and saw that it said CBS Records.

Wardour Street at the junction with Old Compton Street, Soho. I took this photo in the late 1970s.

We raced back to my office and got the phone number for the press office at CBS. I was always the one doing the talking and negotiating for the two of us. So, I established that the lady who ran the CBS Press Office was Ellie Smith. I called her up as Matthew stood in front of me. He had both hands flat on my desk as he leaned over, trying to hear the conversation from the CBS end. He had a habit of speaking to me through the conversation as I was talking to someone. I was trying to hear the person on the telephone and concentrate on what I was saying, and all I could hear was Matthew telling me to say this or that. He thought it helped. It didn’t. The last thing I needed was someone speaking to me and putting me off. As I said, Matthew was lovable, and I didn’t get annoyed. It was just his way. I got put through to the press office, and I spoke with Elli Smith. I noticed she was American, so I tried a bit of small talk, which went down like a lead balloon. She quickly got me back on track and wanted to know who I was and why I was on her phone. It was one of those calls when the person on the other end had no time for you. I said my name is Danny Clifford, and my friend Matthew Taylor and I would like to know if we can have two photo passes for the Bob Dylan concerts at Earl’s Court in a week or two. She asked who we were shooting it for, and I explained that we were freelancers. She said NO and hung up. I immediately called her back. She answered her phone. I said, “Hi, this is