Zantzinger, Who Inspired Bob Dylan Ballad, Dies
By Dave Itzkoff, NYTimes
Update | 1:16 p.m. This post has been updated to include new information.
William Zantzinger, the onetime Maryland tobacco farmer whose beating of a black bar maid named Hattie Carroll inspired the early Bob Dylan ballad “The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll,” has died, The Guardian reported. He was 69.
During a visit to a Baltimore hotel in 1963, Mr. Zantzinger struck Ms. Carroll with a toy cane because he felt she wasn’t serving him fast enough. Ms. Carroll suffered a fatal hemorrhage, and Mr. Zantzinger was charged with murder. At a trial later that year, he was convicted of the reduced charge of involuntary manslaughter and sentenced to six months in prison and a $25,000 finefines totaling $625, provoking public outrage and prompting Mr. Dylan to write the song, which appeared on his album “The Times They Are A-Changin’.” Before his death, Mr. Zantzinger told Howard Sounes, a Dylan biographer: “I should have sued him and put him in jail,” according to The Guardian.
Watch Bob Dylan perform “The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll” on “The Steve Allen Show.” (hat tip: Rollingstone.com)
<![CDATA[<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/AmVqyzoaiIc" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="bbc_link bbc_flash_disabled new_win">http://www.youtube.com/v/AmVqyzoaiIc</a>]]>1963 New York Times article about the incident:
http://www.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/arts/zant.pdf
