"Ms. Martin was in the crowd at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival when Mr. Dylan first performed with electric instruments."

"She recalled two things from the appearance: the raucous boos and her conviction that he needed a polished backup band. Around the same time, Rick Danko, a friend, sent her a demo tape by the Hawks, in which he played bass. Ms. Martin thought the group would be a perfect match for Mr. Dylan. But the Hawks were a rock band and Mr. Dylan was still considered a folkie, and at first neither side was interested. 'Mary was a rather persevering soul,' Mr. Dylan said in a 1969 interview with Rolling Stone magazine. 'She kept pushing these guys the Hawks to me.' She persuaded Mr. Dylan to try out two of the band’s five members, the drummer Levon Helm and the guitarist Robbie Robertson. After Mr. Helm insisted that the Hawks were a package deal, Mr. Dylan relented, and the Hawks — soon to be known as the Band — went on tour with him, setting in motion one of the greatest collaborations in rock history...."

From "Mary Martin, Who Gave Many Music Stars Their Start, Dies at 85/Her loyalty to artists and her eye for talent made her a force in a male-dominated business. Among her accomplishments: introducing Bob Dylan to the Band" (NYT).

ALSO: "While climbing the ranks within [Albert] Grossman’s office, she became close friends with many of his clients. One weekend at Mr. Grossman’s home in upstate New York, she swam a race against Mr. Dylan. She lost, but as a consolation prize, Mr. Grossman gave her his cat, Lord Growing — the same cat Mr. Dylan holds on the cover of his 1965 album 'Bringing It All Back Home.'"

Hmm. Lord Growing. Elsewhere, I'm seeing this quote from the photographer, Daniel Kramer, in "The story of the art work on Bringing it All Back Home":

“That [cover shot] was the only time all three subjects were looking at the lens.” That was Bob, Sally and a cat. The cat looks scared, Sally looks bored and Dylan looks like he’s discovered that scowl. According to biographer Robert Shelton, the cat is called Rolling Stone (No Direction Home: The Life and Music of Bob Dylan – Beech Tree Books, 1986), but other sources think his name was Lord Growing.

“It was a very important cover for Bob,” Kramer knows. “And the reason is the first four albums he did, he’s a folk singer. He’s in folk singer clothes, he looks, you know, ‘Oh, woe is me.’

On Bringing It All Back Home, he’s a prince in his blazer and his beautiful cufflinks, sitting with this beautiful cat and a ravishingly beautiful woman behind him in a red dress. It was a change. Everything was changing.”

Did the NYT resolve the controversy over the cat's name? I don't know. I heard cats have 9 names. 

AND: That's a photograph of my personal copy of the album, the first Dylan album I bought. It was the newest of his albums at the time, 1965, and it had the song that made me think it might be worth the high price of a record album: "Mr. Tambourine Man." I remember standing over the folk music bin at Two Guys staring at that photo when I was 14, weighing the pros and cons. The photo gives you a lot to think about, and I've contemplated it for 6 decades. See the unique marks of wear on the Althouse copy. But I have never thought what's the cat's name. What I like about the picture is how absurdly it seems to want to say: We were just sitting around listening to our record albums and reading about LBJ and smoking and petting a cat and then you came in and spoiled the mood.