Happy Birthday Bob!!!!!

Dear Bob,
Wow, 60 years old, and still rocking!
I still love you, Bob, even though you are less attractive, being older and all. But hey, I am too! So who cares?

You were my very first concert. My brave, long-suffering mother drove my friends and I to Providence, and sat through your show (the first, acoustic half, and the second, rock n roll half), and said she enjoyed it. This disappointed me only a little.

My favorite of your shows was, I think, the Rolling Thunder Revue. I went with Gail. I still have the mental movies, you, Scarlet Rivera, Mick Ronson, and, I guess, Joan Baez, though I don't remember her--Joni Mitchell too, maybe? It wasn't so much the performances, or even the music, just the whole concept of a traveling jam, promoted mainly by word of mouth . . . and Charles Laqueidera on BCN, that made it so special. So first you were only going to be at the Harvard Square Theatre. I found out too late to get tickets. Then, the Music Hall had two shows--I took the day off from work (because, as I told Gail on the phone, what is more important????) and waited in line, and got them! That was such an amazing achievement in the days before credit cards and online ticket purchasing.

Another favorite show was your Orpheum concert in 2005. I went with Ed. The Orpheum was such a dump, obviously hadn't been cleaned since the LAST time I went there, like a decade ago! Amos Lee and Merle Haggard opened for you. They were fine--but I was there for you, and you were incredible (as usual). The set list was a fantastic surprise--lots of old tunes, but magically reworked to sound brand-new. You played harp and keyboards--no guitar. I never expected to hear the Ballad of Hollis Brown, from your FIRST LP-- And The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll???? Songs from the Civil Rights movement, and you made them intense, and of the moment. Plus, your encore: Like a Rolling Stone. That was your encore in Providence, too. A full circle.

So, I wrote recently that, along with the Beatles and Louisa May Alcott, you were my greatest influence. How, exactly? Hmmm . . . well, let's put it this way . . . everything I learned about the complexity of romance, of religion, of the interface between dreams, music, words, reality--I guess I owe it all to you.

Anyway, Bob, I'm so impressed that you are 66, and still rocking! May you stay forever young! I plan to also.