Millions of people have this story. This is Mine.

Some said he’d gone “Vegas.” The story was he’d seen Neil Diamond perform there and had the idea of a real “presentation.” He was fronting the largest band he has ever had: Sax, keyboards, percussion, drums, two guitarists, one of whom also played violin, and three backing vocalists. Rob Stoner, David Mansfield and Steve Sholes were holdovers from his Rolling Thunder Revue backing band Guam, though Stoner would depart after the Japan shows and be replaced by Elvis’ former bassist Jerry Scheff. He went and hired Jerry Weintraub to manage his career. The drastic rearrangements of his songs had kicked into overdrive, though he’d been doing that since 1965. His popularity was at its highest since his 60’s heyday due to some big albums: Blood on the Tracks, Desire, and the live Hard Rain. He mounted a huge world tour, beginning in Japan. They took a short break to record Street Legal, then left to perform throughout Europe. During the tour, his movie Renaldo and Clara was released and annihilated by the press, even after winning the Palme D’Or at Cannes. Street Legal received similar treatment. Critics hated the live show, as did lots of diehard fans. Towards the end of the trek, he had a vision in a hotel room and was changed, spotted wearing a cross at the last few shows.

That fall, the tour stopped in New York City, at Madison Square Garden, and it was then that I attended my first Bob Dylan concert. September 29, 1978. He was 37. I was younger than that now. Up above is the original ticket stub, and here is a photo from that very show:

My 154th Bob Dylan concert is coming up in June. In these 46 years, he’s sung hundreds of songs for me, and has been as many different Bob Dylan’s. Seeing him has never once meant anything less than the world to me. I’ve seen him in stadiums, clubs, arenas, college gymnasiums, theaters, opera houses, and on a stage set up in the outfield of a minor league baseball field.

Equally as big a gift as the concerts and albums is the music he’s put me in touch with, for which I am eternally grateful. I can’t begin to list all the musicians I’ve come to love as a result of his citing other artists in interviews, writing about them in his books, performing with them, or covering their songs: Woody Guthrie, Johnny Cash, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Hank Williams, Link Wray, The Band, Muddy Waters, The Mississippi Sheiks, Bob Wills, Robert Johnson, Blind Willie McTell, The Clancy Brothers, Thelonius Monk—and that is a scant few. I’ve heard him sing songs by artists ranging from Leadbelly to The Ink Spots to Blind Blake to Charles Aznavour. 

I was there the first time he performed “This Wheel’s On Fire” (Madison, NJ 4/13/96). And for one of only 2 performances at the time since 1962 of “House of the Rising Sun” (NYC 7/17/86). And for the only performance of “Weeping Willow” (Supper Club, NYC 11/17/93). And “Something,” for George, (Madison Square Garden, 11/13/02), in the house where Harrison had twice introduced Bob to the stage. You can watch it for yourself below.

He’s been good, great, brilliant, hilarious, infuriating. Sometimes all at the same show. What a Colossus.

He changed my life. And today, Bob Dylan turns 83.

He just wrapped up his Rough And Rowdy Ways tour, which I was lucky enough to see on several occasions, the last being November 21, 2023 at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark. Heading home, I was sure I’d just seen him for the last time. But I’m due to see the man in late June, and again on July 6th up in Bethel Woods with Willie and Robert Plant. And I have very special company for that show.

Many concerts stand out musically, many for other reasons: Like the shows when I was there with one my kids (the older one, age 11, Yogi Berra Stadium 6/24/05, my younger boy, age 13, Brooklyn 11/21/12). Neither will claim it as a highlight, but maybe they’ll see it differently one day. Or when he played a high energy New York City show two months after 9/11 and said “all of these songs we’re playing here tonight were all written here in New York City. And if they weren’t written here, they were recorded here. So nobody has to ask me MY feelings about this town!” Or the Beacon Theater, 10/13/89, when I patted him on the back as he exited the house. That’s a story for another time. Musically, December 3, 2019 at the Beacon Theater takes the prize, 41 years after first seeing him and he was otherworldly sublime.

One of the biggest moments, that was May 10, 2003 at 11:09pm in Atlantic City, corner of Boston & the Boardwalk, outside of the Grand Theater at the Hilton Hotel. He’d just played a great show. Freddy Koella was in the band at this point. On the way in to the show, I’d spotted Bob’s bus at the stage door. Immediately after the the last song, I ducked out as quickly as I could to try and get a glimpse of him. A small crowd was waiting at the stage door. The bus was there, and running. I positioned myself near the windshield. Uncle Bobby doesn’t generally dawdle when the show wraps up. By the time the audience has cleared out, he’s a mile up the road. But the bus is there, it’s running, and he must not be on it. The stage door opened, and there he was! He made his way through the crowd, signing autographs, letting a few photos get snapped, listening to what people had to say. But I kid you not: he didn’t utter a syllable to anyone. He grinned, he nodded, he giggled a couple of times at something said, but not a word out of him. So he’s getting closer…Closer….HOLY SH!T HE’S IN FRONT OF ME!!! I grabbed his shoulder, said “you were so great tonight, so great.” And HE LOOKED AT ME and nodded, just like he’d recalled Buddy Holly looking at him, when he was 17, in the audience at the Armory in Duluth. I still get choked up.

God Bless Him. Bob Dylan is 83 today.

But it all began 9/29/78. The lights went down, the band came on without him, played an instrumental “My Back Pages,” and suddenly there he was! He was holding an armful of white flowers which he tossed into the crowd, picked up his ’61 Strat and played Muddy Waters’ “I’m Ready” to a Bo Diddley beat. 2-½ hours later he played “Changing of the Guards” as a one-song encore, and it was over. I never could have known then how it would lead to all this. 

I saw him next 4/27/80, in his full religious zeal, at the Palace Theater in Albany, singing nothing but his gospel songs. His pal Keith Richards called him ‘The Prophet of Profit’ at the time. He preached in between songs (“You need a doctor? Jesus can be that”), and sang and played brilliantly. Most of the crowd hated it, people walked out, but I thought it was cool as all hell. I wasn’t there when he went electric or country, so this was the big Dylan audience confrontation I’d only ever read about. A year later I saw him in New Jersey, and he was someone else. Publicly anyway.

He’s kept this up for the majority of my 153 shows. It’s all been great to me, even on those nights when he tested everyone’s patience, maybe even his own. His checking in here and there like America’s visiting Uncle, is always good enough for me.

So many people have this story. But this is mine.

I can’t begin to express my gratitude. Or feel I said it exactly the way I wanted, because I simply can’t sum it up. So…thank you Bob. Thank you. For saying it your way and making me think “that’s exactly how I feel.” And for talking about my Great Uncle, Joe E. Lewis, on the “Joe” edition of your Theme Time Radio Hour, saying the family last name and pronouncing it correctly. I fell out of my chair, and I’m not embellishing. Thanks Bob. Just thanks. 

Before we get to Today’s Playlist, a few choice clips…

And now, for Today’s Playlist, in honor of Bob Dylan’s 83rd birthday and my eternal appreciation, A SomethingIsHappening 83 song Dylan compendium, 1962 to 2020:

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