My Boot Heels Might Be Wandering

I ran into a dear friend in the store the other night. She is a very smart woman and an in my opinion accomplished artist (actress) in her own right. We were just talking and then she recommended I see the film "Searching for Sugar Man". I said I would try and see it on her recommendation. She said "This guy is better than Bob Dylan." I replied "Nobody is better than Bob Dylan." Her reply was "This guy can write AND sing."

To say this guy can write and sing seems to put emphasis somehow on the vocals and I would think that if you gauge Bob Dylan by the vocals, I would respectfully submit that you have missed the whole point. Dylan is not a singer/songwriter like James Taylor or Cat Stevens. He is a poet who chose to send us his poetry through song instead of just text.

Let me start by saying that Bob Dylan is a poet of extraordinary caliber, and I truly believe he is the poet of a generation. I believe that from 1963 through his album "Blood On The Tracks" the muse of genius sat on his shoulder and gave him an extraordinary abilities. Bob Dylan must feel somewhat gratified to know that several major universities have courses in the poetry of Bob Dylan. His name will be revered generations from now along with Dickinson, Whitman, Kerouac, Ginsberg, Van Doren, and Williams. And I sincerely believe aside from perhaps Dickinson, his name will rise to top.

If someone was actually greater than Dylan, their face would be on the cover of TIME and NEWSWEEK several times this year, and for years to come. I must confess.....I don't know what the hell she's talking about.

So let me go back a bit.

I was pubescent teenager. I was in the home of my second surrogate family the Springers, and saw the open door to the top of the stairs where my surrogate sisters slept. At the top of the stairs there was an album cover propped up and it was the cover of Dylan's Blonde On Blonde. So I thought "if I want to be as cool as my surrogate sister Valkerie, I have to get this record." So I went to the store to get it. But they were sold out. So my first ever album buy was the substitute The Freewheeling Bob Dylan. And oh buddy, my life changed.

Okay, I'm man enough to admit that the other album I bought that day was Herman's Hermit's Greatest Hits. but I don't remember whatever happened to that. But Bob Dylan's Freewheeling Bob Dylan, preoccupied all of my time. Not just the anthem Blowin' In The Wind, but Talkin' World War III Blues, and the powerful Masters of War and A Hard Rains Gonna Fall. I knew then I was on to something and started buying Bob Dylan albums as fast as I could afford them.

Okay, maybe Dylan isn't the first name anybody ever thinks of when they think of singers. But neither is Mick Jagger, Leadbelly, Muddy Waters, Tom Waits, Johnny Cash, or Louie Armstrong. But geniuses each and every one. Armstrong invented a music genre and the great American art form, but Dylan had the poet's muse.

My weariness amazes me, I’m branded on my feet
I have no one to meet
And the ancient empty street’s too dead for dreaming.

Also:

I’m ready to go anywhere, I’m ready for to fade
Into my own parade, cast your dancing spell my way
I promise to go under it.

And:

Yes, to dance beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free
Silhouetted by the sea, circled by the circus sands
With all memory and fate driven deep beneath the waves
Let me forget about today until tomorrow.

- Mr. Tambourine Man

If Dylan had never written anything other that "Mr. Tamborine Man" he would have been a legend to me, and I realize my brief snippets of lyrics don't do it justice. But he sailed on "ships with tattooed sails", and asked "where you want this killin' done? And God said out on Highway 61",  and "there must be some kind of way out of here, said the Joker to the Thief", and "Senators and Congressman, please heed the call, please get out of the doorways, get out of the halls, for the Times They Are Changin'." And of course the incomparable "Like A Rolling Stone."

If you don't own "Blonde On Blonde" go out and buy it now. I'll wait.......... It is the only record I have purchased in every format. Vinyl (twice, wore the first out), 8 track, Cassette, CD, and download.

Everyone should own "Blonde On Blonde", "Highway 61 Revisited", and "Bringing It All Back Home." Listen to these three albums all the way through 5 times and tell me I'm not right.  And then branch out to ""The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan", "John Wesley Harding", "Blood On The Tracks", "Nashville Skyline" and "Desire." What an extraordinary trip.... so far......

No, Bob Dylan may not be the greatest singer of our time, but Bob Dylan was our time. And that is something for us to marvel at in it's own right. And so my dear friend, my sad-eyed lady of the lowlands, I say again, nobody is better than Bob Dylan.

The Spring Trip home, 2014.

My wife says I need to follow up on my post of December 17, 2013, wherein I implied we were going to do some specific things in our trip home from Pensacola College in the spring of 2014. Which we did, but she chastised me because I failed to report on it.

This year on the way home, instead of heading into Mississippi, we stayed in Alabama. We stopped in Alabama and saw the incredible grave of Hank Williams. It's the best I've seen, and I have been to many. I thought Bruce Lee and Brandon Lee's were something, but the Hank Williams was very impressive.

From there we headed north, naturally, and swung over to Florence, Alabama. I wanted to go there for many reasons. First of all, it's close to Muscle Shoals, the home of where a lot of the music I love was born. We were able to visit the FAME studios. (Florence Alabama Music Enterprises). This is where Aretha Franklin cut "I Never Loved A Man The Way I Love You." Wilson Pickett did most of his great stuff here. Otis Redding recorded here. Duane Allman slept in the parking lot until they'd let him in on the sessions. That's him on Wilson Pickett's "Hey Jude." He takes off on a riff that virtually invented "southern rock." The usual 20 minute tour turned into an hour and a half for us because the manager took an instant liking to me. I got to play a guitar that Duane Allman used to noodle around on (among others), and my wife got to play a piano that has been played by everybody from Aretha Franklin to Alicia Keyes. And she got to play the organ that was played during the opening of "I Never Loved A Man The Way I Love You."

Then we stopped at the other Muscle Shoals studio where everybody and their brother recorded. Cat Stevens, Paul Simon, too many to list. This is where The Rolling Stones recorded "Brown Sugar" and "Wild Horses."

Once back in the hotel, the wife was flipping through some literature, and mentioned that there was a Frank Lloyd Wright house in Florence. So that was added to the next day's itinerary.

The next day we were able to visit the childhood home of Helen Keller and yeah, I even got to stand at the pump. I have Assistant Directed this play, and I was in this play once, and the whole Helen Keller miracle is one of the great American stories. Then we were able to visit The Rosenbaum House, the Frank Lloyd Wright creation in Florence, Alabama. I loved it and befriended the director who gave us the royal treatment, because I mentioned I was a docent at the Meyer May House in Grand Rapids. It was a wonderful visit.

From there we visited the childhood home of W.C. Handy, whom some consider 'father of the blues'. And after we visited the University of North Alabama, (alma mater of George "Goober" Lindsey) and see the extensive George Lindsey exhibit there.

It was, as always, a great trip. I love the south. If they weren't all red states, I would live there. I will live in Florida someday. And that state goes either way......