by Ray Padgett
Interviews with scads of people who played live with Dylan from the 60s to today. Could have been edited down a bit. The highlight was Stan Lynch, drummer for the Heartbreakers, who sounds blissed out with every word he utters about playing with Bob, and gives the funniest story. Three songs into a concert, Bob turns and says, “Hey, Stan, what do you want to play tonight?” Stan is like, uh, “Lay Lady Lay”? Bob says, “What key.” Note: Lynch is the drummer. He’s asking the drummer what key. “I see Mike [Campbell] in the corner going, ‘A! A! A!’ I go, ‘How about A?’ Everybody has a big sigh of relief.”
Guitarist Billy Cross offers some of the best insight. “I wasn’t crazy about the sounds that the engineers got. I remember at one point, I was on his case, saying ‘Bob, it could sound better, man.’ He said, ‘Billy, my records are my music played by me and the people with whom I’m playing in that room on that day. That’s what my music is.’ I thought that was a pretty cool way to look at it.” And, “He writes. That’s what he does.” And regarding all the touring, “Once I asked him… ‘All this, how can you do it?’ He said, ‘Billy, that’s what I do.'”
Tour manager Richard Fernandez: “Bob was, if not the most, at least the top two most interesting people I’ve ever worked with.” That sums it up.
The author is incidentally a Burlington resident, and I’ve been trying to find a copy of his book “Cover Me” for some time. I keep checking Crow.
Tytania 