I grew up in this little house, at the end of a long road, at the bottom of a big hill in Minnesota, with five brothers and sisters, Dad and Mom. It was an old homestead house and land Dad bought from his Grandpa in the fall of 1968, the year I was born. While the plumbing went in the following summer, the hot water never did, nor did the kitchen sink, much to Mom’s frequent and valid complaint. There were holes in the floor that let chipmunks in and frost on the walls in the winter, but Dad just built a picnic table in the kitchen for us to eat at and called it good. Like many in Minnesota, we subsisted on a lot of wild game, garden vegetables, and way too much tomato hot dish :P

Life was primitive for the day and age we lived in, even in comparison to the other country kids I met at school. We wore clothes from boxes that church people gave us, and we had no TV most of the time. Occasionally my older brother would find an ancient one somewhere that would work for a while, but we didn’t get much reception. We did, however, have one of those suitcase record-players and an ice cream bucket full of old 45’s from the fifties. Mom and Dad had sent them back and forth to each other when he was drafted and stationed in Germany at the start of their marriage. Stuff like Elvis, Ricky Nelson, Roy Orbison, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Jerry Lee, and Buddy Holly. One of our favorites was, “The Bigger the Figure” with the flip-side, “Boney Bones” by Louis Prima & his Orchestra. We loved those records and spent hours listening. When I was five, Dad brought home a brand new stereo console. What a thing that was! We didn’t have many LP’s at first, but we had some Hank Williams, Johnny Cash, Loretta Lynn, Waylon Jennings, Jack Greene, the bluegrass duo, Flatt and Scruggs, and some by a hillbilly gospel singer and guitar player called Dwayne Friend. We had one by the actor, Michael Parks, who I now suspect may have copped Bob’s Nashville Skyline voice when he wasn’t using it anymore. We loved him.

Dad played guitar at night, and sang in a strange manner down in his throat and through his nose. Mom would roll her eyes and say he was trying to sound like Jimmie Skinner. I liked one he did called, “Beer Drinkin’ Daddy” by I don’t know who, and one called “All Along the Water Tower.” He played harmonica too, with a coat hanger harmonica rack, and would play “Down in the Valley” sitting on the end of my bed when I asked him to. Back before I was born he used to play at beer joints with Mom’s brothers.

Mom came from a lot of music. Her brothers all played guitar or drums, and Grandpa played the fiddle at barn dances. Grandma and the girls used to go to town once a week to sing on the radio. All of Grandma’s brothers and sisters had moved to Chicago in the twenties where they performed in Vaudeville-style “showbiz”, but Mom said they came home every summer and put on a big show for the family. When our extended family got together it was all about music and beer, and sometimes Uncle Dave would hand me a microphone for my big Dwayne Friend number :) It would go on into the morning, and I can remember collapsing on a pile of coats, my eyes burning from cigarette smoke.

My brothers took up guitar and fiddle. My oldest brother, Steve, who can do anything, made a banjo out of a tree and a woodchuck. I’m not kidding :) We girls took to art, probably because there weren’t enough guitars to go around, and to music appreciation. The whole family loves music from our very souls, and outsiders never know what the hell we’re talking about. We just shake our heads and wonder what they think about all day :)

So you see, we were meant to be, Bob and I :) One day when I was fifteen, I went to town and saw “Sweetheart Like You” on MTV. I’d probably heard two or three of Bob’s earliest songs, but this was current, and just for me. All I can say is that it was miles above anything I’d been hearing in popular music, or anything I’ve heard since, for that matter. From there I began to explore Bob Dylan and all the unexpected twists and turns of his brilliant life’s work. Album after album, and song after song, I’m engaged and thrilled by what he does. To Bob I can say only thank you, raise a glass, and smile :)