OK, this is a story that reminds us that we are getting older. When a police officer, 24 years old, has to ask Bob Dylan for ID, and says you're who?According to the AP story I found: Rock legend Bob Dylan was treated "like a complete unknown" by police in a New Jersey shore community when a resident called to report someone wandering around the neighborhood.
Dylan was in Long Branch, NJ on July 23 as part of a tour with Willie Nelson and John Mellencamp and scheduled to play in Lakewood.
Apparently, the story goes that he didn't have any ID on him and they had to go back to his hotel to verify who he was. Can you imagine what that officer went through once she was left with her cohorts? And what about Dylan? It must have been surreal.To think, I had met him in Woodstock, along with dozens of other greats during the early eighties. I didn't think anything of it because that was the norm in Woodstock. Now, these youngsters don't even know Aerosmith or Clapton. If it doesnt have a synth beat and some foul tyrics, they wont care.
As for our unwivering admiration for the great Bob Dylan, I think it's healthy and natural to want or even expect our youth to acknowlege an Icon like Dylan. Maybe it's just me sounding just like my parents 20 years ago when they defended the greatness of Mel Torme.
Any legend encounters you'd like to share?
5 comments:
Who knows, maybe Dylan enjoyed not being recognized. On the other hand it is difficult to accept that the things and people we thought were so important and cool don't seem as relevant to the next generation.
Was on the NYC Blues Cruise lasty night & got to talk with PineTop Perkins ( Muddy Waters'94 yr old piano player ) & HUBERT SUMLIN ( Howlin Wolf's amazing guitarist ).
They were ol' Blues cats who love to just play & talk to their friends, killer views of nyc & Hubert & i got to salute the Statue Of Liberty together. PRICELESS !!!!
He was looking for a house in what used to be a laid back beach community once. I hope he realizes that the entire state of NJ is a fascist hellhole now. I won't even let my kids near the water at the beach house even if I put up with the police following me to my doorstep. Let the Syrians have it. It's not an enjoyable destination anymore. The cops there twenty years ago didn't know Dylan then either. It's more about not being allowed to walk around than about recognition. South Carolina beaches are cool, laid back, and clean. That's the place to find freedom these days.
If what 11:22 says is true then this country has changed beyond recognition if some older looking dude can't walk around in a neighborhood without being confronted by the police with ID or not. Unless he was staggering around or just meandering like a rolling stone tangled up in blue with the subterranean homesick blues, why would the female cop act just like a woman? If it was the other way around and she asked if he was Bob Dylan and he said "It ain't me babe" then they could drag him around for not doing what they said. Since nobody will ever stay forever young and he wasn't seeking shelter from the storm, it was just a simple twist of fate that was blowin' in the wind that he had to go thru this. But not to worry he'll probably write a song about it. The very fact that the cops didn’t recognize him, especially if he was playing in the area shows how ignorant some people can be on many levels. How can any American not know about Bob Dylan? He is to music like Abe Lincoln is to history.
When I was at Woodstock '94 a young guy there to see Aerosmith yelled out to David Crosby,of Crosby, Stills and Nash, "Get off the stage grandpa". What more needs to be said? Each new generation needs to find its own identity often by putting down their parents generation. I was not a big fan of Bing Crosby.
4:52 Great Post
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