#music #lyrics #books #reading
Stuck Inside of Mobile, With The Memphis Blues Again.
I had never heard of Bob Dylan. Never heard even one song. I discovered him while I was sitting on the floor inside an old bookstore in Mobile, Alabama. The used books were in the basement. This book was on a bottom shelf. I read pages and pages of the lyrics of his songs. I was knocked over. I bought the book. And then I read about him at a local Mobile public library. I never cared for folk music. At the time he was popular I was too busy trying to survive, and didn't care about hippies or politics. I didn't have a radio, a TV or a stereo system. Never read newspapers or magazines. I didn't go to concerts, nor did I have a gang of friends to party with. I had a mattress on the floor, a wind up alarm clock, and one pair of shoes, with duct tape on the soles to hold them together. But I did have books. The first Dylan song I heard, and I knew the lyrics, was 'Lay Lady Lay.'
Then, I began working for a progressive FM radio station in Mobile. I went to my first concert with the Music Program Director. He was also a DJ . It was a Bob Dylan concert in a small auditorium with a stage. I sat on the floor with hundreds of other people. Dylan had my attention. He only had three musicians with him. I can truthfully say, he is the only man I ever sat on a floor to listen to, or sat on a floor to read a book he had written.