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Now, hop on your motor scooter, go to the beach, and dance.

Pure amusement. I guarantee this will make you smile:

Did you know that when he was quite young, Bob Dylan played piano in Bobby Vee's band?

Bobby Vee was from Fargo, North Dakota, raised not too far from me. In the summer of '59 he had a regional hit record out called "Suzie Baby" on a local label. His band was called The Shadows and I had hitchhiked out there and talked my way into joining his group as a piano player on some of his local gigs, one in the basement of a church. I played a few shows with him, but he really didn't need a piano player and, besides, it was hard finding a piano that was in tune in the halls that he played.

Bobby Vee and me had a lot in common, even though our paths would take such different directions. We had the same musical history and came from the same place at the same point in time. He had gotten out of the Midwest, too, and had made it to Hollywood. Bobby had a metallic, edgy tone to his voice and it was as musical as a silver bell, like Buddy Holly's, only deeper. When I knew him, he was a great rockabilly singer and now he had crossed over and was a pop star...

I wanted to see him again....

I told him I was playing in the folk clubs.... He'd become a crowd pleaser in the pop world...

Standing there with Bobby, I didn't want to act selfishly on his time so we said good-bye and I walked down the side of the theater and out through one of the side doors. There were throngs of young girls waiting for him in the cold outside the building.... I wouldn't see Bobby Vee again for another thirty years, and though things would be a lot different, I'd always thought of him as a brother. Every time I'd see his name somewhere, it was like he was in the room.

Bob Dylan, "Chronicles," pages 79-81.

Full post as published by Althouse on July 11, 2008 (boomark / email).