Dylan Ready To Lay It On The Northwest Again Music Legend Will Play Gorge This Weekend After Earliers Concerts In Pullman, Missoula
For most of my formative years, I ate off dishes given to my parents by the mother of popular music’s most influential songwriter.
Such is my link to greatness. I’m still waiting for my remaining 141/2 minutes of fame.
Bob Dylan’s mother, Beatrice (Zimmerman) Rutman, attended my parents’ wedding back in 1973. Her second husband, Joe Rutman, a barrel-company owner from St. Paul, Minn., was friends with my grandfather.
Joe died in 1985, Beatrice early this year. And the plates got phased out when I was in high school, in favor of a newer set.
But for years, whenever I’d pick at my meatloaf off those white plates with the avocado-green trim, I’d think of Bob Dylan.
This guy influenced musicians who themselves go down among the greatest in rock: the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Bruce Springsteen.
His poetic songs like “Blowin’ in the Wind,” “The Times They Are a-Changing” and “Like a Rolling Stone” have become back-up national anthems.
It’s been just three months since Dylan last performed in the area, with shows in Pullman and Missoula, and still he has the star power to play the 20,000-seat Gorge Amphitheater.
This time, Dylan shares the bill with former Grateful Dead bassist Phil Lesh.
Lesh toured with the Dead for three decades. After Jerry Garcia’s death in 1995, Lesh teamed up with bandmates Bob Weir and Mickey Hart to form the Other Ones. (The Other Ones will likely be back at The Gorge in August as part of the Further Festival, but Lesh has opted out of that.)
No matter a musician’s accomplishments, though, it’s tough not to be overshadowed when touring with Dylan.
His career has spanned from coffeehouse folkie to electric rocker and back to his acoustic roots. He survived a major motorcycle wreck in 1966, weathered criticism for converting to Christianity in 1979, and persisted despite turning out some clunkers in the 1980s.
He introduced himself to the children of his first fans in 1998, winning a Grammy that year for “Time Out of Mind.”
It was in 1961 that a young Bob Zimmerman (he didn’t change his name to Dylan, in honor of poet Dylan Thomas, until a year later) trekked from Minneapolis to New Jersey to meet his idol, Woody Guthrie.
In 1963, Dylan wrote a poem in honor of the folk legend, “Last Thoughts on Woody Guthrie.”
“You find God at the church of your choice,” Dylan wrote. “And you find Woody Guthrie at Brooklyn State Hospital/And though it’s only my opinion/I may be right or wrong/You’ll find them both/In the Grand Canyon/At sundown.”
You can almost hear the next generation of troubadours beating a path to Dylan’s door.
This sidebar appeared with the story: Bob Dylan and Phil Lesh When, where: Saturday and Sunday at The Gorge. Saturday’s show begins at 5:45 p.m., and Lesh is scheduled to close the set. Sunday’s show begins at 4:15 p.m., with Dylan scheduled to play last. Jam band String Cheese Incident will open. Tickets: Each show costs $37.05; tickets are available through Ticketmaster (1-509-735-0500 or www.ticketmaster.com).