SETH ROGOVOY is the author of Bob Dylan: Prophet Mystic Poet (Scribner). A writer, award-winning critic, magazine editor, lecturer, teacher, musician, and radio commentator, Seth Rogovoy lives in Great Barrington, Mass.
First Bob Dylan purchase: Planet Waves, early 1974.
First Bob Dylan concert: Boston Garden, September, 1978. The "Las Vegas Tour," although Dylan actually said that night, "I hope you don't think this is Las Vegas music, or disco music, because you know it's not."
Favorite Bob Dylan moment: See above. Also, when he humiliates Donovan in Dont Look Back.
Bob Dylan's affect on your life: It's impossible to summarize or enumerate or categorize or analyze Bob Dylan's affect on my life. It's in the way I walk, the way I sing, the way I write, what I write about, and the way I think. For better or worse, he's the single artist who has most profoundly affected me, which is undoubtedly in part why I wrote a book about him -- to try to figure out just how or why and in what way, and also perhaps to exorcise that influence. Which of course utterly failed. I am still possessed.
Birthday wish for Bob Dylan: May your heart always be joyful. May your song always be sung. And may you tour until you are 120.
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