JOE McGINNISS

SO MUCH has been written about this extraordinary genius–is any genius not extraordinary?–who not only captured the essence of the 1960s in words and music, but who, instead of stopping there, has gone on for forty more years to inimitably distill and define the American experience, always remaining true to his muse, his art and his craft, not caring if the critical tide was flowing with or against him.

HE’S 70 now, and still doing what he loves best:  playing his music to live audiences all over the world.  In April, he toured Asia, performing in Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), Singapore and all over Australia.  In June, he’ll be in Ireland, England, Switzerland, Italy, Israel, Germany, Denmark, Norway and Sweden, before returning home for a July 15 concert in Costa Mesa, California.

THIS is a man who came east from Minnesota in 1961 and began performing in Greenwich Village coffeehouses.  His first paid performance was at the New York University student center.  Later that year, he played harmonica on the Harry Belafonte album Midnight Special. Fifty years later, he’s still playing harmonica and guitar and keyboard, and he’s singing:  in a voice that proudly displays every one of the years he’s lived during his professional career, which now spans half a century.

BOB DYLAN was the voice of the generation that first fought for civil rights and against war in the 1960s.  He did much to shape my consciousness in those years, and as he’s matured and given voice to the complexities of love and loss and the many other vagaries and mysteries of this existence we all share, he’s continued to speak to my heart, mind and soul.  He was an inspiration to me when I was 18, and he’s no less an inspiration to me now, at 68.

ON his website,  Bob recently posted a reply to false reports–seized upon by Maureen Dowd in a particularly inane New York Times column–that he’d allowed the Chinese government to censor his set list as a pre-condition to his appearances there last month.  What hogwash!

FOR his 70th birthday, I’ll wish Bob what he wished a newborn child of his in the early 1970’s:

May your hands always be busy
May your feet always be swift
May you have a strong foundation
When the winds of changes shift
May your heart always be joyful
May your song always be sung
May you stay forever young

Now listen to him sing it, in the original acoustic version:

3-18 Forever Young