Bob Dylan never said anything about hoping to die before he got old. He just told the old people to get out of the way if they couldn’t lend a hand.
On Monday, rock’s greatest poet turns 80, and — despite some rough concert performances here and there — his true fans will tell you they’re glad he never got out of the way.
Last year, the Hibbing, Minn., man who gave us “Blowin’ in the Wind” in 1962 grabbed us by the collar during the pandemic with “Rough and Rowdy Ways,” one of his most lyrically dense, playful and challenging albums.
It was his 39th studio album, not counting the reams of unreleased bootleg stuff, and on the quality scale, it probably cracks the top 20. There’s reason to believe that there will be a 40th, that we’ll leap to hear it, that critics will gush, and that it will further this 60-year narrative in one fascinating way or another.
Source: WYEP, Pittsburgh musicians to honor Bob Dylan on his 80th birthday | Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
