Friday, May 31, 2019

The Significance of Martin Luther King's Speech at Riverside Church

Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. (Wikimedia Commons)
"True peace is not merely the absence of tension: it is the presence of justice."
--Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.


On April 4, 1967 Dr. King gave a major speech at the Riverside Church in New York. One year later to the day the Baptist minister and civil rights leader was assassinated.

At what point did Martin Luther King know that he was a marked man? He saw what happened to JFK, to Bobby, to Medgar Evers, to Malcolm X. It must have weighed on him heavily that one day he would leave his wife and family for the cause that burdened his heart.

As with all his major speeches, it is delivered with power and authority. The new feature here is that he is critical of our government's involvement in Viet Nam, accusing our leaders--and with good cause--of being a great purveyor of violence.

* * * *
I come to this great magnificent house of worship tonight because my conscience leaves me no other choice. I join you in this meeting because I am in deepest agreement with the aims and work of the organization that brought us together, Clergy and Laymen Concerned About Vietnam. The recent statements of your executive committee are the sentiments of my own heart, and I found myself in full accord when I read its opening lines: “A time comes when silence is betrayal.” That time has come for us in relation to Vietnam.

Why was Dr. King now addressing the war? People were telling him that civil rights issues were different from the anti-war movement. He disagreed, and he spells out his reasons. First, it became apparent to him that the war was an enemy to the poor.

Riverside 1967. (Photo: Public domain)
Perhaps a more tragic recognition of reality took place when it became clear to me that the war was doing far more than devastating the hopes of the poor at home. It was sending their sons and their brothers and their husbands to fight and to die in extraordinarily high proportions relative to the rest of the population. We were taking the black young men who had been crippled by our society and sending them eight thousand miles away to guarantee liberties in Southeast Asia which they had not found in southwest Georgia and East Harlem. So we have been repeatedly faced with the cruel irony of watching Negro and white boys on TV screens as they kill and die together for a nation that has been unable to seat them together in the same schools

Another reason he had come to make this speech was because he saw how blacks were arming themselves, many believing that violence was the only way to set things right. When he said it was not, they would point to Viet Nam and say how our government believed violence was the way to resolve issues.

This latter led Dr. King to become more vocal about the wrongness of the war.

Now it should be incandescently clear that no one who has any concern for the integrity and life of America today can ignore the present war. If America’s soul becomes totally poisoned, part of the autopsy must read “Vietnam.”

His career as a minister required him to preach peace to the nation and take up the cause of the needy.

We are called to speak for the weak, for the voiceless, for the victims of our nation, for those it calls “enemy,” for no document from human hands can make these humans any less our brothers.

The next section of his speech details the history of Viet Nam after the end of World War II, and our part in the then-present devastation.

We have destroyed their two most cherished institutions: the family and the village. We have destroyed their land and their crops. We have cooperated in the crushing of the nation’s only noncommunist revolutionary political force, the unified Buddhist Church.

He follows this section now with concern for our own troops and what we are doing to them.

I am as deeply concerned about our own troops there as anything else. For it occurs to me that what we are submitting them to in Vietnam is not simply the brutalizing process that goes on in any war where armies face each other and seek to destroy. We are adding cynicism to the process of death, for they must know after a short period there that none of the things we claim to be fighting for are really involved.

How do you un-see once you've seen it so plainly?

He goes on to make a statement that is expounded upon more fully in more recent book The Cold War's Killing Fields by Paul Thomas Chamberlin, that the U.S. misinterpreted all national ambitions for self-rule through a Cold War lens. He stated, "In 1957 a sensitive American official overseas said that it seemed to him that our nation was on the wrong side of a world revolution," and then elaborated on this.

It is a sad fact that because of comfort, complacency, a morbid fear of communism, and our proneness to adjust to injustice, the Western nations that initiated so much of the revolutionary spirit of the modern world have now become the arch antirevolutionaries.

Sadly, this next paragraph could have been written yesterday:

We can no longer afford to worship the god of hate or bow before the altar of retaliation. The oceans of history are made turbulent by the ever-rising tides of hate. History is cluttered with the wreckage of nations and individuals that pursued this self-defeating path of hate. As Arnold Toynbee says: “Love is the ultimate force that makes for the saving choice of life and good against the damning choice of death and evil. Therefore the first hope in our inventory must be the hope that love is going to have the last word.”

And finally:

Now let us begin. Now let us rededicate ourselves to the long and bitter, but beautiful, struggle for a new world. This is the calling of the sons of God, and our brothers wait eagerly for our response. Shall we say the odds are too great? Shall we tell them the struggle is too hard? Will our message be that the forces of American life militate against their arrival as full men, and we send our deepest regrets? Or will there be another message—of longing, of hope, of solidarity with their yearnings, of commitment to their cause, whatever the cost? The choice is ours, and though we might prefer it otherwise, we must choose in this crucial moment of human history.

* * * *

Why I Am Writing About This
Nearly every point in his "Beyond Vietnam" speech is something many of us had thought about at one time or another growing up in the Sixties, or so I thought. We hadn't articulated it so clearly, but were uncomfortable with what we were hearing, seeing in the news, reading in the papers. 

Simultaneously, Dr. King was being slammed as becoming a Communist now, taking the side of our enemies. As you can plainly see, this speech is in harmony with the Gospel, for we are all brothers and sisters in the human family, and have responsibilities to one another. It has been cited as the moment he was perceived as a real threat to out nation's Machiavellian war efforts, a voice that had to be silenced. 

Related Links
Background on the speech Beyond Vietnam 
The full speech, Beyond Vietnam
Coretta Scott King's Statement at the Conclusion of the Conspiracy Trial  regarding the assassination of her husband on e year later.

Thursday, May 30, 2019

More Bob Dylan Books To Ask For On Your Next Birthday

"Another Way of Seeing"
Assuming you're a regular user of Amazon.com--and I realize there are some who are boycotting--then you're likely receiving periodic emails like this one that I received this morning:

Hello Ed Newman,
Amazon has new recommendations for you based on your browsing history.

Usually they are on point, though on occasion they will include one of my own books in the list for some reason. This morning's list featured eight new books about one of our favorite topics, most released within the past year.

What interests me is how many different ways people have written about the Nobel Prize winner. Each author must have an angle that differentiates him or her from all the other Bob books. As for the readers of Dylan, most are looking for new ideas and insights, not rehashed material from the already substantial inventory. Here are the titles Amazon suggested for me, plus one more that I know a few people are looking forward to this fall.


Dylan by Schatzberg
This is the guy who did the photo shoot from which the Blonde On Blonde cover germinated. The book includes key Dylan interviews, a new one with the author and lots more.

Might make a good companion to Daniel Kramer's year of documenting Dylan during those iconic Sixties. (cf. the two images in this blog post about the current exhibit in Duluth featuring a portion of the Bill Pagel Archives, "Which One is the Real Bob Dylan.")


Bob Dylan's Poetics: How the Songs Work 
The author Timothy Hampton teaches lit at UC-Berkeley, another college prof who finds studying Dylan to be Prof-itable. (That is, worthwhile studying and writing about.)


A Voice From On High: The Prophetic Oracles Of Bob Dylan
As the title suggests, this book takes a deeper look at the spiritual heart of many Dylan songs. To say that author Phil Mason goes to great lengths to bring light to this facet of Dylan's work is an understatement. At 700 pages it appears to be a pretty thorough undertaking. One of the contributors to the book was Scott Marshall, author of Bob Dylan: A Spiritual Life.


Bittersweet: Love Songs Of Bob Dylan
This book by Donna George, released last August, is about the romantic side of Bob Dylan. Many of his muses are well known. The idea of a woman's take on Bob's love songs is intriguing.



Decoding Dylan: Making Sense of the Songs That Changed Modern Culture
Here's yet another book that interests me, only because I'm into the decoding as well, even though there are some extremely vocal critics of this kind of thing. Jim Curtis sees many of the songs as "collages, ingeniously combining themes and images from American popular culture and European high culture." There's still a sense in which even when you can't understand a Dylan song, you can still "get it."


Bob Dylan in Hell: Songs in Dialogue with Dante – part I
The title makes me think of Sir Christopher Ricks' Bob Dylan's Visions of Sin. The author Luca Crossi proposes that the themes in Dylan's lyrics emanate from the same depths as Dante's Inferno, and that Dante--himself a poet--is just as relevant today as when he penned his famous work. This, too, looks like a book worth exploring.


May Your Song Always Be Sung
This book by Joel-Isaiah McIntyre has 98 pages and that University press look for a cover, but one of my favorite early reads was similarly unpretentious and a rewarding read.





Bob Dylan: His Life in Pictures
Harry Shapiro's book has 256 pages and over 300 images. I think we get the picture.












Dylan & Me
This book, by Louis Kemp, has been long awaited by many. Louis met Bob at Herzl Camp when Louis was 11 and the Zimmerman kid was 12. Louis says even then Bob said he was going to be famous some day, "And I believed him."
Having been writing about Dylan and his "encounter" with Buddy Holly at the Duluth Armory I often wondered who Dylan went to that concert with, since I couldn't imagine him going by himself. Sure enough, that night is a chapter in this book.
Oh, and for what it's worth, Louis Kemp was an instrumental player in the Rolling Thunder Revue traveling caravan. No, he didn't play an instrument. He was producer... a factoid that dovetails nicely with the upcoming release of Martin Scorsese's Rolling Thunder film in less than two weeks.
The book should be out in early September.



BONUS TRACK
A Rolling Thunder Revue Soundtrack

Caution: This Book Review Might Put You To Sleep

THROWBACK THURSDAY

My first surgery requiring anesthesia was back when I was twelve. I was having my tonsils removed and I remember lying on the gurney being rolled into a room, people in masks looking down at me as they slid a mask over my nose and mouth. "Count backwards slowly, from 100." 100, 99, 98, 97... I was out. Evidently ether works fast.

Next thing you know, I was waking up in a room with others all waking and woozy. A nurse came in and asked if I would like some ice cream. Mmm, did it taste good. Then I threw it up.

This day's newspaper, eight years ago today, featured part 2 of a story about doctors and malpractice, and it brought to mind many other articles I've read in the past about hospitals and infections, and a book I read last year about a doctor who was suspected of killing patients on purpose. That book was pretty scary, highlighting the difficulties in getting honest, reliable information about the doctors who are treating us.

If you tend to be a worrier, all this bad press about doctors and hospitals could have a detrimental effect on your peace of mind next time you need a surgical procedure. For this reason, anesthesiologist Benjamin Taimoorazy, M.D., has written a book titled Before You Go Under.

In a typical year more than 30 million Americans will go under for some kind of medical procedure. To my knowledge there aren't very many books that answer the questions people have with regard to these matters. How does a doctor know I am adequately "out" before he starts cutting me? What happens if I wake up while they still have me cut open and they are removing my intestines?

The book covers more than just the anesthesia questions. The manual is really a prep for surgery and even answers the question, "Why is the operating room always cold?"

Here's something I didn't know till I saw it in this book. Redheads have a potentially greater sensitivity to pain and may require a bit more anesthesia. Also, allergies and artificial implants may have a bearing on how the anesthesia procedures are conducted.

The writing is clear, straightforward and matter-of-fact, nothing fancy. This book is not investigative journalism, nor is it a very exciting read, though it is an easy read. And if you've got questions, Dr. T has answers.
* * * *
Originally posted eight years ago today.
* * * *
RELATED
According to this 2019 CBS report:
160,000 lives are lost in hospitals due to avoidable errors. 
205,000 were lost in 2016, so things are improving. 
The Five States with the Safest Hospitals, according to Leapfrog:
#5 -- Texas
#4 -- Massachusetts
#3 -- Virginia
#2 -- Oregon
#1 -- New Jersey 



Wednesday, May 29, 2019

Local Art Seen: Long Night of the Floating Shell Features Paintings by Jonathan Thunder and Zamara Cuyun

"Midwife I"--acrylic on canvas, Zamara Cuyun
Last Friday evening was an artist reception and talk at the Dr. Robert Powless Cultural Center featuring work by Guatemalan artist Zamara Cuyun and our local Native painter Jonathan Thunder. Thunder has recently come into his stride in recent years, producing impressive image-tales, weaving symbols and images into stories, in the manner of oral histories, except they emerge from somewhere else along the mists of time.

What was striking was seeing how naturally his painting style matched Cuyun's "dark-to-light" method of painting so as to produce images that seem to almost leap from the canvas. Here are some of the works I saw this past weekend. The images are quite striking, and I am certain the stories they tell are as well.

* * * *
"King Bear"--Jonathan Thunder, acrylic on canvas.
* * * *
"Awakening"--Zamara Cuyun, acrylic on canvas.
* * * *
* * * *
"Tandem" by Thunder. These two were displayed in tandem.
* * * *
"Origien" by Cuyun. Acrylic on canvas.
* * * *
"La Siembra (The Sowing)"--Zamara Cuyun

* * * *
Jonathan Thunder
* * * *
Detail from another Thunder piece.
* * * *


* * * *
Jonathan Thunder discusses his work with patron of the show.
* * * *
"Le Semilla (The Seed)" by Cuyun
* * * *
"Hunter S. Thompson"--Giclee on canvas by Jonathan Thunder.
* * * *

BONUS TRACK
This was an announcement on Facebook about an event in Tulsa:

Tonight, Wed. May 29, at the Cain's Ballroom, Kevin Odegard will play the same Martin guitar he used on "Tangled Up In Blue" on Bob Dylan's Blood On The Tracks (1975). Kevin will perform the song with our house band, The Oklahoma Specials, and musician/journalist Jeff Slate HQ as part of our program. Following that performance, Kevin will donate this storied instrument to Tulsa's Bob Dylan Center from the Cain's stage. Join us for an amazing evening of music, conversation, and maybe even some history-making.

See: Inside the Studio: Still More Blood and Tracks as Paul Metsa's Wall of Power Features MN Music Luminaries
Meantime... art goes on all around you. Engage it.

Tuesday, May 28, 2019

Local Art Seen: Great Lakes Academy of Fine Art Celebrates Third Year with Style

View from the front entrance of the school.
This past weekend the Great Lakes Academy of Fine Art celebrated its third annual Student/Instructor Exhibition with a weekend open house. It's a fabulous event, showcasing the students' development as they have mastered essential skills as artists. The pictures on this page need no real explanation, each being worth a thousand words.

The school was designed as a three year program, so this group show features students from its first graduating class. Co-founder/instructors Jeffrey T. Larson and son Brock were thrilled not only by the student's progress but also the school itself.

This study of wrinkled paper is all part of "learning how to see."
* * * *
Students begin in black and white.
* * * * 
              "You can only paint truthfully what you can truthfully see."
* * * *
Co-founder Jeffrey T. Larson (R)
* * * *
"Victor Hugo After Rodin"--Patrick Glander, Graphite on paper.
* * * *
Instructor Brock Larson. This is a painting, not a sculpture.
* * * *
"Vessel"--Oil on linen, Kelly Schamberger. 21st century Vermeer?
* * * *
"Blue"--Oil on canvas, Kelly Schamberger
* * * *
Small, still life oil paintings by various fourth year students. 
* * * *
Anatomical studies by guest sculptor James Shoop reveal what is beneath the skin.
* * * *
Archie Page, pencil on paper
* * * *
"Female Figure"--Oil on canvas, Kelly Schamberger
* * * *
"Elephant Figurines"--Oil on canvas by Eric Rauvola
* * * * 
"All that painting is or ever will be is an arrangement of puzzle pieces, each made up of the right relative hue on top of a correct value within a specific shape."

Meantime, art goes on all around you. Get into it.

Monday, May 27, 2019

Winding Down: John Bushey Memorial Lecture with David Gaines

David Gaines at Wednesday evening's poetry event, Teatro Zuccone.
Photo: Michael Anderson
It's the end of an eight-day week and the sun is shining. Our farewell brunch behind us, we've dispersed to our various homes and a return to the semblance of normalcy. Time to get the lawn mower running, move some hay to the garden and start checking off items on the ever-expanding "to do" list of summer projects.

It's Memorial Day weekend, so two other traditions are in play as Duluth Dylan Fest cones to a close: The Battle of the Jug Bands at Amazing Grace in Canal Park here, and the Indianapolis 500, won by a racer from France wrapped in a bright yellow car, not a yellow vest.

The miserable misty rain that assaulted us while cutting the Bob Dylan Birthday Cake Friday had departed by Saturday. The striated lake was near smooth as a mirror, a view worth inhaling and one of the rich features of our city which hugs the Western tip of the largest freshwater body in the world.

Our John Bushey Memorial Lecture speaker this year was David Gaines, a Professor of English and Director of National Fellowships and Scholarships at Southwestern University. And the author of In Dylan Town: A Fan's Life. As last year, the lecture took place at Karpeles. He was introduced to us by Phil Fitzpatrick, a poet and retired teacher whom Gaines met on his first Northland trek during the 13th annual Dylan Days in Hibbing a few years back. Each was working on a book, and Prof. Gaines has finished his. (For the record, Phil will have a book of poetry released this fall. With illustrations by Penny Perry, the book is Hawks on High: Everyday Miracles in a Hawk Ridge Season)

Karpeles Manuscript Museum is housed in a former Christian Science sanctuary that is itself a wonderful piece of local architecture.  A portion of Bill Pagel's archives--this year titled "Which One is the Real Bob Dylan?"--will be on display through August 1 in the event you didn't get to see it this past week.

The John Bushey Memorial Lecture Program derives its name from multi-dimensional man whose influence transcended even what his closest friends realized. Bushey, for 26 years, was the voice of KUMD's Dylan-themed radio hour Highway 61 Revisited. (EdNote: Louis Kemp, author of Dylan & Me, will be here Tuesday, June 18 to talk about his upcoming book and more. Reception @ 5:30 p.m., lecture 6:30-7:30.)

*
The title of David Gaines' talk was "From the North Country to Stockholm and Back: A Tale of Two Journeys." At the outset he mentioned John Bushey and described some of the amazing magic tricks he did on the Blood on the Tracks Express the year he visited. One amazing trick involved he and another gentleman initialing a pair of cards they'd selected, which they never showed John, and how after some hocus pocus the two cards merged into one, back to back. Gaines pulled the card from his wallet and noted that he's been carrying it ever since, something akin to a good luck charm.

Prof. Gaines' talk, as the title suggests, was the story of two artists, the first being Bob Dylan' and his journey from the Northland to the Nobel Prize. The second story was about,"my other favorite artist –myself—and my journey."

"So many of the good things that happened to me have happened since I came to the North Country.
How intertwined all our lives are through Dylan. I will let you be in my dreams if I can be in yours," he added.

He shared a story about getting permissions, which is an essential part of producing a book like this.

David Gaines (L) with author Dave Engel.
Bob's story began 78 years and a day ago, in St. Mary's hospital a few blocks from here. He was a 24.5 inch baby, "about as big as a good-sized lake trout," Gaines said, quoting Dave Engel's Just Like Bob Zimmerman's Blues.
(EdNote: 24.5 is actually his birthday reversed, if you didn't catch it, 5-24.)

Gaines produced a litany of references where Dylan cites the importance of the Northland in his life. A few of these included the final two pages of Chronicles Vol 1

“My Life In A Stolen Moment”
Duluth’s an iron ore shipping town in Minnesota It’s built up on a rocky cliff that runs into Lake Superior I was born there — my father was born there...

In 1978 Dylan told Playboy that this place has a spiritual quality.

He then cited Dave Engel’s meticulously researched book Just Like Bob Zimmerman's Blues,  and Highway 61 Revisited: Bob Dylan’s Road from MN to the World by Colleen Sheehy & Thomas Swiss.

Gaines then drilled down into the importance of teachers and how there are certain teachers whose influence exceeds the small communities where they give a life of service. The noteworthy piece here is that having been a teacher himself, it is his hope to have been this kind of influence in some of his students. At Hibbing High, B.J. Ralphzen's class—Room 204--was an influential place for many students, including for Bob.

Of the school itself, Greil Marcus called Hibbing High "the most impressive public building I ever saw outside of Washington DC." If you come to the Northland at a time when you get the opportunity to visit the spacious auditorium, you will go away impressed indeed.

Bob Hocking shared how much this teacher meant to Bob Hocking, how transformational teachers can be. In his AARP interview, Dylan said, “If I had it to do all over again I would probably be a school teacher… teaching Roman History or Religion."

Dylan’s love of literature began in the North Country, and ultimately took him to Stockholm where he received the Nobel Prize.

He then shared this quote from Mary Keyes who with her husband own the Howard Street Bookstore: “If Bob walked into the store today, I would day, ‘Because of you, Bob, I have met the nicest people in the world.’” Certainly that is what happened again here in Duluth this past week, and will no doubt happen this coming week in Tulsa at the International Dylan Symposium.

"These words are at the heart of why I wrote the book I did," he said.

Flash forward to 2016. One morning his wife was unusually buoyant. “Guess what! Bob just won a Nobel Prize.”

Journalists all over the world reached out to people for quotes. John Bushey fielded calls that day. I was contacted from Tokyo because of this blog. And Professor Gaines received a call from Al Jazeera, where he was interviewed by a talking head. “I don’t think that anyone has the staying power of his importance,” he told the reporter. “He’s just a whole other level.”

The Nobel Prize is like a Super Bowl and Mardi Gras rolled into one.

He then played a clip from an interview he did in a Stockholm documentary about the Nobel Prize, followed by an NPR clip in which he looked especially charming and where he said Bob is “the gift that keeps on giving”

*
The talk was a series of anecdotes that illustrated his own Stockholm journey and featured...
--A Christopher Ricks story
--Writing on a blog called The Big Tent
--Buying a croissant from Johanna
--The changing of the guard at Stockholm
--A Martini in Stockholm's grandest hotel
--How he seized the day and met Patti Smith
“I love your coat.”

Bob Dylan's influences began in grammar school and high school… here in the Northland, he again underscored. As an outro he played "When the Ship Comes In."

The best place to find David Gaines' book for purchase is here at the U of Iowa Press.

See photos of Hibbing High School in Architecture MN Magazine.

EdNote: Louis Kemp will be visiting Duluth to talk about his soon to be released Dylan & Me, also as part of the John Bushey Memorial Lecture Series. Tuesday, June 18. Reception at 5:30 and lecture from 6:30 to 7:30 p..m.

* * * *
AND FINALLY
A few photos from the Bob Dylan Revue Concert
Saturday night at Sacred Heart.
Photos courtesy Michael Anderson.


Thank you to everyone who contributed to make these events possible.

Saturday, May 25, 2019

America's Got Talent. We Know Because We've Seen So Much of It During Dylan Fest

2019 DDF SINGER/SONGWRITER CONTEST RESULTS

A setting with acoustics and ambience.
Photo by Michael Anderson.
One of the highlights of the annual Duluth Dylan Fest is the Singer/Songwriter Contest, a tradition carried over from Hibbing's Dylan Days. The last Singer/Songwriter Contest that I attended in Hibbing stretched two days, the year before Zimmy's folded and many Northland hearts were broken.

Our first Duluth S/S contest was actually an event seeking a home. One year we did it at Beaners Central in West Duluth. The crowd was so small one could hardly call it a crowd, but it was a good first effort. The following year we convened at Red Herring, but the Friday night bar crowd had a different agenda and thought packed, half the folks there were not there for Dylan covers.

Two years the S/S Contest was held at Clyde Iron in the West End, a great venue for events. Except when they are having two events simultaneously. Both years we had to compete with wedding afterparties that interfered a bit with the quieter acoustic performers in our event.

Alas, last year we found ourselves a new home, courtesy the Sacred Heart Music Center. This former Catholic church building has become a real boon to the music community, and will likely become a permanent home for the Singer/Songwriter competition.
Gene LaFond and Zane Bail talk with the other judges.
* * * *
The program last night featured a welcome by host Pat Eliason, which included introduction of our celebrity judges.* Gene LaFond and Amy Grillo performed an original tune to set the stage, and then the show began.

Jim Hall. Photo credit: Michael Anderson
Jim Hall, who won this competition the year it was held at the Red Herring, was first to perform. This own composition was titled "I'm Still a Working Man." His Dylan tune was a heartfelt "Dear Landlord" from John Wesley Harding.

The next on the docket was Josie Langhorst, whom I raved about last year when she performed here at age 12. Her original tune, "Talk To Me," revealed an incredibly mature understanding of relationships, nuanced and subtle. Dylan himself, who wrote such remarkably mature songs at such a young age -- like "Boots of Spanish Leather" and "One Of Us Must Know," would undoubtedly be proud of how advanced this songwriting prodigy appears to be. She sings with force and a confidence that belies her youth.

There were 17 composer performers in all from a variety of places in Minnesota and Wisconsin. In the audience we had Dylan Fest visitors from Denmark, Ireland, Scotland and Australia, among other places. I could bore you with details, but will simply cut to the chase.

Shane Nelson of Superior impressed us all. Michael Anderson photo.
The winner of this year's competition was Shane Nelson, of Superior. The judges grade on their original song, and his "I Do What I Do" wowed them enormously. He followed with an equally potent "Positively Fourth Street" that left few of us surprised when he later won.

Mike LaBo of Lansing Michigan. Photo, Michael Anderson
Second place Mike Labo wrote and performed "How Cn A Bird?" followed by a favorite of mine, "New Morning." Third place Jim Hall was noted above.

Hall, Nelson and LaBo. Photo: Michael Anderson
What's distinctive is the variety of styles, the variety of selections, and the breadth of the Dylan catalog. Words are insufficient, which is why we keep listening to the music. What Dylan album have you been listening to today?

* * * *

* Celeb judges this year:
Mriam Hansen, host of Highway 61 Revisited, KUMD 103.3
Gene LaFond, musician
Christa Lawler, Arts & Entertainment reporter, Duluth News Tribune
Jamie Ness, musician
Karen Sunderman, Producer, Making It and The Playlist, PBS 8