Nevada Bob Enjoys Warm Welcome In Minnesota

Nevada Bob with a high school hockey team 
in Canal Park, Duluth.

Robert D. Gordon, aka Nevada Bob, arrived in Duluth Thursday with his personal photographer Gary Firstenberg after visiting a recording studio in Stillwater. The pair have been touring points of interest, gathering stories for a pair of upcoming books.

Nevada Bob is currently a cattle rancher from Winnemucca, Nevada, outside Reno, who is also a singer-songwriter and storyteller. It's his storytelling that brought us together. Born in Juneau, Alaska in 1939, Bob has seen a lot and has enough stories in him to fill half of Lake Superior. "It's all true," he will tell you, and when his memoir is published you'll see that there's a measure of truth to the Hopi proverb that those who tell stories rule the world.

Pillar of books, Duluth Public Library

He sings with that deep Johnny Cash resonance that makes tenors jealous. He stands lean and tall, with the erect stature of a Navy man, which he once had been. His weathered face can convey a Clint Eastwood gravitas one minute that is quickly displaced the moment he has an audience for his songs and stories. His eyes twinkle with warmth and everyone is engaged.

The working title for his book is 50 Years with the Wrong Woman. It's a memoir that he wrote this past year when he lost the love of his life to whom he had been married 58 years. Nobel Laureate Maya Angelou once said, "There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you." After the loss of Carol, Bob resolved to put his stories down in print. 

The road tour that he and Gary Firstenberg have been on is something akin to the movie Green Book. Gary is both driver and tour guide... and documentarian.

On the Waterfront. In his youth he lived in Seattle. 

It's been an amazing trip, up the Eastern Seaboard to Maine, back down to Baltimore, across the Midwest and here to Duluth, taking in countless points of interest related to both music and baseball history. 

Nevada Bob and myself in front of birth home of Robert Zimmerman,
Central Hillside, Duluth

Here in Duluth we have the birthplace of Bob Dylan. Tomorrow they'll be visiting sites in Hibbing where young Bobby Z grew up and went to high school. If you see them, say hello. He'll sing you a song and maybe even share a few stories.

Minneapolis with Mary Tyler Moore.

In the studio with Daryl Bolicek of Wild Horse Recording in Stillwater
where Nevada Bob hopes to record the audiobook version of his memoir.

Meeting with Shane at JS Print to discuss publishing options for future books.

Inspirational Dylan mural in Minneapolis

Photo of Nevada Bob holding photo of the woman who inspired him for a lifetime.
Carol and Bob had no idea the adventures that lay ahead.

Other people's stories re-ignite some of our own. I'm sure I'll be sharing more about this adventure as it unfolds. Stay tuned.

Related Links

Singer/Songwriter Nevada Bob Is a Storyteller, Too

Gary Firstenberg: Turning Negatives Into Positives