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[Editor's note: You can click on the photo above or any other photo here to view a full, unobstructed slideshow-style presentation of all of this article's photos.] November 27, 2024 "For what are we without hope in our hearts...?" Bruce Springsteen, Across The Border Back in February 2023, when I bought tickets for Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band’s November 2023 Vancouver, B.C. concert, I anticipated a lighthearted road trip from my home in the Western United States across the Canadian border, reminiscent of the Bruce-chasing sojourns of my youth. COVID-19 was over (sort of,) the Boss and the band were back... What could possibly go wrong? Fast-forward to November 2024. What was supposed to have been the first show of the 2023 Canadian tour had been postponed by a year due to Springsteen’s recovery from peptic ulcer disease, and was now the final show of the 2024 tour. I remember looking at the rescheduled date when it came out last year and realizing that the show would be right after the 2024 U.S. Presidential election. Like the meme of the oblivious cartoon dog in the burning house, I quickly replaced that troubling thought with the mantra, “Everything will be fine, just fine!” I have walked into Springsteen shows before carrying all kinds of personal worries, ailments, and grief, knowing that for a couple of hours at least, Bruce would be my faith healer. But I never expected to walk into a Springsteen show nearly paralyzed with existential terror for the future of my country. My heavy heart was lifted somewhat by being among ecstatic, vocal, well-lubricated Canadians in an old hockey barn not much different from the Boston Garden, where I saw my first Bruce arena show in 1978. (Venerable Rogers Arena also had clearer, warmer acoustics than the two new monuments to billionaires where I saw my previous shows on this tour.) The Bruce fans of Western Canada have had to wait longer than anyone else to see this show, and so it’s fitting that in Vancouver, Springsteen saved the best for last. As is customary for a tour-ender, Bruce and the band emptied the tank. At three hours and twenty minutes, Vancouver was the longest show of the Canadian leg and one of the longest - if not the longest - of the entire tour. (It's neck-and-neck with Night One in Inglewood, CA last April.) The mood onstage and in the audience was loose and festive; the entire pit surprised Springsteen by donning Santa hats at the first sound of the jingle-bells opening to “Santa Claus is Comin' to Town,” prompting him to say with laughter, “I’m impressed!” Dressed as he was so often on the tour in a white button-down shirt, dark tie, and charcoal suit-vest (maybe a nod to his uniform in his teenaged band The Castiles,) Springsteen was as playful as I’ve ever seen him. (“The things these folks are saying, I can’t repeat them!” he exclaimed about a group of four very excited women during the opener “Spirit in the Night.”) And he was more spontaneous and chatty than he was earlier in the tour. “This is one of my favorite songs; I hope you like it, too,” he unexpectedly shared before “Racing in the Street.” Um, no worries on that, Bruce. There were jaw-dropping surprises on the Vancouver setlist. A joyously ragged “Ramrod” made its 2024 tour debut, with Stevie Van Zandt fumbling the words as Bruce, across the mic from him, cracked, “Sing it, Stevie, sing it!” “Human Touch” and “Brilliant Disguise” were also ’24 tour debuts, Soozie Tyrell handling harmonies in the absence of Patti Scialfa. And on “I’m on Fire,” not played since Philly in August, Springsteen smoldered and hit those high notes on the fadeout like it was 1984. It wasn’t a surprise when Mark Pender’s trumpet signaled the opening of “Meeting Across the River;" Springsteen added the song to the set recently for the Asbury Park and Toronto shows. But it still gave me chills to hear it live after I-don’t-know-how-many-years, knowing that “Jungleland” was soon to follow. And, oh, what a performance of “Jungleland.” The slightly slowed tempo and Springsteen’s age-deepened vocals gave the Born to Run technicolor epic an elegiac feel, becoming more of a bittersweet memory of wild youth than an anthem of it. Jake Clemons, playing his uncle Clarence’s sax, beautifully rendered the song’s cathartic solo, as Springsteen listened with eyes closed and a smile on his face. Jake looked up to the heavens when it was over, emotionally overcome, and Bruce walked over to him for a long embrace. A word of appreciation for the E Street Band... During their performances in 2023 and 2024, despite a long, unforeseen interruption, the core band plus four horn players, four singers, and an added percussionist have jelled into more than simply a well-oiled machine. This is a band so in tune with one another that they’ve almost become a single-celled organism. The long, wafting outro to “Racing in the Street” is the best example of the E Street Band’s remarkable cohesiveness: organ, bass, guitar, violin and drums ebbing and flowing underneath Roy Bittan’s delicate, then muscular, piano riff. That outro is pure poetry, but there is one smaller moment that I’ve also grown to love over the course of this tour, and that also illustrates the band’s precision. Listen to the way Bruce and the core band, plus the horns and percussionist Anthony Almonte, gradually slow down the groove of “Bobby Jean” (played in Vancouver and many other shows) at the song’s end. It's like they’re expertly landing a jumbo jet. All of those setlist changes, plus “Santa,” meant that some staples of this long period of touring were dropped in Vancouver. Gone were “Prove It All Night,” “No Surrender,” “Rosalita,” and “Land of Hope and Dreams.” And the closing-night spiritedness meant that Springsteen’s carefully constructed story arc got somewhat diluted. I was lucky to have seen the show once early in 2023, once in early 2024, and now at the end of the year, witnessing the 2023-2024 show's evolution. The February 2023 show I saw in Seattle relied heavily on Letter To You songs; I don’t regret getting to hear one of the few performances of “Burnin’ Train,” an underappreciated track that smoked in concert. Bruce was noticeably in Springsteen on Broadway mode for this show, intent on presenting his life-summing yet universal story of friendship, love, aging, loss, and transcendent hope, from the scene-setting “I’m ready to grow young again” of the fixed opener “No Surrender” to the scripted gut punch of the “Last Man Standing”/”Backstreets” middle monologues to the “death is not the end” of the closer “I’ll See You in My Dreams.” What we didn’t know at the time was that Springsteen was somehow performing through the pain of his ulcer. When the postponed shows resumed, I caught Night One of San Francisco in March 2024. Bruce looked more relaxed and was singing with more power and consistency. Not to disparage the static setlist of the earlier shows - static Bruce and E Street is better than none at all – but he was now loosening the reins a bit. Springsteen had started opening the show with a different song each night. (For "my" San Francisco show, it was a mind-blowing, out-of-left-field “Something in The Night.”) Strangely, the loosening of the setlist at the front end made the story arc even more powerful, because it no longer dominated to the point where it made the show more Broadway than E Street. Which brings us to the final 2024 show... The larger themes were still there in Vancouver. Mortality, the sacredness of memory, and the necessity of leaving nothing unsaid were all explicit in the show, because they were explicit in the four songs from Letter To You and the continued purposeful sequencing of one of them, “Last Man Standing," with "Backstreets.” But those themes also were palpable in Jake Clemons holding his sax aloft after “Thunder Road,” and in the “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out” montage of Clarence and Danny Federici, absent yet present. In Vancouver, for the first time, Bruce made the absence of Patti Scialfa a part of the show, however subtly. Scialfa revealed in Thom Zimny’s recent Road Diary film that she has been living since 2018 with a blood cancer, which causes fatigue and a compromised immune system. The inclusion of two Springsteen-Scialfa duet songs in the setlist ("Human Touch" and “Brilliant Disguise") seemed like Springsteen’s poignant way of acknowledging her as an E Street Band member, and keeping her close, during this last show of the year. As the 2024 tour entered late summer and early fall, and the U.S. Presidential election loomed, Bruce added “Long Walk Home” to the core setlist. Recorded for the George W. Bush-era album Magic , “Long Walk Home” is one of Springsteen’s greatest political – no, patriotic – songs. Written about the lies told by a presidential administration and the erosion of civil rights and liberties in the rush to vengeance in post-9/11 America, “Long Walk Home” is a searing snapshot of a country slowly turning into something unrecognizable from the one we pledged allegiance to in grade school. Not many of us could imagine at the time where this was leading, but Springsteen did. On “Long Walk Home,” the narrator wanders through his old hometown, a metaphor for a United States falling into dystopian social and economic division and Constitutional chaos, and instead of seeing familiar places and faces, he sees only shuttered storefronts and “rank strangers.” The money verse, the one that has gained power in the years since the election of 2016, is this: “Your flag flyin’ over the courthouse/ Means certain things are set in stone/ Who we are, what we’ll do and what we won’t.” In Vancouver, as he has in every performance of the song this tour, Springsteen angrily, defiantly spat out those words. And as usual, he prefaced the song with, “This is a prayer for my country.” The E Street Choir’s buoyant work on the song, repeating the “It’s gonna be a long walk home” chorus a capella toward the end, is indeed prayer-like: Please let us get home again to those truths we hold self-evident. In Vancouver, Springsteen set up “Long Walk Home” with “Atlantic City,” a song about survival when morals are a luxury – “Everything dies, baby, that’s a fact/ Maybe everything that dies someday comes back” – followed by “Youngstown,” in which a laid-off steel worker confronts the mill owner with the brutal line, “Once I made you rich enough/ Rich enough to forget my name.” This three-song set told a story of shattered ideals, a widened gulf between haves and have-nots, crumbling illusions of the American Dream and American exceptionalism. That story meshed perfectly into Springsteen’s overarching theme of time’s changes and mortality, enlarging his vision to include the post-election reality in which Americans now find ourselves. “Democracy Dies in Darkness,” famously reads The Washington Post ’s masthead, and that newspaper proved it in the week before the presidential election by pulling an editorial board endorsement (of Kamala Harris) on the orders of the paper’s owner, billionaire Jeff Bezos. Well, everything dies, baby. That’s a fact. Around the same time he began adding "Long Walk Home" to his setlists, Springsteen also made a small change to his “Backstreets” monologue, which stayed in for the Vancouver show. Where he talks about the physical objects left behind by his departed friend, and how he will keep all the truly important things “right here,” patting his chest over his heart, instead of singing “till the end” he sings “till it ends.” Perhaps the word “it” is meant to be open-ended. “It” means whatever you read into it. So here goes... If we can carry departed loved ones in our heart, keep their spirits alive within us, doesn’t it follow that we can keep the spirit of a country alive inside us, too? Can’t we hold these vulnerable founding ideals of freedom and equality in our hearts, keep faith in a land of hope and dreams that “wraps its arms around you” where “nobody crowds you and nobody goes it alone?" Does everything that dies someday come back? These were the questions I pondered on the long drive home to the U.S.A. For more from Joyce Millman, please visit joycemillman.wordpress.com You also can connect with Joyce on Bluesky @joycemillman.bsky.social

November 30, 2024 Happy 71st Birthday to the E Street Band's awesome former keyboardist - and just all-around amazing musician in his own right - David Sancious . Not surprisingly, the ever-active Sancious has some musical "birthday gifts" for us to appreciate on his special day. Recently David announced his newest solo album project The Ghost of Jim Crow , which he plans to release by spotlighting one album track at a time, beginning with "Why Must It Be So," which became available for download/listening late last month: "Why Must It Be So" and other David Sancious music (both past - including remasters/reissues - and present) can be purchased via his official website, TheRealDavidSancious.com That's also where fans like us can keep abreast of all of the latest news about his various musical endeavors. Happy Birthday, "Davey" Sancious, and best wishes for many, many more happy birthdays to come! Long may your music play.

November 27, 2024 It's that time of year when we're in the midst of WhyHunger 's annual Hungerthon drive to fight hunger. Bruce Springsteen has been a longtime supporter of WhyHunger, and for this year's Hungerthon, you can support WhyHunger's efforts by purchasing "The Promised Land"-inspired and fully authorized sweatshirts and tees. Click here for purchasing options , and those with deeper pockets can click here to bid on Charitybuzz's WhyHunger auction of a chance to sit in on SiriusXM E Street Radio's The Wild and the Innocent with Jim Rotolo in New York City .

November 25, 2024 Last Friday night, November 22, Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band performed their final concert of the year in Vancouver's Rogers Arena. The penultimate song of the evening was "Santa Claus Is Comin' To Town," with a sweet little visual enhancement that brought a smile to the face of "Santa" Springsteen himself. Before the concert began, as ticketholders for "the pit" were lined up waiting to be let in, venue personnel came by the line with boxes of Santa hats. Longtime fan Amy Marker, who had a ticket for the pit and provided the great photos above, informed us that the distribution of the Santa hats appeared to have been arranged by the Springsteen touring organization as a nice little surprise of sorts. Everyone in the pit line (about 125 people at the time) was given a hat and instructed to keep it hidden and not put it on until the appropriate moment in the show. "The venue security guy," relates Amy, "told us to keep the hats hidden 'until the right moment, and you all know when that is.' Everyone around me confirmed that we understood, and we all knew it would be right before 'Santa Claus is Comin' to Town.'" Letters To You soon will have a special report from contributing writer Joyce Millman on this very special final show of 2024, final night for the Canadian leg of this tour, and one of the tour's longest shows yet. It will be accompanied by plenty more great photos, as well. So stay tuned, faithful readers, and you'd better be good for goodness' sake!

November 22, 2024 Best wishes for a wicked-cool happy birthday and many, many more to Steven Malafronte Lento Van Zandt, a.k.a. The Kid, “Sugar” Miami Steve, Little Steven, Silvio... the one and only Stevie Van Zandt ! No doubt there will be some celebrating onstage in Vancouver tonight during Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band's final 2024 concert, and we at Letters To You also have a special new birthday-salute podcast exploring all things Stevie, both on and off E Street. Earlier this week, our website's editor-publisher Shawn Poole moderated a great online conversation with contributing writer Lisa Iannucci and our very special guest Robert Lawson, author of the recently published Solidarity Forever: The Art and Soul of Stevie Van Zandt . Lawson is a veteran music writer based in Canada, a longtime major Van Zandt fan, and a rabid researcher who spent years germinating and writing Solidarity Forever . He is clearly a distinguished scholar in the field of “VanZandthropology,” a great term that he brilliantly created, and his book unearths many new insights and little-known factoids about the life and work of one of rock and roll’s greatest and, to this day, still often underrated and underappreciated figures. (And yes, it's thanks to Lawson's research that we now know that Stevie's original surname was Malafronte.) The podcast we recorded is freely available for listening on our SoundCloud and YouTube platforms. You also can click on either of the links embedded below to listen right here: And to all our fellow Van Zandt fans out there, if you haven't ordered one (or more) yet for yourself and/or others, by all means click here to order your copy(ies) of Robert Lawson's Solidarity Forever: The Art and Soul of Stevie Van Zandt  directly from FriesenPress  (eBook option included,) or click here to order your copy(ies) from Amazon  (Kindle option included.) Merry Steviemas to all! Viva Van Zandt!

October 17, 2024 Music writer Robert Lawson, a lifelong superfan of Stevie Van Zandt, has spent years working on his newly published Van Zandt biography Solidarity Forever: The Art and Soul of Stevie Van Zandt . It was indeed well worth the wait and the immense efforts on Lawson's part. As the publisher's press release notes, Lawson delivers a tome that focuses especially on his subject's off-E-Street "musical journey...Every song, every album, every single, live shows; bootlegs, production credits, covers, activism... Everything is covered here and presented alongside fascinating interviews of over forty past and present band members and Van Zandt himself. A stunning work of music journalism and love letter to rock 'n' roll, Solidarity Forever delivers Little Steven's story and the timeless messages of his music like never before." We're planning to feature a deep-dive discussion with Robert Lawson about his book and the study of all things Van Zandt-related, a.k.a. “VanZandthropology,” to use Lawson's great invented term. In the meantime, click here to order your copy of Solidarity Forever: The Art and Soul of Stevie Van Zandt directly from FriesenPress (eBook option included,) or click here to order your copy from Amazon (Kindle option included.)

November 20, 2024 The Bruce Springsteen Archives & Center for American Music at Monmouth University 's monthly online "Conversations With Our Curator" series continues today with a guest of particular interest to those of us at Letters To You. Contributing writer Caroline Madden will be speaking with BSACAM's curator Melissa Ziobro about BOSS: The Bi-Annual Online Journal of Springsteen Studies , the academic journal for which she serves as managing editor, and her book Springsteen as Soundtrack: The Sound of the Boss in Film and Television . Today's event will begin at 7pm ET. All who are interested can attend and participate in this online conversation via Zoom, and the event will conclude with an online audience Q&A. Use the QR code above, click on the image above, or click here to register to attend online, free of charge. All past Conversations with our Curator  events also are archived at BSACAM's YouTube channel, so you always can catch up on any event that you might have missed, or re-watch any event. Click here to view the Archives' Conversations with our Curator   YouTube playlist.

November 13, 2024 This week will close with some important dates for two charitable organizations long supported by Bruce Springsteen. On Friday November 15, beginning at 10am ET, the general on-sale for tickets to Light of Day Winterfest 2025 will commence. The Winterfest 2025 events, scheduled for mid-January of next year, also will mark the 25th anniversary of the organization's main event. Over the past quarter-century, Light of Day will have raised more than $6.5 million to combat Parkinson’s disease, ALS and PSP. The first official Light of Day concert was held at Asbury Park’s legendary Stone Pony venue in November 2000 and primarily featured local, unsigned artists. Joe Grushecky and the Houserockers (managed by Light of Day founder Bob Benjamin) headlined the show, which featured a surprise appearance by Bruce Springsteen, who joined the Houserockers for a raucous, hour-long set. The announced lineup for the January 18 "Main Event - Bob's Birthday Bash," taking place at The Count Basie Center for the Arts in Red Bank, NJ, includes John Rzeznik (Goo Goo Dolls,) Brian Fallon (The Gaslight Anthem,) Brian Baker (Bad Religion,) Pete Steinkopf (The Bouncing Souls,) Dramarama, Willie Nile, and Joe Grushecky and the Houserockers, with additional special guests yet to be announced. Ticket packages will be available via theBASIE.org , the Basie Center box office onsite at 99 Monmouth Street in Red Bank, and through Ticketmaster.com. Click here for more information on purchasing Light of Day Winterfest 2025 ticket packages. On Saturday night, November 15, the Kristen Ann Carr Fund (KACF) will hold its annual "A Night to Remember" fundraising event at Tribeca Grill in New York City. More than three decades have passed now since Bruce Springsteen first supported KACF  with a sold-out benefit concert in New York City's Madison Square Garden arena. The fund was organized in memory of the older daughter of former longtime Springsteen co-manager Barbara Carr and music-writer/Springsteen-biographer Dave Marsh. In early January of 1993, Kristen Ann Carr died at 21 of sarcoma. This year's "A Night To Remember" event will be the first to honor a sarcoma survivor: Jeff Gendel, who will be honored along with his wife Wendy. "We honor this family," reads the official event announcement from KACF , "that has been the direct beneficiary of the wonderful work of KACF and can truly trace their successful outcome back to the doctors and researchers that have received funding from our generous donors. "Jeff Gendel was diagnosed with a difficult case of dedifferentiated liposarcoma in July 2018. Almost immediately after the diagnosis, he and Wendy connected with KACF. Virtually their entire medical team has received funding from KACF – and since the initial diagnosis and surgery, they have benefitted from expanded knowledge and treatment options for rare sarcomas. During treatment, Wendy and Jeff agreed to allow his cancer cells to be researched in the Sam Singer Lab at MSK, funded by KACF, to help others impacted by sarcoma. The entire Gendel extended family have been enthusiastic supporters of our organization ever since that first diagnosis and have jumped in with an attitude of 'how can we help?' "Wendy and Jeff are a shining example of how KACF’s efforts can literally save lives, and bring a tangible component to the specific impact of your donations over the years. It is our extreme pleasure to celebrate them as our honorees at this year’s A Night to Remember." The event also will feature musical performances from special guest Brian Fallon of The Gaslight Anthem and house band JO & the Highland Express . And whether you purchase a ticket-package to attend or not, you still can support this important fundraising effort through the online-auction option , featuring lots of cool items (more than a few of them Springsteen-related) at a variety of bidding levels. Click here for more information.

November 12, 2024 Hey, Springsteen fans, Rhonda Bernadette wants to ask you a few questions... Bernadette, a longtime fan and founder of Circuit Records , is writing a book entitled Shouts From the Crowd: The Bruce Springsteen Fan Journey , and is inviting fans of all ages, backgrounds, nationalities, etc. to participate in her fan survey . "For decades," Bernadette recently told us, "Bruce Springsteen has continued to say, 'I’m in a long conversation with my audience. It will be a lifelong journey for both of us by the time we’re done.'" She envisions Shouts From the Crowd as another "passionate expression of the Springsteen audience conversation as told by fans around the world... Through research and interviews, we will learn how Springsteen’s music has been a constant companion. Fans are asked how they've been influenced by the man, the music, the lyrics, and the performances. We also will learn what fans would want to talk about if they got to spend a bit of time with Springsteen himself. Generations of fans will share personal stories, and the book will be filled with unique photographs from fans all over the world." The survey has been designed to be fun and easy for fans to take. Survey participants can choose either to record their voice responses, or type their responses. Each participant also will receive a special Circuit Records discount code for 15% off the order total on their next Circuit Records purchase, in appreciation of their individual contribution to the book-creation process. Here are some examples of the kinds of questions asked in the survey: How has/have the music, the lyrics, the storytelling and/or the performances impacted or influenced you? How has Springsteen's music been there for you along your life journey? What would you talk about if you spent a couple hours with Springsteen on the Jersey shore? If you had to pick one album as your favorite, could you do it? What would it be, and why? Click here for more information, to take the Shouts From the Crowd survey, and to be part of this special book project.

November 12, 2024 During his four-song solo acoustic set at last night's 18th Annual Stand Up For Heroes event, besides each sometimes mildly "dirty" Dad joke he delivered before each song, the only other words he spoke onstage were "This is a small prayer for our country," said just before he began singing the set-closing "Long Walk Home." In fact, since Springsteen brilliantly and beautifully let his music do virtually all of the talking when it came to the serious stuff, the entire set - not just "Long Walk Home" - could be taken as a beacon of belief, hope, and prayer offered up against despair, national and/or personal. An extremely appropriate one, as well, regardless of one's spiritual and/or political beliefs, because Stand Up For Heroes, which Springsteen has long supported, is all about helping to ensure that U.S. military veterans, service members, and their families never again have to face hopelessness, hunger, and poverty alone. Last night's sold-out event, held in New York City's David Geffen Hall at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, raised over $29 million for The Bob Woodruff Foundation , which was founded in 2006 to ensure that U.S. armed-forces veterans, current members, and their families have stable and successful futures. Besides Springsteen, other performers who appeared at the event were Jim Gaffigan, Norah Jones, Mark Normand, DJ Questlove, Jerry Seinfeld, and Jon Stewart. Also billed to appear was Patti Scialfa, who unfortunately was not in attendance. In the four YouTube links embedded below, you can watch fan-filmed video of Bruce's entire set, complete and in sequential order, Dad jokes and all: Lee Woodruff hugs Bruce at the end of his performance - photo by Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images for The Bob Woodruff Foundation - used with permission

November 11, 2024 Springsteen on Dylan: "Bob Dylan is the father of my country. Highway 61 Revisited and Bringing It All Back Home were not only great records, but they were the first time I can remember being exposed to a truthful vision of the place I lived. The darkness and light were all there, the veil of illusion and deception ripped aside. He put his boot on the stultifying politeness and daily routine that covered corruption and decay. The world he described was all on view, in my little town, and spread out over the television that beamed into our isolated homes, but it went uncommented on and silently tolerated. He inspired me and gave me hope. He asked the questions everyone else was too frightened to ask, especially to a fifteen-year-old: “How does it feel...to be on your own?” A seismic gap had opened up between generations and you suddenly felt orphaned, abandoned amid the flow of history, your compass spinning, internally homeless. Bob pointed true north and served as a beacon to assist you in making your way through the new wilderness America had become. He planted a flag, wrote the songs, sang the words that were essential to the times, to the emotional and spiritual survival of so many young Americans at that moment. I had the opportunity to sing 'The Times They Are A-Changin’ ' for Bob when he received the Kennedy Center Honors. We were alone together for a brief moment walking down a back stairwell when he thanked me for being there and said, 'If there’s anything I can ever do for you...' I thought, 'Are you kidding me?' and answered, 'It’s already been done.'” -Bruce Springsteen, Born to Run Did Bob Dylan mean what he sang in “Idiot Wind?” Doesn’t the "we" in The Animals’ song “We Gotta Get Out of This Place” refer to the American people and our getting out of the Vietnam war? Why did a U.S. Army machine gunner from Buffalo, New York write a letter to Bob Dylan asking to meet him when he got home from Vietnam? Is there a shared soundtrack for today’s veterans? “This always happens,” I smile and say to my co-presenter and co-author Craig Werner. He nods in agreement. We’ve just made a Veterans Day Weekend presentation at The Bob Dylan Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and members of the audience are anxious to know more, share more, respond to what they’ve just heard... And we’re all too willing to keep stirring the pot. That’s because, thanks to Craig, an emeritus professor of African-American Studies at UW-Madison, our work is rooted in the African-American cultural practice of “call-and-response.” That’s the beauty, too, of our award-winning book We Gotta Get Out of This Place: The Soundtrack of the Vietnam War . It’s based on the responses from hundreds of Vietnam veterans about the music of that time and their responses to that call. It’s also inherent in our presentations to audiences like the one at The Dylan Center this past Saturday. You could even make an argument that “question and answer” sessions like Saturday’s are actually “call and response” sessions. Audience members, especially the veterans and their families, are always moved because the music allows them to be grounded. To be safe. To be heard. How’s that for an appropriate way to observe Veterans Day? And maybe a good way to salute our veterans each and every day... our response to their service and sacrifice. All of that and more were present in Tulsa on Saturday, as they’d been previously in Seattle and Saginaw, Memphis and Minneapolis, and places in between. Being where we were close to Veterans Day 2024, we emphasized Dylan’s music, the contributions of other Tulsa-bred musicians like Leon Russell and David Gates, and the stories we heard from veterans, many of them Native Americans, from the various Oklahoma tribes. These elements bring a relevancy and intimacy to the conversations that help audience members relax, be centered, and be ready to respond. And maybe there’s no better responder to the world and the events around him than Bob Dylan. While Dylan made few, if any, explicit statements about the war in Vietnam, he saw through the hypocrisy of politicians, the hostility of generals, the foolhardiness of the public, and the tragic consequences of war. He warned us about the hard rain that could fall, pushed back against the masters of war, and railed against the idiot wind blowing "from the Grand Coulee Dam to the Capitol.” In collaboration with co-writer Rick Danko, Dylan even harnessed the resentment of Vietnam veterans as a "wheel" that "shall explode” in The Band’s version of “This Wheel's on Fire.” Powerful responses. Iconic songs. Masterful storytelling. That’s Bob Dylan. When you’re in Tulsa, stop by the riveting Bob Dylan Center, and also go next door to celebrate Dylan’s mentor Woody Guthrie at The Woody Guthrie Center . Hear the call...and help bring a veteran home. Our Dylan Center Veterans Day Weekend 2024 presentation's playlist: "All Along the Watchtower" (Bob Dylan's version; written by Bob Dylan) "All Along the Watchtower" (The Jimi Hendrix Experience's version; written by Bob Dylan) Dylan as a touchtone for generational consciousness: JFK’s War- "Masters of War" (Bob Dylan; written by Bob Dylan) LBJ’s War- "Like a Rolling Stone" (Bob Dylan; written by Bob Dylan) Nixon’s War- "Idiot Wind" (Bob Dylan; written by Bob Dylan) Oklahoma connections: "King of the Road" (Roger Miller; written by Roger Miller) "These Boots are Made for Walkin’" (Nancy Sinatra; written by Lee Hazlewood) Native vets-Kiowa Gourd Dance Veterans and Veterans Day: "We Gotta Get Out of This Place" (The Animals; written by Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil) "This Wheel’s On Fire" (The Band; written by Bob Dylan and Rick Danko) "Leaving on a Jet Plane" (Peter, Paul, and Mary; written by John Denver) Click here to read Doug Bradley's 2023 Veterans Day essay for Letters To You, as well.

November 8, 2024 If you're going to be within traveling distance of The Bob Dylan Center in Tulsa, OK tomorrow, Saturday November 9, you're strongly encouraged to check out the special Veterans Day programming that's happening there. Our friends Doug Bradley and Craig Werner, co-authors of We Gotta Get Out of This Place: The Soundtrack of the Vietnam War (named Rolling Stone 's Best Music Book of 2015,) will present "Wisdom From the Watchtower: An Afternoon of Music and Stories for Veterans Day." (Bradley also has contributed essays to Letters To You.) For this afternoon program that honors all veterans and gives voice to their pasts and legacies, Bradley and Werner will provide a brief overview of how music functioned during and after the Vietnam War; share songs by Bob Dylan, Bill Withers, Jimi Hendrix, and other era-defining musicians; relate firsthand accounts from a chorus of veterans; and engage the audience in a Q&A session, all in a nonjudgmental environment of sharing, listening and understanding. Free admission to the event is included with admission to the Center this Saturday, and admission to the Center tomorrow is also free for all military veterans and active military personnel. Here, too, are tomorrow's admission rates for all other visitors: Adults: $15 Adults Dual Tickets*: $22 Seniors (55+) and students (18+ with ID): $12 Youth (17 and under) and K-12 teachers: Free Limited-capacity general admission seating will be available for "Wisdom From the Watchtower: An Afternoon of Music and Stories for Veterans Day" on a first-come, first-served basis. Click here for more information.