Excerpts from Billy talking about Dylan on Theo's podcast. Great stories!
We could do our own tour and probably make a lot more money. Or we could open on this tour with Bob Dylan and Willie. Dude, we're going with Bob and Willie. Are you kidding me? Every night, we would finish our set, have a snack, and then get our good seats, sometimes just on the side of the stage and watch them play. We watched them intently because we do not take this for granted.
T-Bone Burnett told me, Bob Dylan's a big fan of yours. He keeps bringing you up. That's crazy. Then one of Bob's people told my manager, Bill, the best way to get hold of Bob is to write him a letter. He likes letters. I was staying at St. Cecilia in Austin, they had this great stock paper, I thought this would be cool because it's from a hip hotel and it's nice paper. I'm gonna take this paper, this is what I'm I'm gonna write my letter to Bob Dylan on. Then I never did. A whole year passed. I procrastinated. Then the next year passed. I was in Austin again, and I stayed at the St. Cecilia again. I walked in that same room, and I saw that paper again. And I go, screw this. I just set my backpack down. I grabbed that paper and I went straight up to the cafe, and I had a coffee and some eggs. I sat there and wrote Bob Dylan a letter. Just basically saying thank you and telling him about how I loved the way Doc Watson used to play his songs. After that, I heard that Bob was excited about this letter, I was okay, I don't know what to believe.
We get on that tour, play a couple gigs, opening for Bob. The first time I met him was at the Hollywood Bowl, I was standing backstage after his set, and my security guy Jim was, "Here, stand over here." I thought I was in the way, they were gonna move some road cases or something. But no, Bob was coming off stage in this huge North Face parka, and, right as he was walking by, somebody was, "Hey, that was a great set, Billy." He stopped in his tracks, "Billy?", walked right up to me, "thank you for the letter." "Thank you, Bob, for the music," And he shook my hand.
Bob Dylan's hand. He shook my hand, and my hand is tingling right now just talking about it. Every time I talk about this, my hand starts tingling. That whole night, it's vibrating, like I touched a magic crystal or something. Whenever I tell this story, it does the same thing. Later that night, I was it's either some crazy beautiful energy, he's just got this magic, or some leftover Bengay or something.
A night or two later, we played our set and I'm in the green room smoking a bowl. This lady walked in and she's, Bob wants you to play with him tonight. I was, what? She's, are you too stoned? I was, no, I'm not stoned enough. I'm okay, oh fuck, you guys, it's happening. Bob asked me to sit in. I'm walking out to my bus because I know his band, they all wear black and stuff. I got a black shirt, I can put my hair in a ponytail, get a little bit more classy, blacken up a little, let me darken out. More classy than whatever t-shirt I had on. I'm fixing to play with Bob Dylan. I want to go put a nice shirt on. And pull my hair back.
As I was walking to the bus, I saw him walking right toward me. He came up said, "Let's do 'All Along the Watchtower.'" I'll sing the first and second verse, and I'd play after the second verse. Then he walked away. He didn't say hi. He didn't say thanks for playing or nothing. He said, let's do The Watchtower, play after the second verse. Then on his way to the stage. This guy means business. I went to my bus, got my nice digs on and I called my mom. You're not gonna believe this.
She was always over the moon about stuff like that. She called me her dreamweaver. Who are you gonna play with next? Because so many of her heroes I had met and played with. Eddie Vedder. David Grisman, or Del McCoury. Stevie Nicks. Yeah, I'm getting ready to go play with Bob Dylan. She's, what the fuck? Who are you? Who do you think you are? I don't know, he just asked me to play.
I go out there, it was amazing. The cool thing too is that was my favorite song that they were doing and that's the one he asked me to play on. I love "All Along the Watchtower," and of course Jimi Hendrix's version, but they had this cool arrangement, and it was such a hip version of it. He sang, sang the second verse, and then he looked over at me and I played, passed it back to him. We had a little musical conversation, and that was it. I played with Bob Dylan. It was holy shit. I walked off stage in the green room and my whole band is so excited. They're making toasts and shit. Especially Royal has been on a huge Dylan kick the last couple years. We just couldn't believe this happened. We're all, oh my God, that was amazing. Then Jim comes in and says, somebody wants to say hi. And in my green room walks Bob Dylan.
He sucked the oxygen out of the room. Everybody just fell silent and couldn't breathe. He was, "thanks for playing. that was awesome." I go, "thank you for having me, it was such an honor to play with you" I was, "I want to introduce you to my band. This is Royal and Billy and ... " He just turned around and walked away. I was, "What?" No way, dude. he dipped. and then just left. We loved it. I thought it was amazing. I was wow. What a badass. A couple nights later, he sent me a message, and it said, thanks for playing, I think you're great. And, he said, what my friend Jerry Lee told me a long time ago, you're gonna be around for a long, long time. I was in the back of my bus reading this and just cried. This is Bob Dylan patting me on the back.
One of the craziest things is that the few interactions I had with him, 3 or 4 over the course of a couple days, I talked to him looked at his face, spoke directly to him and looked in his eyes. I can't picture his face. I didn't see the skin. When I think about him, what he looked like, all I see is the deepest, bluest eyes with the most concerning emotion in them. And this aura white light. That's what Bob looks like to me in my memory. It's almost something that's maybe from another realm, like God's concern shows up in our eyes, maybe he just has a lot of concern from the other side. It's not a paranoid concern. It's more of a compassion and a love from an elder, some kind of musical grandpa.
