Last night I heard him sing at Carnegie Hall with an orchestra, tonight by himself or with one frame drummer in front of maybe 100 people. I can no longer hear him without crying. He is so woven in my life.
When I was, what, 14? my parents dragged me to a show at the Iron Horse, told me I'd like this one. The opening band sucked. I knew it, just knew it, that they were stupid parents with bad taste. Then a pause, then a man with tangled hair came on stage holding a styrofoam cup, and, fidgeting with the cup, began to sing. And that was it. One by one I dragged my friends to the Iron Horse with me, always shaking in fear that I wouldn't get a good seat, that something unknown would go wrong and keep me from this.
When I was 16, and did not know him as more than a performer on a stage, his music was a lifeline, hearing it live again a goal toward which I counted the hours over months. 1802 hours marked out on notebook paper and scratched out one by one, just to make it to another show, not believing I would ever have the courage to speak more than to thrust baked goods into his hands and flee - and then he became real to me.
First, unfailingly kind and courteous, but distant. Eleven years is an enormous difference at 16 and 27. But it's been nearly 15 years, hours in the car, days of singing, countless meals, playing Taboo, new years eve parties, our friends' wedding at which I traded him my lobster bisque for his champagne, nights in each other's houses and in cheap motels, mourning a friend, holding his children, some disagreements, the poppy seed cake we dug out of the pan with our hands on the way to Providence, mourning his own wife.
And always there's his voice - recorded, or across the room at a singing, or on stage. Warm and strong and, in the words of various reviewers, haunting and craggy and raw and powerful and stark and immediate.
I have seen him on so many stages, many of the biggest of which he has given me to follow him onto.
In one year, we saw each other in Illinois, Alabama, California, Texas, Virginia, Massachusetts, New York. Last night I cried to see him on such a big stage and his wife not there to see it; tonight to see him on the first stage I ever saw him on and have seen him so many times over so many years. When I watch him, I watch my life, I watch with love, and I never fail to be surprised.