As I was kicking myself for not going to hear Bo Diddley when he played in my own home town, my thoughts turned to the performers I HAVE seen and heard in person. Looking back, I realize that I’ve attended some notable concerts in my day. Let me attempt a list: Eric Burden and the Animals (my first rock concert); the Monkees (hey, I had to take my little sister, all right?); Janis Joplin (by now I’d gone off to college); the Jefferson Airplane; the Byrds; Jimi Hendrix; the Box Tops; Three Dog Night; Leon Russell; B. B. King; Bob Dylan (half a dozen times); Waylon Jennings (my tastes begin to change); Johnny Cash (sort of; I was at the Washington Mall on the bicentennial; I could hear Johnny singing from the stage but I was so far away that I couldn’t see him; still, I’m going to count it); the Everly Brothers; Alan Jackson; George Strait; the Dixie Chicks (before they went unpatriotic); LeAnn Rimes (when she was a prodigy singing “Blue”); Travis Tritt; Marty Stuart; BR-549 (numerous times); Junior Brown; Wayne Hancock; Alison Krauss (more than once); that “Down from the Mountain” tour from “O, Brother, Where Art Thou”; Merle Haggard; Chuck Berry (at Blueberry Hill in St. Louis).
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