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Dear Bob --
I'm glad to finally find a way to be in touch with you. I've wanted to do that several times over the years. After a long and winding journey, I am now the minister of a United Church of Christ congregation (sort of like Methodist or Presbyterian, but members are free to hold a wide spectrum of beliefs) in Cary, NC, just outside of Raleigh (I would be glad to send your our website address, but it got blocked on my first attempt to send you this message).
You and I go way back. It was probably in 1963 in Denver. I was a senior in high school, and was one of just a few customers at a Coffee House called the Analyst late one night. They were having an open mic night, and you walked in and wanted to sing -- if I am not mistaken, you were a college student at Gunnison at the time, and I think you may have gone to high school in Aurora, which is where my first wife went to high school. Anyway, you came in and asked to sing, and the owner/manager said, "Well, he doesn't look very much like a folk singer, but we'll let him try, anyway." I think I got your voice imprint in my mind that night, and that imprint has never evaporated. I also loved the character of your songs and the poetry (and humor) of your lyrics-- the Colorado history songs as well as the more traditional folk song style, the love songs and the life songs.
I think I heard you two or three more times at the Analyst before I left to start college in Austin, Texas in the fall of 1964. And then one day I was listening to a radio station in Austin -- I came in to the middle of a song -- and before I had heard more than eight measures of "Elusive Butterfly," even though I had no idea that you even had a recording contract by then, I knew immediately it was you. When I went back home on occasion to Denver/Englewood, I always tried to catch you if you were performing. I returned to Colorado to finish up college in Boulder, and during those years (1966-68) I caught you twice in the same week (around Christmas?), I think, at an actual theater with a stage in Denver -- it may or may not have been the Bluebird. My memories of that are not entirely clear, except that I loved a song you did there which I have never heard before or since -- "Down at Denny's Diner, Over Ham and Eggs, You got Me in Trouble, For Lookin' at Your Legs." Somehow I could identify with those lines, as I could with many of the other words and feelings and experiences you wrote about during those years. I got my brother and my Mom and any current girlfriends turned on to your music, and had at least one or two copies of four of your vinyl albums -- The Elusive Bob Lind; Photographs of Feeling; the Verve album with all the Colorado songs; and Since There Were Circles.
I have the CD with most of your songs from The Elusive Bob Lind and Photographs of Feeling, and was really happy when I just discovered that "Circles" is now available on CD. The copy I ordered last week just arrived in today's mail, which is how I knew to contact you at this site. I'll look forward to learning more about where you have been, where you are now, and what you have done in the intervening years. And I look forward to ordering your latest live CD release very soon.
Would love to find CD quality recordings of the songs from the Verve album and "Denny's Diner." But I know we don't get everything we want.
There is a couple locally who sponsor and host a very respectable series of house concerts in Raleigh -- mostly folk-based, some blue grass, etc. I think that might be a very good venue for you, and if you are ever interested in knowing more about it, I would be happy to make connections for you. It would be great to meet you and to hear you perform "live" again.
Nice to catch up with you. Keep up the good work.
Blessings -- (F. Patrick) Pat Russell
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