I downloaded the audiobook of Robbie Robertson's autobiography, Testimony, just after he passed on August 9th of this year.  It's a hefty book, more than 18 hours in the audio version.  So I knew I would be with it for a long time.  But I had no idea it would change my life.

I have known about The Band for as long as I can remember, but all I knew about them is that they were Bob Dylan's backing band.  And Bob Dylan, I've had boys for as long as I can remember evangelize him to me, a Barbie-movie-montage's worth of boys throughout my life, but it never took.

When I started listening to Robbie Robertson's autobiography, Testimony, I would report back to my current other half (who has his own important relationship with Dylan but was the one boy who never evangelized) where I was in it and what was happening.  "He's touring with Ronnie Hawkins now."  "We've just started recording The Basement Tapes." "We're on tour again, and Richard Manuel is in bad shape."  Then I admitted that I had joined a Facebook group all about The Band.  My other half paused, and then said, "This is a very interesting development." He then helped provide augmentation of the stories in the book, and supplemented with YouTube videos of historic recordings. On a record store shopping trip in Minneapolis, coming back from a cousin's wedding, I found a deluxe DVD of The Last Waltz.  Since it was a collector's edition, it had been played maybe not at all and was in mint condition.  We watched the movie, for my first time ever, even though I definitely remember when it first came out, and how revolutionary it was in setting the standard for a Rock documentary, until Stop Making Sense came out, anyway. Like Dylan, I'd been hearing about this movie for almost my whole life, but now, watching it just after finishing Robbie Robertson's Testimony book, which ends right after the movie is filmed, I knew all the stories in it like a catechism.

Thinking about it, it's not surprising that my way into Dylan at long last was through a flashy, charismatic and controversially show-pony-ish band member.  That's just like me - Paul is my favorite Beatle, Buck Owens is my favorite Country artist.  So, here I am, now sort of a Dylan person.  And definitely a Robbie Robertson fan.