Author's note: The title and theme of this story come from a song by Joan Baez from around 1969 or 1970, about her relationship with Bob Dylan.
^ ^ ^ ^
It was late in the afternoon in late November, already getting dark on a cold, dreary day that promised snow later that night.
I was at a particularly rough spot in the novel I was working on, and I had developed a headache from trying to work out the plot line at that point in the book.
I knew I needed to push on, because time was growing short. It had been well over a year since my last book and my publisher was getting antsy. I had hoped to have this one finished before the holidays, but it didn't look like that would happen.
Thanksgiving was a week or so away and after that the Christmas bustle would descend on the city and I'd have precious little time to devote to writing.
I think I jumped when I heard the twitter of the telephone. I'm certainly not a recluse, but I guess I was concentrating so hard on my work that the sudden intrusion of the phone startled me.
A lot of times when I'm zoned out like that, I'll simply let it ring and let the answering machine pick up, but I decided I needed a little break, so I got up and answered the call.
And when I heard the voice on the other end of the line, my heart fell to the floor.
"Uh, Janice, is that you?" said a voice from my past. "Janice? Are you there?
"Well, I'll be damned," I said after a long pause. "God, Billy, you're about the last person I ever expected to hear from. Where are you calling from?"
"The Midwest somewhere. Saginaw, maybe?" he said. "You know how it is when you're on tour. All these cities start to run together after awhile."
"Yeah, I do," I said. "Although there a big difference between book-signing tours and what you do. I see your posters up at Tower and they've got a life-size cut-out of you at the entrance to the Hard Rock down in the Village. I'd say you've made it, Billy."
"Aw, jeez, I don't know, " he said in a self-deprecating tone that I couldn't tell was sincere or mocking. "I owe it all to you, though. You were my muse, you were the one who inspired me and you were the one who pushed me back in the day."
"Yeah, I guess," I said, trying hard to hold back the flood of emotion that was threatening to undo me right then and there.
And in the awkward pause that followed it seemed like my mind took a trip down memory lane, and I found myself remembering things I'd tried to forget over the previous 10 years.
^ ^ ^ ^
The critics have long called Billy Crane, "the voice of his generation," and that much is true.
Billy's politically-charged lyrics and emotion-evoking music had captured the hearts and minds of young people all over the Western world, and his charismatic stage presence and a relentless touring schedule did the rest.
Now, after 10 years and half-a-dozen platinum albums, he's a star -- a superstar, really -- and the nice thing about it is that he's done it his way, without compromising an inch on his message or his music.
Indeed, integrity is a large part of his appeal. His records are always well-crafted, but not slick-sounding, and they always have something important to say.
Billy has a crackerjack backing band that's been with him almost from the first, and they play a unique kind of rock that defies categorizing. There's definitely a folk, even slightly country, bent to his music, but there's also a real hard edge there, with hints of reggae, jazz and even a little soul.
And his concerts are legendary. By now, he has a wide repertoire of his own material that he performs, but he always seems to throw in some really spicy covers, and he never gives an audience anything less than his best.
As far as his private life is concerned, he's kept his nose clean -- no drug busts, no boozy brawls -- with one glaring exception. He s been known to keep two or three girlfriends on a string at a time, and that has occasionally made him fodder for the tabloids.
I know for a fact, however, that he didn't have that problem until he became famous.
When he was just another struggling singer-songwriter down in the East Village, there was just little ol' me, Janice Bradley, the girl on the half-shell.
^ ^ ^ ^
Of course, when I first met him, he wasn't Billy Crane yet. He was Bill Cronovich from Davenport, Iowa, and he was literally just off the bus.
He strolled into this little club I used to frequent not far from the apartment where I was living at the time. It was really just a hole in the wall, but they had good burgers, cold draft beer and good live music.
Every Thursday they had open mike night, and anyone with the balls to do so could come on stage and sing, play an instrument, tell jokes, read poetry, whatever.
I say it took balls, because the crowd there was pretty sophisticated and they could be awfully rough on the rank amateurs. I saw more than one aspiring folkie leave the stage in tears after getting the razz from the audience.
You could tell Billy was different right from the start, though. Even though he was dressed in the standard uniform of the folk crowd -- dirty jeans, scruffy boots, a flannel shirt and well-worn jean jacket -- he walked in like he owned the place, paid the entry fee, and when his name was called, he strode onto the stage with a smile and kicked right in with his set.
By the time he'd sung for about a minute, I'd sat up and started taking notice -- and he'd noticed me, too. I was sitting pretty close to the stage with a couple of girlfriends, and he turned his head toward me, looked me straight in the eye and everything else fell away.
Billy was blessed with the bluest eyes of anyone I've ever known, bluer than robin's eggs, really, and when he cast his gaze on me I felt naked, like he was looking right into my soul.
And I wasn't the only one he captivated that night. Most of the time, performers at these open mike shows performed maybe 15 minutes, 30 minutes if they were good. But Billy sat up there and played and sang for an hour and a half, and nobody seemed to mind.
By the end of his set, the place was packed, as word had spread of the man's riveting performance.
