by Kathleen Hall-Ditchfield, West Grove, Pa

When I was in elementary school in the late ‘60s, I listened to my older brother’s Peter, Paul, & Mary and Kingston Trio records. Then my other brother came home from his freshman year at Franklin & Marshall talking about a new experimental radio station in Philadelphia, and I started listening to WMMR. When my best friend and I wanted to go to concerts before we could drive, we enlisted my brother, his wife, anyone we could persuade, to go with us. We saw Gordon Lightfoot at the Academy of Music in 1973, the Dylan and the Band tour at the Spectrum in 1974, and many amazing Main Point shows — Jackson Browne, Ralph McTell, Dave van Ronk, Leonard Cohen, Tom Waits, Tom Rush, Warren Zevon, Chris Smither, Jay Leno! But the most memorable show of all was when we convinced our 10th grade history teacher to drive us to see Jackson Browne play at the Villanova field house, with Bruce Springsteen opening! While Jackson Browne gave a great performance, Springsteen really upstaged him, and set the tone. After Jackson Browne’s last song, “Sweet Little Sixteen” — very well received — he came out for the encore, apologetic, saying, “I’m sorry, but we don’t know any more rock and roll.” I think he closed then — to an absolutely silent audience — with an achingly beautiful acoustic version of “Something Fine,” followed by deafening applause.

I want to add, too, that I had the privilege of interviewing David Dye for my high school newspaper, of which I was the feature editor. He had known my English teacher at Swarthmore and came to talk to our 10th grade class, a high point of the year! I still have the interview on a cassette. I was sufficiently in awe — and feeling like a rookie — that I never actually wrote it up for the paper, and haven’t had the nerve to listen to the tape in 33 years!