Bob & Willie & Mavis & Tom

Three all-star requested shows from 1986, 2005, and 2016

With all the special series I’ve been working on (the hotel-drafts duo, and the Empire Burlesque five-pack), a few subscriber requests for June shows have gotten pushed back. So I’m doing a three-for-one today. Three shows whose only common threads are A) that it occured in June and B) that one of you wanted me to cover it.

Actually, by chance, there’s a third common thread. As you might notice in the poster trio above, each one happens to feature Bob on tour with a peer: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers in 1986, Willie Nelson in 2005, and Mavis Staples in 2016. All longtime friends. (Though he only proposed to one of them. Better luck next time, Benmont.) Surprisingly, given the company, no sit-ins at these shows. The Heartbreakers were his backing band in 1986, of course, but no songs with Willie or Mavis.

Also surprising to me: No single song was played at all three shows. You’d think something would have been. None of these were gospel-type eras when he was entirely eschewing the greatest hits (the 2016 show comes closest with all those Sinatra tunes, but he still fits in “Blowin’ in the Wind” and “Tangled Up in Blue”). The most obvious song to hit all three—“All Along the Watchtower,” his most-played-song period—doesn’t appear at any of the shows!

For this quick-hits newsletter, I picked out one notable thing from each show: