As a kid watching Elvis Presley sing the title song to his latest motion picture “Follow Your Dream”, I had an immediate connection with the artist, the song and the sentiment they both expressed.

The recent two-night concert in Madison Square Garden to celebrate the 25th year of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame included, along with many artists, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band. The current guitarist with the E Street Band is a musician who followed his dreams for many years, and is proof of how things can turn out if you never give up.

In the late sixties, Nils Lofgren formed the group Grin in his hometown, and while touring in the area Neil Young saw him, and invited him to help with the classic “After the Gold Rush”. Nils soon went solo and released his first solo album to critical acclaim, and followed it up with a better produced (with Al Kooper) album, and the music industry seemed certain that they had their next rock star.

And then, with everything riding on his third album (“I Came to Dance”), Lofgren choked: for the first time his songs seemed slight, and his playing seemed uninspired. Few performers had been so close and yet so far away from success. He had tried out for the Rolling Stones when Mick Taylor left that group, and they passed. But he did land with Bruce Springsteen in the early eighties.

And that is where he remains. His last few solo albums are still a treat, in particular “Sacred Weapon”, “Nils Sings Neil” and the live albums. The career of Nils Lofgren is a perfect testimony to the notion about following your dreams.

2 concerts this week in New York for the 25th Anniversary of the Rock and Roll Hame of Fame.  Eric Clapton had to bow out for health reasons.  Jeff Beck,  Bruce Springsteen, Paul Simon, Art Garfunkel and many others will perform…

John Fogerty has announced he is releasing the concert he did last year in the Royal Albert Hall on DVD November 3rd. Fans of Fogerty may know the last time he played there was when he was in Creedence Clearwater Revival about 37 years ago.

 Of course John has had a long and successful solo career after leaving the band that he and his brother Tom started in the sixties when they were in high school. Even his new album “The Return of the Blue Ridge Rangers” which came out last month, is a sequel to the very first solo album he did after leaving C.C.R. called “The Blue Ridge Rangers”.

 In a recent interview about the upcoming DVD, John alluded to the many ghosts that surrounded his performance at the Royal Albert Hall, not all of them pleasant, I am sure. It came after the acrimonies of the band, and the personal falling out with his older, late brother. In playing that hall after so long, he said “I sure didn’t know it would take so long to come back! Tonight is a celebration of my music and my personal revival.”

Sad news this week about the passing of Dickie Peterson, the bassist, vocalist and founding member of the late sixties San Francisco rock group Blue Cheer. You may not have heard of them, but their one big hit was a cover of the Eddie Cochran song “Summertime Blues”.

It wasn’t so much this one group, as much as it was the zietgeist of the time in which they prospered and thrived that is worth noting. One of the fraternal brother bands of Blue Cheer in Northern California was Moby Grape, a brilliant band that tried wacky stunts like mastering one side of their third album at 78 rpm, making it unplayable on most record players of the time; and releasing the four potential hit singles off of their first album all at the same time (which ended up aborting their career).

And it was during this same crazy time when a wacky anti-war movement announced that they were going to levitate the Pentagon building a few inches off of the ground to protest the war in Vietnam. A New York Times reporter covering the demonstration in Washington knew it couldn’t be done, but he and the entire press corps showed up anyway because…well, it just might happen (he sadly reported that the building failed to move).

Phish recently released their new album JOY.   First record in many years following a Summer Reunion tour.   Roseanne Cash’s THE LIST features a fine duet with Bruce Springsteen.  Bob Dylan’s X-MAS album comes out this month.. !  Before you dot another I, Buy a new coal scuttle, Mr. Cratchit…

Billy Joel pockets a cool 3 million for writing his autobiography for Harper Collins. Actually that should read Fred Schruers is ghostwriting the book about Billy Joel that Billy Joel is getting 3 million dollars for. Fred has written (or ghostwritten) other rock star books for such musicians as Blondie and the Kinks. Billy did pretty well for himself, because he got about a million dollars more than that guy who wanted to write that screenplay for David Letterman.

It should be a pretty good read (both, actually, but the Letterman guy got arrested for blackmail, so we won’t be seeing that screenplay). Joel’s career is pretty much an American Dream come true: born in the Bronx, raised in Hicksville (no kidding, look it up), and his life was changed forever when he saw the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan show.

He joined a local band, played piano on the Shangri-La’s hit “Leader of the Pack“, and found success in writing and singing songs that echoed those written at the famous Brill Building and Tin Pan Alley. He became rich, married a famous model and moved into big, expensive houses.

Of course, since then he has been divorced, in rehab and more or less began to calm down. His last effort was the live”12 Nights” released back in 2006.