It went something like this...

…the great Bob Colson, lead singer of The Bob Colson Band, one of the finest bands the world has never known fronted by a voice that knew no equal and was the kind of voice comes along once in a 100 years – had a heart as big as a house; and a heartbreaking voice; Bob Colson’s singular voice could have you crying and dancing at the same time…

…the Bob Colson Band cut its teeth in hard core venues like Whittington’s, The Village, Oscar’s, White Sands, a whole bunch of venues, playing four nights a week to a packed house back in the days when there were no enforced limits on much of anything so the place often went nuts, figuratively and literally.

…often on the off-nights Bob Colson and the band – originally I think it was Bob Colson, Jimmy Kane, Charlie Huntington, Joe Perry, John Finzar and Cliff Maddix – would do pro bono work in the state prisons – on one such occasion in the Big House @ Walpole, now known as Cedar Junction, in the middle of a tune that was rockin’ the whole joint, one of the inmates shanked another and within minutes the place went from very dangerous to VERY dangerous – the alarm system then was not sirens and whistles but rather tape-recorded shotgun blasts played at eardrum-shattering decibel levels and cops were racing everywhere trying to protect The BC Band and its guests from harm as the melee became a riot…

…another time at a concert for one of the Division of Youth Services detention facilities, in Taunton MA I think, on a tour of the place we saw a young black kid naked in a cell and shackled to the floor…we only got in this deep at this place – you weren’t allowed where we were - because Carmen worked here and we knew Carmen so he gave us the inside tour and Bob asked what the kid had done to deserve that and I forget what it was but he was gonna be there awhile, so Bob started talking to the kid and telling him what The BC Band was doing here and the kid said he could sing too so Bob asked Carmen could he sing with him & Carmen unshackled him helped him dress and that young man sang a very sad and soulful song of life in jail…

…in another place with the help of Linda Rooney – speaking of voices which come along only once in a hundred years – at an insane asylum cum school for the insane, the Wrentham State School in which Bedlam lived and hell on earth presented itself no matter where you looked…Linda sang so beautifully that the inmate/patients at first were stunned into a deafening silence as palpable as a conch held to the ear and when she hit that high note in 'Me & Bobby McGee' the place erupted into a shrieking, howling mass of approbation from these poor people who had never heard music before other than Muzak…