LARRY EDEN R.I.P.

I pass on this Special Announcement from John Baldwin's Desolation Row Information Service e-mail newsletter:

It is with much sadness that I tell you about the recent death of Larry Eden. He was found dead yesterday in his London flat. The police were alerted after he fell out of touch with his regular friends and they were able to gain entry to his flat. It is not yet known how or when he died but that should become clearer when the results of the inquest are known later today. It will only be then that funeral arrangements can be made.

Larry was one of the most colourful fans who traveled all over the world to see his idol and was always to be seen front row centre at the UK concerts wearing his trademark hat and cheering Bob on. Larry was one of the few fans ever acknowledged by Bob from the stage, who said of Larry “he’s been to more of my shows than I have”. Through his many years of concert going, Larry made countless friends and he will be sadly missed. His memory will still be with us by way of his voice, which you can hear on many bootleg concert recordings.
Our thoughts go out to his family on this sad occasion.

For myself, I found Larry a lovable rogue; he tried to help me once with a difficulty I was having with some shady London crook-publishers (of a certain Frank Zappa book), and though he didn't succeed, it was kind of him to bring some of his specialist talents to the task. When he went off to India a few years ago, and so dropped out of attending Dylan concerts - it was a weird thing to get used to the absence of him and his hat - he sold off his CD collection before he went, and we all took, er, pot luck on which CD we'd get. I ended up not with some rare bootleg but with his copy of the official Before The Flood double-CD release; initial disappointment gave way to the realisation that it was just as well this was what arrived, because having it on vinyl already but rarely wishing to play it, it would probably have been near the bottom of my CDs wishlist.

The last time I saw Larry was at the Bob Dylan Convention in Northampton last October 28th: an event which in itself commemorated another widely-known deceased UK Bobcat, John Green.