SUZE ROTOLO DEAD AT 67

In this week's saddest rock and roll news, Suze Rotolo, erstwhile girlfriend and muse of Bob Dylan, died earlier today at the age of 67 from lung cancer. Rotolo is probably best known for lending her heavily-coated presence to the photograph which adorns the cover of 1963's "The Free-Wheelin' Bob Dylan" album. After meeting in Greenwich Village (her lifelong home) in 1961 when Rotolo was 17, the besotted couple moved into a flat together and spent the next three years trying to withstand the gossip and outside pressures which, ultimately (along with Dylan's fascination with Joan Baez) drove them apart. Among several songs on the "Free-wheelin'" album allegedly inspired by Dylan's relationship with Rotolo was "Don't Think Twice", which he claims to have written after she left him to spend three months in Italy, a move Rotolo has said that her mother encouraged to get her away from the musician.

Describing his first sighting of Rotolo in his memoir "Chronicles, Part I", Dylan wrote ""Right from the start I couldn’t take my eyes off her. She was the most erotic thing I’d ever seen. She was fair skinned and golden haired, full-blood Italian. The air was suddenly filled with banana leaves. We started talking and my head started to spin. Cupid’s arrow had whistled past my ears before, but this time it hit me in the heart and the weight of it dragged me overboard... Meeting her was like stepping into the tales of 1001 Arabian Nights. She had a smile that could light up a street full of people and was extremely lively, had a kind of voluptuousness-- a Rodin sculpture come to life."

More recently, in her own memoir, Rotolo summed up her split with the rock and roll bard by saying "Bob was charismatic: he was a beacon, a lighthouse, he was also a black hole. He required committed backup and protection I was unable to provide consistently, probably because I needed them myself. I could no longer cope with all the pressure, gossip, truth and lies that living with Bob entailed. I was unable to find solid ground. I was on quicksand and very vulnerable."

Rotolo is survived by her husband, Italian film editor, Enzo Bartoccioli, and a son Lucas, who performs as a guitarist in New York.

Skol! xoxxoxoxxoxoxoxoxoxo