Bob Dylan’s music is an integral part of Richard Blair’s life.

He and his Rolling Boxcar International bandmate Angelo LaMarca initially bonded over their mutual love of Dylan. “Make You Feel My Love” was played at his wedding. “Forever Young” has taken on a new meaning since he became a parent. He could write a dissertation on the multitudes he hears in “Tangled Up in Blue.”

Anyone who’s heard Demos Papadimas’ music might suspect Dylan is one of his seminal influences, and any conversation with him quickly will confirm it.

Blair, Papadimas and other area musicians will spend Dylan’s 83rd birthday on Friday performing his songs at Westside Bowl in Youngstown and celebrating his musical legacy.

Blair has been doing his own celebrations of Dylan’s birthday since he became a fan more than 30 years ago. About a decade ago, he spent hours playing Dylan’s songs at Generations Cafe in Columbiana on May 24.

“As far as this show, I just exchanged text messages with Demos that day in 2023 and threw out the idea, ‘Hey, maybe next year we should do a tribute show.’ He liked the idea. Possibly within an hour he texted me back, ‘OK, I put a hold at Westside Bowl.’ Here’s a kindred spirit who is interested and will do things to move the idea forward.

“We all get great ideas over time, and it’s easier if we have a cohort. It just went from there.”

In addition to Blair and Papdimas, the lineup will feature Rolling Boxcar International’s LaMarca on guitar and Michael Estok, a multi-instrumentalist who normally plays drums with RBI but will be on keyboard Friday.

RBI’s bass player had a prior commitment, so Andre Ptichkin from Papadimas’ band will play bass and Dylan Kollat from JD Eicher’s band will play drums.

Special guests will include Jackie Popovec and Rick Deak from The Vindys, Rob and Adrienne Berry from The Berrys, Chris Rutushin from Radio Lark and Nick Aducci.

“Chris and I were roommates in college, and he was an early participant in these birthday parties. When Demos and I started planning this, I said we have to invite Chris.”

Finding people who wanted to participate was easy. The hard part was trying to whittle down the song list to a manageable length. According to a New York Times story when Dylan sold his songwriting catalog to Universal Music, he’s written more than 600 from which to choose.

“It’s been a challenge,” Blair said. “If you ask me, one Dylan fan, my top 10 favorite songs, it can change by the day, maybe even the hour. You get all these other Dylan fans involved, and everybody’s got opinions.

“We started out with a list of between 60 and 100 song titles. Then I took a trip earlier this year, and while I was sitting on the airplane, I wrote down all the studio albums and tried to pick at least one song from each studio album.”

Then all the participants picked the ones they thought should be included from those lists.

“OK, ‘Highway 61 Revisited’ is on three of the lists. That moves on to the next round,” Blair said.

And with Blair and Papadimas being the organizers, there were a couple of choices they insisted upon, whether anyone else voted for them or not.

Organizers decided to turn the show into a benefit with all proceeds being donated to Second Harvest Foodbank of the Mahoning Valley, and representatives will be at the show to talk about the work Second Harvest does.

The beneficiary was picked because Dylan donated all proceeds from his “Christmas in the Heart” album to three different charities focused on food insecurity with Feeding America being the U.S. organization the album supports.

“Second Harvest is part of the Feeding America network,” Blair said. “We thought about how do we honor the man, how do we honor his work, not just his art but also the things (he cares about)? How do we ratchet this up, rather than just a bunch of Bob Dylan fans getting together and playing his songs, how do we make it have more of a community impact?”

If you go …

WHAT: Forever Young — A tribute to Bob Dylan on his 83rd birthday featuring Demos Papadimas, Rolling Boxcar International and special guests

WHEN: 8 p.m. Friday

WHERE: Westside Bowl, 2617 Mahoning Ave., Youngstown

HOW MUCH: $10 in advance through Eventbrite and $12 at the door with proceeds benefiting Second Harvest Foodbank of the Mahoning Valley.