Bob Dylan: The Early Years: A Retrospective

Rating:
Summary: Dylan fans never forget
Review: I'll be sorry to see this book eclipsed by Ellison's _Collected Interviews_, even if I do have Ellison in my amazon shopping cart already. The appearance of this book was a godsend, back in the days when we were all kicking ourselves for having failed to ferret away multiple copies of the issue of _Playboy_ which had featured THAT interview. It took an Australian journalist to get one of the pioneering volumes of responsible Dylan scholarship into print, and God bless'im, says this guy...

Rating:
Summary: Dylan fans never forget
Review: I'll be sorry to see this book eclipsed by Ellison's _Collected Interviews_, even if I do have Ellison in my amazon shopping cart already. The appearance of this book was a godsend, back in the days when we were all kicking ourselves for having failed to ferret away multiple copies of the issue of _Playboy_ which had featured THAT interview. It took an Australian journalist to get one of the pioneering volumes of responsible Dylan scholarship into print, and God bless'im, says this guy...

Rating:
Summary: Portrait of a legend when he was earning the title
Review: This book compiles much of the best writing done about Bob Dylan in the '60's, when he was in the midst of what is perhaps the greatest burst of creativity by a musical artist in this century. Includes interviews from the Village Voice and Playboy, and lengthy, perceptive essays on an artist whose music holds up to infinite levels of analysis. The rather dated quality of these essays and interviews is what gives them their beauty. These articles were written when all of this was new and no one knew where he was going or where he would take us. Dylan was not the grizzled bluesman he is today, but an absolute force of nature in his mid twenties; a kid from Minnesota who became the axis of popular culture. It is generally acknowledged that the directions that rock took in the '60's sprang directly from him. And he often changed directions every few months. For example, John Wesley Harding, released at the height of the psychedelic era, was a quiet, acoustic album, which in turn led the Beatles toward a similar sound for the White Album