The Razor's Edge: Bob Dylan and the Never Ending Tour

Rating:
Summary: Wonderful insight into Dylan's Never Ending Tour
Review: I couldn't disagree more with the two reviews above, from the same hand I hasten to add(he was so disgsuted he worte in twice !!). What Andrew Muir has written here is a wonderful insight into Dylans's Never Ending Tour. The reviewer above has totally missed the point. This is not a Dylan biography, there are plenty of those around. This fills a big gap in the Dylan market, writing about his actual performances. That is the heart of Dylan's art. Paul Williams captures it superbly in everything he writes, his amazing enthusiasm captues concerts in all their glory. The NET is a remarkable thing in music terms. Dylan has been on the road every year since 1988 (since 1986 in fact with TP & the Heartbreakers) with an ever evolving show of amazing highs and spectacular lows. He was 47 when it started and he is 61 now. Of course Andrews's book is for fans, but I can tell, as someone who is often bored by Dylan books that I have heard before, Andrew's book is immensley readable, entertaining, funny and informative. I highly reccomend it to any Dylan fans out there. There isn;t another book available that tells this story, and it is such a huge part now of the Dylan story.

Rating:
Summary: Great book for Dylan fanatics
Review: I had to write a review after reading the 2 previous poor reviews which were obviously written by the same person. This is not a book for the casual Dylan fan, the person who thinks Dylan's only put out 2 great albums since Blood on the Tracks. This is for the fanatic who has (or wants) over 100 Dylan cd's, who knows that there are moments of genius among Bob's darkest creative days in the late 80's and early 90's. It explores the most neglected period of Dylan's career, on the road nonstop from 1988 to present. When most of the world couldn't care less about Bob, he was out there every night still putting out something for his fans. Some of it was pretty bad, a lot of it was pretty great. It needed to be documented and the Author does a great job doing it. I thank him for it.

Rating:
Summary: Zero Perspective
Review: Let's say someone's written a book about Frank Sinatra's last concerts, and you get to read about, oh, his various renditions of "My Way," with copious notes of how the author and his friends got to concerts, what THEY thought of his "New York," last February in Montreal. Very, very boring. Bob Dylan's a deeply enigmatic figure, granted, and his elusiveness is grounds for publishing anything, everything about the man, theoretically. But this honest, well-intentioned book offers absolutely no perspective about the nuances of the concerts, the performers, the crowd, just flat, common fandom. We need a lot more, if we're that curious, and it
isn't here...give it a pass.

Rating:
Summary: A great book for music fans
Review: Mr. Muir writes with such enthusiasm and intrigue that the reader feels as if he/she is at one of the concerts. Dylan is still a very vital entertainer, even in his old age, who still performs world-class rock concerts and releases wonderful albums. One only has to read Mr. Muir's chapter on Prague 1995 to see that this is a book for music fans, as well as Bob Cats.

Rating:
Summary: A limited perspective
Review: The problem with this honest and well-intended book is that it's far, far too close to its subject, the cosmically and intentionally elusive Bob Dylan, to offer any real insights into whatever Dylan's Never-Ending Tour means beyond, well, the fact that he's been touring for about thirteen years straight. Dylan's own interviews, as strange as they are, offer infinitely more insights than this book can. Imagine a book about Frank Sinatra's last tours, with notes on how differently Sinatra performed "My Way" in London than he did in Las Vegas the year before, as contrasted to his astonishing "My Way" on that stellar night in New York, according to the author's best friend, because he wasn't there himself. And what Frank was wearing...the blue tux or the black. You get the idea... This is, in short, a book about a Bob Dylan fan. If you're interested in any genuinely useful, original insights into Bob Dylan, don't buy this book and go see Dylan himself instead. If you haven't, this book is a total waste. If you have, it's just irrelevant.