Encounters with Bob Dylan

Rating:
Summary: A Look at the Human Side
Review: "Encounters With Bob Dylan" runs the gamut of Dylan's personalities. This is not musical analysis or lyrical analysis, but a look at sometimes momentary encounters by musicians, technicians, and ordinary Dylan fans. Truly reveals charisma of Dylan the human.

Rating:
Summary: A Look at the Human Side
Review: "Encounters With Bob Dylan" runs the gamut of Dylan's personalities. This is not musical analysis or lyrical analysis, but a look at sometimes momentary encounters by musicians, technicians, and ordinary Dylan fans. Truly reveals charisma of Dylan the human.

Rating:
Summary: Interesting if you're a fan
Review: As the greatest - not to mention most important, in every sense of the word - songwriter of the 20th century, Bob Dylan has, unsurprisingly, inspired a legion of devoted fans. Although every major artist has their share of obsessives and fanatics, the ones who follow Dylan have far surpassed mere "groupie" or "hard-core" status: they reside in a legendary status - even mythological. Some of these, branded "Dylanologists", have achieved a level of notoriety compared in a small way with the artist himself. Many fans know of the famous (or infamous) "Garbologist", A. J. Weberman, who even went so far as searching through the dumpsters outside Bob's house for his baby's soiled diapers - allegedly looking for clues to obscure lyrics, and even conjuring up a paranoid fantasy conspiracy that the government was out to get Dylan for raising sentiment against the Vietnam War, and that Dylan knew it, and alluded to it, through subtle messages in his songs. Bob Dylan's history is filled with many other such characters and ancedotes. Perhaps it comes as no surprise, then, that Dylan is a very mysterious character, and known for his ambivalence towards fans. Securing a personal meeting with Dylan is a difficult thing to do, and those fans who do manage it are held in a kind of revered awe by the faithful. This book is a record of such encounters. There are many books available on Dylan (certainly more serious and scholarly works than on any other rock musician), but this is just about the only one where the air of pretentious intellectual refinement is removed, and you hear it straight from the mouth of the ones who really matter: the fans. These are the fans personal reminisces of meeting Dylan, or otherwise coming close in some way. These are the normal, everyday fans - people like you and me (although there are certainly a few obsessives - such as the man who keeps a "Dylan shrine" in his house), although there are a handful of semi-famous names in here as well. The accounts range from revelatory (people being personally invited backstage by Dylan, a record store employee purporting not to know who he is, a man who retrieves Dylan's stolen cap); to hilarous (a fan who meets Dylan in a cafe and asks him a strange question, a meeting between Dylan and a fan in an alley before a concert), to just plain boring and inane. You are hearing these recollections as told straight from the fans - granted, then, the prose is often crude, and some stories are better than others. This, then, is a book you'll want if you're looking for personal, often funny, sometimes touching stories from the fans themselves - rather than pseudo-intellectual exposition from so-called "rock scholars." I would not rate this as an essential Dylan book: rather I reccommend it if you are a fan and want a slightly more personal and unique book about Dylan than you normally find.

Rating:
Summary: A "must" for all Bob Dylan fans.
Review: Bob Dylan is a reclusive, enigmatic musician who, through his compositions and songs has had a wide spread influence on a generation of fans, composers, performers, and singers. Encounters With Bob Dylan: If You See Him, Say Hello is the first biography to examine his life and career from his fans' perspectives. Included are fifty first-person accounts of fans who have personal met this elusive entertainer. The stories are presented chronologically, beginning in 1956 with Margaret Stark's account of her high school date with bobby Zimmerman and their subsequent meeting at Bob's 10-year Hibbing High School reunion. Due to the constantly changing circumstances of these fifty encounters, each story is unique in character and impact. Compiled and edited by long-time Dylan devotee Tracy Johnson, Enhanced with 24 photographs (many of them previously unpublished), Encounters With Bob Dylan is "must" reading for all Dylan fans and serves as an example of "fan history" that would work admirably for other influential public figures.

Rating:
Summary: A Bobcat's Delight
Review: Each story in this book is such a treat and a treasure, I had to ration them and limit myself to reading a few a day, to make the pleasure last as long as possible. Some of the stories brought tears (because they were so touching), and some brought chuckles, and all were inspirational and uplifting because they let the rest of us less priveledged obsessed fans know that it IS actually possible to meet Bob. What I especially appreciated about the book was the fact that it wasn't heavily edited and rewritten, like Reader's Digest, for instance, and that we are able to experience the unique writing styles and 'tone-of-voice' of each writer. I have many books about Dylan, but this one will be my most treasured; it is a gem of a book. All of those ponderous volumes of analyses and suppositions can't compare to reading about people's actual encounters with The Man, in thier own words. Except maybe for Daniel Kramer's worshipful account of the time he spent with him... BUY this book, so the author will be encouraged to bless us with more stories like these!

Rating:
Summary: Like reading fan mail?
Review: I expected intamite encounters from people who are, or were close to Bob Dylan. In fact most of the stories were from finatic fans or groupies who had either only met him once or, in some cases, never. There were a few interesting stories, but not enough to make this book worth reading.

Rating:
Summary: Like reading fan mail?
Review: I expected intamite encounters from people who are, or were close to Bob Dylan. In fact most of the stories were from finatic fans or groupies who had either only met him once or, in some cases, never. There were a few interesting stories, but not enough to make this book worth reading.

Rating:
Summary: Discovered on Amazon.com!!!
Review: I pride myself in keeping up with new information about Bob Dylan. But this was brand new to me. I ordered it right away. I love it. It is a Dylan book I will always go back and read from time to time. Hopefully someday I'll have an encounter with Bob - without at least 5,000 other people around! Thanks.

Rating:
Summary: Discovered on Amazon.com!!!
Review: I pride myself in keeping up with new information about Bob Dylan. But this was brand new to me. I ordered it right away. I love it. It is a Dylan book I will always go back and read from time to time. Hopefully someday I'll have an encounter with Bob - without at least 5,000 other people around! Thanks.

Rating:
Summary: Song and Dance Man
Review: Let's face it: Bob can be a jerk to his fans. But then again, it's got to be hell being accosted by obsessive fans everywhere you go. If you've read some of the Dylan biographies out there you have an idea of Dylan's life and work. This book gives you a glimpse into what it's like to be a Dylan fan. Some of the accounts are more engaging than others and some don't even involve meeting Dylan at all. I wish they'd left those out... Anyway, this is interesting but very brief. You can read the whole thing in a day and I think there are just as many stories out there (for free) on the internet at the many Dylan sites.