Bob Dylan FAQ: All That's Left to Know About the Song and Dance Man

by Bruce Pollock

Overview

(FAQ). In October 2016, the Swedish Academy finally conceded to a quarter-century's worth of clamorous petitions and sustained lobbying enacted by a chorus of poets, novelists, songwriters, and academics. At long last, Bob Dylan was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, his vast corpus spread out like Highway 61 behind him. How is a Dylan debutante to make sense of the song and dance man's six decade career? How might a diehard Dylan fanatic stumble upon something they didn't know they didn't know? Why, with award-winning journalist Bruce Pollock's Bob Dylan FAQ , of course! Bob Dylan FAQ , the latest installment in Backbeat's FAQ series, condenses the life and times of America's premier songster into an addictively vivacious 400-page brick jam-packed with critical analysis, minutiae, photographs, ephemera, and period history. Every aspect of Dylan's life and career, from his ever-expanding discography, touring history, fallow periods, literary and visual artistic efforts, peers, influences, and legacy to his devoted fanbase is explored. Best of all, the book's structure invites perusing at any random point, as each chapter serves as a freestanding article on its subject. Dive into Dylanana with Bob Dylan FAQ !

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781617136078
Publisher:	Backbeat
Publication date:	05/01/2017
Series:	FAQ
Pages:	400
Sales rank:	1,125,292
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Bruce Pollock is a Deems Taylor Award-winning music journalist and the author of fourteen books on rock music, seventeen reference books, and three novels. He is the founding editor in chief of the magazine Guitar for the Practicing Musician. He was a columnist of Entertainment Weekly, USA Today, the Gannett-Westchester Newspapers, and Viva magazine, and a record producer at Sony/BMG for twelve years. Currently, he is an adjunct professor of rock history at Fairfield University. He lives in Fairfield, Connecticut.

Table of Contents

Introduction ix

1 He Fought with His Twin: Becoming Bob Dylan 1

2 Woody and Bob: Five Artists That Formed Bob Dylan and One Album That Transformed Him 8

3 Once Upon a Time: Eight Benchmark Songs 17

4 He Was Young When He Left Home: Dylan in Dinkytown 30

5 Hard Times in the City: Bob Dylan's Surrogate Families 36

6 Positively Bleecker and MacDougal Street: Three Denning Greenwich Village Gigs, One Chance Meeting 42

7 The Great American Folk Scare: The Village Scene Goes National 51

8 The Could-Be Dream Lover: Dylan Meets His Muse 66

9 He Knew His Song Well: Bob Dylan's First Album 70

10 One More Chance: The Make-Or-Break Second Album 73

11 Adventures on the Day Shift: Bob Dylan the Staff Songwriter 78

12 No, No, No: Another Side of Bob Dylan 83

13 The Electric Bard: Bringing It All Back Home, Highway 61 Revisited 86

14 We Said We Loved Him: The Reluctant Interview Subject 92

15 Stuck Inside of Nashville: Blonde on Blonde 95

16 One Man with a Guitar: Seven Defining Concerts of the Sixties 99

17 Howling in the Wind: Dylan's Ten Most Played Songs in Concert … and Twenty Forgotten Gems 111

18 Subject to Interpretation: Covering Dylan, Dylan Tributes, In-Concert Covers 120

19 Killing Him with Salvation: The Recovery Albums 133

20 A Poet with a Beat: Dylan on Songwriting 144

21 I Might Have a Few Songs Left: Dylan's Twenty-Five Best Songs Since (at Least) Blonde on Blonde 151

22 A Troubled Mind: Deconstructing Dylan's Major Themes 155

23 What Was Delivered: The Writer's Block Albums 168

24 Put Some Bleachers in the Sun: Back on the Road 178

25 Living Outside the Law: Seven Famous Bootlegs 193

26 The Idiot's Revenge: The Breakup Tapes 198

27 The Holy Trinity: Dylan's Christian Period 209

28 His Career in the Balance: A Troubled Decade 213

29 A Falling Star: A New Recording Low 220

30 I and I: Collaborating with Dylan 226

31 The Back Pages: Unearthing the Outtakes 232

32 Can You Repeat the Past? The Acoustic Sets 236

33 He's Very Well Read: Dylan, the Renaissance Man 242

34 Song and Dance Man: Top Ten TV Performances and Music Videos 259

35 Information Highway 61: Best Websites 277

36 He's Been Around the World: The Never Ending Tour 282

37 Gentlemen, Don't Get Up: Songs of the Endgame 291

38 His Cowboy Bands: Road Bands, Opening Acts, Guest Stars 300

39 A Generation's Stepping Stone: Under the Influence of Dylan 307

Selected Discography 323

Singles and B-Sides 339

Selected Bibliography 343

Index 347