Bob Dylan just turned 80 years old on May 24, 2021. He also sold the rights to his music for $300 million. Universal Music purchased Dylan’s entire songwriting catalog of more than 600 songs in what may be the biggest acquisition ever of a single act’s publishing rights. With all this going on it seemed like the right time to read a couple of Dylan biographies.
Clinton Heylin’s Behind the Shades Revisited was published in 2001 and takes Dylan up to the dawning of the new Century. Dozens of interviews with Dylan’s friends and enemies are woven into Heylin’s chronological narrative. Heylin quotes Dylan quite a bit, too, in this 700+ page biography.
Several aspects of Bob Dylan stand out in Heylin’s books. First, Dylan can’t read or write music. He never learned during his 60 year career. Dylan doesn’t like the recording process. He doesn’t come in prepared or with a plan. Everything is improvised. And, as you might expect, many of the band members who worked on the recording sessions with Dylan, hated this “fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants” style. Some refused to play a Dylan session again after going through the painful process once. And, for most of Dylan’s recording career, he never had a real producer. Those “producers” who tried to guide Dylan in the studio were mostly ignored.
Clinton Heylin’s new book, The Double Life of Bob Dylan (2021), presents newly released archive material about Dylan’s life from 1941 to 1966. Clearly, Heylin is in the process of writing more volumes based on this new information. Heylin spends a lot of time (and words) on Dylan’s relationships with women. In my opinion, Dylan treated many of these women cruelly. Dylan led Joan Baez on while pursuing Sara Lownds (who he eventually married). “As one journalist delving into Dylan’s prime life wrote in 1990, ‘There are a lot of different women he sees, from all different walks of life. But they all tend to have one thing in common. They’re invariably very weird or very intense.'” (p. 709)
Dylan also believed whatever happened on his musical tours didn’t matter to his marriage. So, of course, he had sex with dozens of women during his many tours. Heylin covers all of Dylan’s tours, but has supreme contempt for the DYLAN AND THE DEAD tours. Heylin is not a fan of The Grateful Dead and describes the music generated from these events as terrible. After listening to the concert CD of Dylan and The Dead I have to agree.
From the Sixties on, Dylan abused drugs and alcohol. That might explain the decline of his musical talents and the mediocre songs he wrote in the 1980s and 1990s. Winning a Nobel Prize has more to do with Dylan’s early work than his later work. If you want to know about Dylan’s life, these two fat volumes supply all the facts you’re looking for. Are you a Bob Dylan fan? Do you have a favorite Dylan song? GRADE: A (for both books)
Thumbs up for early Dylan. An unenthusiastic meh for later Dylan.
Jerry, I stopped buying Dylan albums at the start of 1980s. I wasn’t too excited about the later Dylan albums in the 1970s, either.
As the old saying goes, never meet your idols (or secret husbands). Everything that needs to be said has been said. I love Bob Dylan, but I can’t imagine he has ever been an easy person to be with or work with. We saw him about ten years ago on a triple bill with Willie Nelson and John Mellancamp. His voice was shot and he had absolutely no interaction with the audience whatsoever. It was a disappointment, to say the least.
Deb, Dylan continues to tour. Right now, he’s in Europe. A COMPLETE UNKNOWN may fire up more interest in Dylan.
“Subterranean Homesick Blues” and “Maggie’s Farm” are among my more-favored Dylan songs (hence my favorite album of his). Fairport Convention’s translation of his song into French (and slightly mocking it otherwise), “Si Tu Dois Partir”, was a good move artistically and commercially (it was their biggest single). His giving Alan Price a hard time in a scene in DON’T LOOK BACK tended to reinforce my early image of him as a jerk…and his latter ’70s/’80s recordings didn’t help.
Yeah, I’m with Todd on BRINGING IT ALL BACK HOME. “Masters of War” is another I think of frequently. I read what he said about writing “Blowing in the Wind” and agree it’s timeless.
Yeah, his personal life and behavior was often ugly. It reminds me of Wade Boggs, who supposedly didn’t want to retire from baseball because he didn’t want to give up his “strange” on road trips.
I liked Bob’s own book but have no need to read these.
No football picks again this week? I don’t think anyone expects the Chiefs to lose today. The big one is Bills-Ravens tomorrow.
Jeff, today’s games seem predictable. The Big Game tomorrow is the Ravens vs. Bills. Go Bills!
Todd, I’d be very interested in your reaction to A COMPLETE UNKNOWN.
I was really fascinated by the early songs of Bob. And the same happened to my friends in the left/humanist cicles at university.
But after the 60s there came a larger and bigger distance …
And I turned to Blues/Rock …
Wolf, Dylan tried a variety of genres–Country, Gospel, Blues, etc.–and his voice declined in the Seventies, too.
If I were him, I’m not sure I would have done anything differently! Except date Joan Baez! I have some pride!
I’m being facetious, by the way!
Bob, Dylan dated a lot of women!