Bob Dylan.s outreach is too wide, too deep and too long for any book about
him to cover it all. He.ll be 65 years old when this book is published. His
career spans 45 years of American history, and that history has intersected
with his prolific songwriting, recording, touring, acting, filmmaking,
TV appearances and interviews. He has published a novel and a book of drawings,
composed for movie soundtracks and written a best-selling autobiography. He has
found a place in the world of literature and academic study as well as in
popular music. He is important to the history of the times, having given voice
to a generation at a time of huge social change and political struggle; his
songs are enmeshed in the story of the civil rights movement as well as the
folk revival movement. His busy life has embraced everything from Bohemian
excess to being Born Again. His work has revolutionised song, reaching into
every area of popular music from folk to blues to rock to gospel. He has met
and worked with untold hundreds of musicians, politicians, celebrities, singers,
poets, writers, painters, filmmakers, actors and activists. He has released
several dozen albums, written many hundreds of songs, in many cases adapting
them from older folk and blues material, and recorded songs by many other
composers. He has been the subject of an enormous number of books, academic
conference papers, showbiz stories, essays and concert reviews. He has attracted
more fanzine enthusiasm, and inspired more websites, than almost anyone in the
world. In order to resist the forces of infinity pushing this book beyond all
bounds, it was decided to exclude some categories of entrant. There are,
inevitably, exceptions, but in principle the following have been omitted:
background business people like concert promoters, accountants, lawyers,
managers, music publishers, booking agents, film producers and so on;
the majority of photographers, album-cover designers and magazine editors; and
people whose only connection with Dylan is that they have made cover-versions
of his songs. The many different kinds of entry that are in the book include:
Biographies of singers, musicians, songwriters and composers who have
influenced Dylan and/or worked with him; Critical assessments and factual
details (including place and date of recording, date of release and original
catalogue numbers) for all Dylan.s albums and for a large number of individual
songs from all through Dylan.s decades of work; Dylan.s key career and
biographical moments; Biographies of writers, poets and other key cultural
figures who have impacted on Dylan.s work and/or who are mentioned within it,
from William Blake to William Carlos Williams and from Lenny Bruce to Franz
Kafka, in each case delineating the often surprising ways in which they
connect to Dylan.s work; Short biographies of music critics and authors of
books and major websites on Dylan; Critical assessments & facts on Dylan.s
own books and films; Discursive subjects, from Dylan Interpreters to Cowboy
Heroes, and from The Use of Hollywood Dialogue in Dylan's lyrics, to .frying
an egg on stage..

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