Who Is That Man? In Search of the Real Bob Dylan

by Dalton, David

• ISBN13: 9781401323394
• ISBN10: 1401323391
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2012-04-24
• Publisher: Hachette Books

Summary

A Kaleidoscopic Look at the Many Faces of Bob Dylan For almost half a century, Bob Dylan has been a primary catalyst in rock's shifting sensibilities. Few American artists are as important, beloved, and endlessly examined, yet he remains something of an enigma. Who, we ask, is the "real" Bob Dylan? Is he Bobby Zimmerman, yearning to escape Hibbing, Minnesota, or the Woody Guthrie wannabe playing Greenwich Village haunts? Folk Messiah, Born-Again Bob, Late-Elvis Dylan, Jack Fate, or Living National Treasure? In Who Is That Man?, David Dalton-cultural historian, journalist, screenwriter, and novelist-paints a revealing portrait of the rock icon, ingeniously exposing the three-card monte games he plays with his persona. Guided by Dalton's cutting-edge insights and myth-debunking point of view, Who Is That Man? follows Dylan's imaginative life, integrating actual events with Dylan's words and those of the people who know him most intimately. Drawing upon Dylan's friends and fellow eyewitnesses-including Marianne Faithfull, Allen Ginsberg, Peter Stampfel , Larry "Ratso" Sloman, Eric Andersen, Nat Hentoff, Andrew Oldham, Nat Finkelstein, and others-this book will provide a new perspective on the man, the myth, and the musical era that forged them both. Praise for Who Is That Man? "All of David Dalton's books are wonderful, but Who Is That Man? is especially insightful, funny, and beautifully written." -Marianne Faithfull "Dalton's crazy poetic prose first caught my eye in Rolling Stone back in the day. Have loved his writing ever since. Oh yeaah!" -Steven Tyler The first truly hip analysis of the ultimate hipster. -Lenny Kaye Praise for David Dalton "James Joyce meets the Blues, Voodoo, and Jimi Hendrix. Proust couldn't and didn't write like this." -The Herald (Glasgow) "Dalton writes like a mad, inflamed poet. Searing images." -Oliver Stone

Author Biography

David Dalton is a New York Times bestselling author, founding editor of Rolling Stone, recipient of the Columbia School of Journalism Award, and winner of the Ralph J. Gleason Best Rock Book of the Year award for Faithfull. He has written some twenty-odd books, including biographies of James Dean, Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin, Sid Vicious, the Rolling Stones, and, in 2009, a critically acclaimed biography of Andy Warhol, Pop. Dalton is the coauthor (with Jonathan Cott) of Get Back, the only book ever commissioned by the Beatles. He lives in upstate New York with his family and an assortment of llamas, horses, sheep, and a pig named Tiny (hint, he isn't).

Table of Contents

Prologue: Something Was Happening but I Didn't Know What It Was: That Afternoon with Bob	p. xi
Introduction	p. 1
Creation Myths	p. 7
The Hall of Early Folk Memories	p. 21
Woody Junior	p. 33
Li'l Abner on Bleecker Street	p. 41
Folk Messiah	p. 51
The Zimmerman Letter	p. 61
From a Buick 6	p. 69
The Hallucinated Alphabet	p. 91
Bob Gets Wired	p. 99
How Does It Feel? Self-Portrait at 24 Frames per Second	p. 117
Ballad of a Thin Man	p. 127
Godzilla vs. Mothra: Two Icons of the '60s Meet Under False Pretenses	p. 141
That Wild Mercury Sound: What Are Shakespeare, Memphis Minnie, Jackie Deshannon, John Lennon, Achilles, Napoleon XIV, Lesley Gore, Johann Sebastian Bach Doing on This Album?	p. 151
After the Ambulances Go	p. 161
Somebody Got Lucky but It Was an Accident	p. 173
Fifty-Four Minutes Inside Bob's Brain	p. 183
Who Is Tiny Montogomery?	p. 195
The Cowboy Angel Rides: John Wesley Harding	p. 205
The Invisible Man Goes to Nashville	p. 215
The Amnesia	p. 225
How Dylan Became Dylan, Sort Of...	p. 239
Under the Rings of Saturn	p. 249
The Second Coming of Bob	p. 259
Bob's Wild West (Village) Show	p. 269
Epiphany in Room 702	p. 279
Down the Road	p. 289
When I Paint My Masterpiece	p. 311
The Enigma Variations	p. 323
Bibliography	p. 339
Notes	p. 345
Acknowledgments	p. 369
Index	p. 373
Photo and Illustration Credits	p. 383
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.