The Dylan Companion

by Thomson, Elizabeth; Gutman, David

• ISBN13: 9780306809682
• ISBN10: 0306809680
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2001-04-20
• Publisher: Da Capo Press

Summary

"To this day, wherever great rock music is being made, there is the shadow of Bob Dylan," said Bruce Springsteen at the induction of Dylan into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1988. Or to quote John Rockwell, "Anyone who didn't live through the sixties simply cannot realize how important his albums seemed then; they defined a community." Dylan is a musical, literary, political, and religious icon whose lyrics and mystique have spawned countless articles and books.The Dylan Companionis a generous helping of the best, most pungent, and most insightful commentary on Dylan from all phases of his career right up to the present: personal recollections and professional assessments from the likes of Ken Kesey, Greil Marcus, Joan Baez, Andrew Motion, Lester Bangs, Kurt Loder, Allen Ginsberg, Pauline Kael, Geoff Dyer, Simon Winchester, and Robert Christgauover fifty pieces celebrating the sixty-year-old performer who somehow manages to stay forever young.

Author Biography

Elizabeth Thomson co-edited The Bowie Companion and The Lennon Companion. Thomson is also the editor of Conclusions on the Wall: New Essays on Bob Dylan. Thomson has also contributed to The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians(second edition). She lives in London. David Gutman co-edited The Bowie Companion and The Lennon Companion. Gutman is the author of an illustrated biography, Prokofiev, and is an editorial consultant for Gramophone Magazine. Gutman has also contributed to The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians(second edition). He lives in London.

Table of Contents

Editors' Note	x
Acknowledgements	xi
Copyright Permissions	xii
Introduction	xvi
North Country Blues	1	(56)
Dr Z. Agonistes: an appreciation	3	(1)
Tom Constanten
The folk music of the 1960s: its rise and fall	4	(14)
Daniel J. Gonczy
Bob Dylan	18	(15)
Jim Miller
Is your love in vain - dialectical dilemmas in Bob Dylan's recent love-songs	33	(24)
Michael Roos
Don O'Meara
Tears of Rage	57	(36)
Bob Dylan	59	(3)
Jon Pankake
Paul Nelson
Bob Dylan - a new voice singing new songs	62	(4)
Gil Turner
Bob Dylan in the Madhouse	66	(5)
Philip Saville
Bob Dylan	71	(10)
Susan Rotolo
Baez and Dylan: a generation singing out	81	(7)
Richard Farina
Don't look back	88	(5)
Andrew Sarris
Most Likely You Go Your Way (and I'll Go Mine)	93	(32)
Beat and ballad	95	(3)
Kenneth Allsop
Highway 61 revisited	98	(4)
Ed Vulliamy
The blessing of the damned	102	(15)
Maurice Capel
All these people that you mention...	117	(5)
Fritz Werner Haver
Just like the night	122	(3)
Charles Nicholl
Time Passes Slowly	125	(28)
Pop festival blast-off	127	(2)
Polly Toynbee
A feir feld ful of folk	129	(5)
Christopher Logue
Dylan at Old Nassau (from Rolling Stone)	134	(3)
Dylan's new morning	137	(2)
Robert D. Campbell
Tarantula	139	(4)
Robert Christgau
Summing up the '60s, sizing up the '70s	143	(2)
Ken Kesey
Three poems	145	(3)
Allen Ginsberg
Bob Dylan and Billy the Kid	148	(5)
Neil Sinyard
Winterlude	153	(38)
The metaphor at the end of the funnel	155	(8)
Frank Kermode
Stephen Spender
Cliches and American English	163	(9)
Christopher Ricks
The Prince	172	(11)
Timothy O'Grady
Bob Dylan's stories about men	183	(8)
Paul Hodson
On the Road Again	191	(40)
Blowin' in the Windy City	193	(2)
Simon Winchester
A cut above	195	(3)
W.T. Lhamon Jr
Bob Dylan and friends on the bus - like a Rolling Thunder	198	(7)
Larry Sloman
Adolescence now	205	(5)
Adam Lively
Bob Dylan's dalliance with Mafia chic	210	(12)
Lester Bangs
Bob Dylan's trajectory	222	(2)
A. Manakov
The Calvary gig	224	(7)
Pauline Kael
I Threw It All Away	231	(36)
Born-again Bob: four theories	233	(4)
Ron Rosenbaum
Amazing chutzpah	237	(3)
Greil Marcus
Bob Dylan finds his source	240	(2)
Noel Paul Stookey
Sorry, Bobby	242	(1)
Fran Landsman
God and Man at Columbia	243	(4)
Kurt Loder
God, mode and meaning in some recent songs of Bob Dylan	247	(13)
Wilfrid Mellers
Talking about licence to kill	260	(7)
David Griffiths
Too Much of Nothing	267	(30)
Renaldo and who?	269	(6)
Joan Baez
Bob Dylan beyond Thunderdome	275	(4)
James Wolcott
Figured I'd lost you anyway	279	(3)
Geoff Dyer
The Dead and Dylan	282	(3)
Stanley Mieses
Dylan at Wembley	285	(1)
John Peel
Speech at the Rock-and-Roll Hall of Fame	286	(2)
Bruce Springsteen
The calm after the storm	288	(3)
Richard Williams
Trust yourself	291	(6)
Robert Shelton
Not Dark Yet	297	(20)
Minnesota harmonica man	299	(2)
Lachlan Mackinnon
Aboard the never-ending tour bus	301	(5)
Robert Hilburn
Ruminations on mortality	306	(3)
Joe Jackson
The times may be a-changin' but the songs are still the same	309	(3)
Sebastian Faulks
When the times a-changed	312	(5)
Andrew Motion
Afterword 2000	317	(4)
Selective Bibliography	321	(21)
Discography	342	(13)
Index	355