The Razor's Edge: Bob Dylan and the Neverending Tour

by Andrew Muir

"You hear sometimes about the glamour of the road, but you get over that real fast. There are a lot of times that's no different from going to work in the morning. Still, you're either a player or you're not a player… If you just go out every three years or so, like I was doing for a while, that's when you lose your touch. If you are going to be a performer, you've got to give it your all."-Bob Dylan While most of rock's elder statesmen rarely venture far from home, the ultimate rock icon Bob Dylan has spent practically all of his life since 1986 touring the globe-including a gig at a military academy, a private convert for Japanese businessmen and a special performance for Pope John Paul Why? Respected Dylan expert Andrew Muir documents the ups and downs of this unprecedented trek, and finds time to tell the story of his own curious meeting with Dylan. "'Excuse me Mr. Dylan' I squeak. HE MOVES-and how-the head swivels round in an instant. Dylan is staring me in the face (or at least the rivers of swat where my face should be)and says pointedly and 'Yeah'…" Muir also tries to get to grips with what exactly it all means-both for Dylan and for the dedicated Dylan followers, like himself, who trade tapes of every show and regularly cross the globe to catch up with the latest leg of The Never Ending Tour.

Genres: Music, Nonfiction

256 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2001

Reviews

[Paul Bryant · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is about two things. First, the experience of being a fan. An obsessive fan. An eats, sleeps and breathes Bob Dylan fan. They go to as many shows as possible each year, and they collect as many shows as possible on tape, or cd-r or mp3. With Bob's Never Ending Tour, (which began in 1988) that means over 1500 shows. In one memorable line, Andrew Muir tells us that, having collected "the vast bulk of over 1200 shows" the true fans then "dedicate time to listening to these tapes"! Man, that's a lot of time dedicated, but it seems that Andrew has a job, and a wife too. You see what can be done if you put your mind to it! Anyways, although Andrew will never win prizes for creative writing, and although much of this book is a trawl through the highlights and lowlights of each leg of the tour (sample sentence picked at random: "New Morning was still the opener, and even though Dylan seemed to know more of the words than he did in the summer, it was still dreadful"), it's a must-read for any Dylan fan, of whatever level of obsession. It's funny and alert, and of course warm and loving about Dylan ("that profile! Those curls!") and Dylan's art, which is the art of performance. Dylan constantly derides and undermines his own myth, and actively dislikes those audiences who come along just to tick off another legend. You sometimes have to wonder who Dylan is actually performing for. This book answers that question: it's for Andrew. May the two of them never end.