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Bob Dylan in America
One of America’s finest historians shows us how Bob Dylan, one of the country’s greatest and most enduring artists, still surprises and moves us after all these years.
Growing up in Greenwich Village, Sean Wilentz discovered the music of Bob Dylan as a young teenager; almost half a century later, he revisits Dylan’s work with the skills of an eminent American historian as well as the passion of a fan. Drawn in part from Wilentz’s essays as “historian in residence” of Dylan’s official website, Bob Dylan in America is a unique blend of fact, interpretation, and affinity—a book that, much like its subject, shifts gears and changes shape as the occasion warrants.
Beginning with his explosion onto the scene in 1961, this book follows Dylan as he continues to develop a body of musical and literary work unique in our cultural history. Wilentz’s approach places Dylan’s music in the context of its time, including the early influences of Popular Front ideology and Beat aesthetics, and offers a larger critical appreciation of Dylan as both a songwriter and performer down to the present. Wilentz has had unprecedented access to studio tapes, recording notes, rare photographs, and other materials, all of which allow him to tell Dylan’s story and that of such masterpieces as Blonde on Blonde with an unprecedented authenticity and richness.
Bob Dylan in America —groundbreaking, comprehensive, totally absorbing—is the result of an author and a subject brilliantly met.
Growing up in Greenwich Village, Sean Wilentz discovered the music of Bob Dylan as a young teenager; almost half a century later, he revisits Dylan’s work with the skills of an eminent American historian as well as the passion of a fan. Drawn in part from Wilentz’s essays as “historian in residence” of Dylan’s official website, Bob Dylan in America is a unique blend of fact, interpretation, and affinity—a book that, much like its subject, shifts gears and changes shape as the occasion warrants.
Beginning with his explosion onto the scene in 1961, this book follows Dylan as he continues to develop a body of musical and literary work unique in our cultural history. Wilentz’s approach places Dylan’s music in the context of its time, including the early influences of Popular Front ideology and Beat aesthetics, and offers a larger critical appreciation of Dylan as both a songwriter and performer down to the present. Wilentz has had unprecedented access to studio tapes, recording notes, rare photographs, and other materials, all of which allow him to tell Dylan’s story and that of such masterpieces as Blonde on Blonde with an unprecedented authenticity and richness.
Bob Dylan in America —groundbreaking, comprehensive, totally absorbing—is the result of an author and a subject brilliantly met.
400 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2010
196 people are currently reading
1652 people want to read
About the author
Sean Wilentz
72 books83 followersSean Wilentz is the George Henry Davis 1886 Professor of American History at Princeton University. His many books include The Politicians and the Egalitarians: The Hidden History of American Politics (2016); Bob Dylan in America (2010); and The Age of Reagan: A History, 1974–2008 (2008). The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln (2005) was awarded the Bancroft Prize, and he has received two Grammy nominations for his writings on music.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 195 reviews
June 5, 2014
11 Oct 2010
The latest book on the legendary singer brings it all back home... literally.
A quick online search for books about Bob Dylan claims that an astonishing 1532 works are currently available, and that’s most likely the tip of the iceberg. So why this one? What does Sean Wilentz’s offering tell us – about anything? Is Dylan even still relevant?
A man in the carriage of the Glasgow-bound commuter train the other morning certainly thought so and was intrigued by the latest Dylan biography in my hands. “You’ve got taste,” he informed me, when he saw that I was reading Wilentz’s Bob Dylan in America, an act of scholarly and reverential devotion, and another attempt to interpret and understand the enigma of Dylan and his songs.
When he discovered this book was the newest offering in the ever-growing mountain of books about the ever-changing and arguably greatest poet-troubadour-cult-hero-narrator-visionary-songwriter of the past 40 years, he grew quite excited and snatched it from my hands.
The title of this book perplexed me at first, because, as an American, Dylan is usually in America – at least when he’s not touring the world. But it becomes clear from the outset that Wilentz has placed Dylan in the centuries-long flowing river of American music, literature, religion and politics – and it is precisely this that sets his work apart from the rest of the fodder out there.
The book is also crammed with Dylan minutiae, and will be a delight to Dylanologists, fans and obsessives alike. Who knew, for example, that Rainy Day Women #12 & 35 was once called A Long-Haired Mule and a Porcupine Here?
The excellent centrepiece of the book is a vivid look at the Blonde On Blonde sessions, during which the musicians agonised and groped their way toward the album’s “thin, wild mercury sound”, to use Dylan’s own description. Extremely odd, at least in my view, is Wilentz’s celebration of last year’s Dylan album of Christmas-song covers, which he describes as “a red-ribboned gift to the world”. Yet, even with this, Dylan has maintained his power to divide and conquer.
Although the bulk of the information will not come as news to true fans, Wilenz delves into the lesser-known wellsprings of Dylan’s art with devotional marvel. These influences include a few surprises – composer Aaron Copland, German playwright Bertol Brecht, the film Les Enfants du Paradis and bluesman Blind Willie McTell, who is also the subject of one of Dylan’s best songs of his post-1970s period.
Wilentz also reiterates Dylan’s IOU to Woody Guthrie and the Beat generation, particularly Allen Ginsberg, the most celebrated and influential of all the movement’s poets. “What do those tangled influences tell us about America?” he asks. “What do they tell us about Bob Dylan? What does America tell us about Bob Dylan?”
Wilentz, a professor of history at Princeton, has an edge. He is also the official historian on Dylan’s website, and his father and uncle were the co-owners of a bookshop in heart of Greenwich Village at the height of the Beat era and the early-1960s folk music revival.
His father’s apartment, Wilentz notes, was also the scene of an epic discussion about poetry between Dylan and Ginsberg, and where Ginsberg also “came on sexually” to Dylan, who was reportedly unfazed by the approach.
Insightfully, the author quotes Ginsberg’s concern that he “might become his slave or something, like his mascot”, which tells us something of Dylan’s power in those days – as an artist and as a cultural hero.
Wilentz also hazards his best guess as to the meaning of some of Dylan’s songs. My own view is that any attempt to figure out exactly what Dylan is on about is futile – but that should not stop us. Dylan, who has shifted personas and reinvented himself over the decades, has remained fascinating and, dare I say it, relevant. Dylan himself has described his songs as dreams and is often deliberately obfuscating, apparently irritated by the confines labels imposed upon him.
Wilentz writes: “Bob Dylan, né Zimmerman, brilliantly cultivated his celebrity, but he was really an artist and entertainer (and) … someone who threw words together, astounding as they were. The burden of being something else — a guru, a political theorist, ‘the voice of a generation,’ as he facetiously put it in an interview a few years ago — was too much to ask of anyone. We in the audience were asking him to be all of that and more, but Dylan was slipping the yoke.”
Once, when asked about the meaning of the line, “But people don’t live or die, people just float” from the song, Man In The Long Black Coat, Dylan annoyingly responded that he needed a line that rhymed with “coat”.
The more Dylan obfuscates, the more fascinating he and his work become. But while the search for meaning inevitably may be fruitless, Wilenz turns up some tantalising clues. One of the most interesting is his take on Dylan’s wonderful and carnival-like Desolation Row, beginning with the opening line: “They’re selling postcards of the hanging”. Wilentz tells us about a notorious lynching that occurred in Duluth, Dylan’s hometown, in 1920, when his father was a boy and when postcards of two hanged black men were sold as souvenirs. Where else could that image have come from?
As to the song’s meaning, a long-debated, unresolved matter, he writes: “In all of its strangeness, the song mocks orthodoxies and confining loyalties of every kind – loyalties to religion, sex, science, romance, politics, medicine, money – which the singer has rejected.” He also writes: “Who knows?”
Every Dylan fan will have his or her own idea, and that is precisely what draws us to Dylan in the first place and to books just like this. Long may they continue on their trip on that magic swirling ship.
The latest book on the legendary singer brings it all back home... literally.
A quick online search for books about Bob Dylan claims that an astonishing 1532 works are currently available, and that’s most likely the tip of the iceberg. So why this one? What does Sean Wilentz’s offering tell us – about anything? Is Dylan even still relevant?
A man in the carriage of the Glasgow-bound commuter train the other morning certainly thought so and was intrigued by the latest Dylan biography in my hands. “You’ve got taste,” he informed me, when he saw that I was reading Wilentz’s Bob Dylan in America, an act of scholarly and reverential devotion, and another attempt to interpret and understand the enigma of Dylan and his songs.
When he discovered this book was the newest offering in the ever-growing mountain of books about the ever-changing and arguably greatest poet-troubadour-cult-hero-narrator-visionary-songwriter of the past 40 years, he grew quite excited and snatched it from my hands.
The title of this book perplexed me at first, because, as an American, Dylan is usually in America – at least when he’s not touring the world. But it becomes clear from the outset that Wilentz has placed Dylan in the centuries-long flowing river of American music, literature, religion and politics – and it is precisely this that sets his work apart from the rest of the fodder out there.
The book is also crammed with Dylan minutiae, and will be a delight to Dylanologists, fans and obsessives alike. Who knew, for example, that Rainy Day Women #12 & 35 was once called A Long-Haired Mule and a Porcupine Here?
The excellent centrepiece of the book is a vivid look at the Blonde On Blonde sessions, during which the musicians agonised and groped their way toward the album’s “thin, wild mercury sound”, to use Dylan’s own description. Extremely odd, at least in my view, is Wilentz’s celebration of last year’s Dylan album of Christmas-song covers, which he describes as “a red-ribboned gift to the world”. Yet, even with this, Dylan has maintained his power to divide and conquer.
Although the bulk of the information will not come as news to true fans, Wilenz delves into the lesser-known wellsprings of Dylan’s art with devotional marvel. These influences include a few surprises – composer Aaron Copland, German playwright Bertol Brecht, the film Les Enfants du Paradis and bluesman Blind Willie McTell, who is also the subject of one of Dylan’s best songs of his post-1970s period.
Wilentz also reiterates Dylan’s IOU to Woody Guthrie and the Beat generation, particularly Allen Ginsberg, the most celebrated and influential of all the movement’s poets. “What do those tangled influences tell us about America?” he asks. “What do they tell us about Bob Dylan? What does America tell us about Bob Dylan?”
Wilentz, a professor of history at Princeton, has an edge. He is also the official historian on Dylan’s website, and his father and uncle were the co-owners of a bookshop in heart of Greenwich Village at the height of the Beat era and the early-1960s folk music revival.
His father’s apartment, Wilentz notes, was also the scene of an epic discussion about poetry between Dylan and Ginsberg, and where Ginsberg also “came on sexually” to Dylan, who was reportedly unfazed by the approach.
Insightfully, the author quotes Ginsberg’s concern that he “might become his slave or something, like his mascot”, which tells us something of Dylan’s power in those days – as an artist and as a cultural hero.
Wilentz also hazards his best guess as to the meaning of some of Dylan’s songs. My own view is that any attempt to figure out exactly what Dylan is on about is futile – but that should not stop us. Dylan, who has shifted personas and reinvented himself over the decades, has remained fascinating and, dare I say it, relevant. Dylan himself has described his songs as dreams and is often deliberately obfuscating, apparently irritated by the confines labels imposed upon him.
Wilentz writes: “Bob Dylan, né Zimmerman, brilliantly cultivated his celebrity, but he was really an artist and entertainer (and) … someone who threw words together, astounding as they were. The burden of being something else — a guru, a political theorist, ‘the voice of a generation,’ as he facetiously put it in an interview a few years ago — was too much to ask of anyone. We in the audience were asking him to be all of that and more, but Dylan was slipping the yoke.”
Once, when asked about the meaning of the line, “But people don’t live or die, people just float” from the song, Man In The Long Black Coat, Dylan annoyingly responded that he needed a line that rhymed with “coat”.
The more Dylan obfuscates, the more fascinating he and his work become. But while the search for meaning inevitably may be fruitless, Wilenz turns up some tantalising clues. One of the most interesting is his take on Dylan’s wonderful and carnival-like Desolation Row, beginning with the opening line: “They’re selling postcards of the hanging”. Wilentz tells us about a notorious lynching that occurred in Duluth, Dylan’s hometown, in 1920, when his father was a boy and when postcards of two hanged black men were sold as souvenirs. Where else could that image have come from?
As to the song’s meaning, a long-debated, unresolved matter, he writes: “In all of its strangeness, the song mocks orthodoxies and confining loyalties of every kind – loyalties to religion, sex, science, romance, politics, medicine, money – which the singer has rejected.” He also writes: “Who knows?”
Every Dylan fan will have his or her own idea, and that is precisely what draws us to Dylan in the first place and to books just like this. Long may they continue on their trip on that magic swirling ship.
September 24, 2010
Sean Wilentz's "Bob Dylan in America" follows Greil Marcus's "The Old, Weird America" as an attempt to place Dylan in the cultural history of the United States, and it's a much more coherent read.
What Wilentz does is compare Dylan's artistic development with the artistic and political milieu that he would have brushed against as a boy, how that milieu moved him in a particular direction as a young artist, and how those connections formed a web as he matured and moved through life. For instance, the author surmises what knowledge Dylan could have had of American composer Aaron Copland, how that knowledge of Copland's method of appropriating cowboy songs into his compositions may have provided the license for Dylan's continuing appropriations, and how Dylan acknowledges and pays the debt by using snippets (samples) of Copland to introduce his own shows. Mr. Wilentz makes a compelling case. Or take for example Dylan's obvious relationship and affection for the Beat Generation, especially through Allen Ginsberg, and how Beat literature, and social mores have affected Dylan the writer. In the main, Mr. Wilentz is right on the money.
Mr. Wilentz also examines the politics of the near 70 years Dylan has been in the world, but spends less time there than with Dylan's artistic influences and evolution.
The big plusses of this book are Mr. Wilentz's familiarity with his source material, his refusal to over analyze Dylan's lyrics (a failing of most other Dylan chroniclers,) and his "you are there" information regarding Dylan's creative process in the studio. Interesting is Mr. Wilentz's defense of the plagiarism charges leveled against Dylan, and how Dylan's appropriations can be viewed as part of the "folk process," indeed of literary method through the ages, and of how Dylan's appropriations don't meet the legal standard of plagiarism. The defense leads us into deep water, but Mr. Wilentz is a good pilot.
The only thing that slowed the book down for me was my disinterest in the author's presentations of the minutia of history - cultural or artistic.
I learned a few things. Unusual at this point as my Dylan shelf is buckling under its own weight.
What Wilentz does is compare Dylan's artistic development with the artistic and political milieu that he would have brushed against as a boy, how that milieu moved him in a particular direction as a young artist, and how those connections formed a web as he matured and moved through life. For instance, the author surmises what knowledge Dylan could have had of American composer Aaron Copland, how that knowledge of Copland's method of appropriating cowboy songs into his compositions may have provided the license for Dylan's continuing appropriations, and how Dylan acknowledges and pays the debt by using snippets (samples) of Copland to introduce his own shows. Mr. Wilentz makes a compelling case. Or take for example Dylan's obvious relationship and affection for the Beat Generation, especially through Allen Ginsberg, and how Beat literature, and social mores have affected Dylan the writer. In the main, Mr. Wilentz is right on the money.
Mr. Wilentz also examines the politics of the near 70 years Dylan has been in the world, but spends less time there than with Dylan's artistic influences and evolution.
The big plusses of this book are Mr. Wilentz's familiarity with his source material, his refusal to over analyze Dylan's lyrics (a failing of most other Dylan chroniclers,) and his "you are there" information regarding Dylan's creative process in the studio. Interesting is Mr. Wilentz's defense of the plagiarism charges leveled against Dylan, and how Dylan's appropriations can be viewed as part of the "folk process," indeed of literary method through the ages, and of how Dylan's appropriations don't meet the legal standard of plagiarism. The defense leads us into deep water, but Mr. Wilentz is a good pilot.
The only thing that slowed the book down for me was my disinterest in the author's presentations of the minutia of history - cultural or artistic.
I learned a few things. Unusual at this point as my Dylan shelf is buckling under its own weight.
November 22, 2016
I'm not the type of fan who needs to read about every teenage girlfriend, high school band, or father-son fight of the musicians I respect, and so I definitely appreciate Wilentz's approach to Dylan: a series of loosely-connected essays on different moments in his career thus far. For the same reason, I am grateful that the author writes in the voice of a historian and critic rather than that of a tabloid reporter or biographer.
That said, the essays aren't all of the same caliber. While the essays on the Philharmonic Hall concert of '64, the Rolling Thunder Review, the making of "Blonde on Blonde," and Dylan's affinity for Blind Willie McTell are excellent, I can't say I really cared for the essays on "Delia," the Sacred Harp, Aaron Copland, Allen Ginsberg, or "Masked and Anonymous."
This is a great book to keep on the end-table and read over the course of a few months or so. You don't have to remember what came before to follow the next chapter, and you don't really have to keep reading an essay you find dull or esoteric.
That said, the essays aren't all of the same caliber. While the essays on the Philharmonic Hall concert of '64, the Rolling Thunder Review, the making of "Blonde on Blonde," and Dylan's affinity for Blind Willie McTell are excellent, I can't say I really cared for the essays on "Delia," the Sacred Harp, Aaron Copland, Allen Ginsberg, or "Masked and Anonymous."
This is a great book to keep on the end-table and read over the course of a few months or so. You don't have to remember what came before to follow the next chapter, and you don't really have to keep reading an essay you find dull or esoteric.
June 3, 2011
It's about time a professional historian addressed dylan's greatest talent...weaving and hurling vast gobs of americana into folk/pop/country/rock/blues music for the last 50 years.
wilentz expertly dissects greil marcus's 'weird old america' in a way that rock journalists cannot even approach. dylan fans will enjoy. music fans might cry uncle. the 'dylan is a great songwriter but can't sing' crowd should stay away.
homeschoolers in the 'self learn' movement will delight upon reading about dylan's self-imposed exile in the nyc public library near the village in 1961, where he indulged in obscure primary documents from civil war and beyond... lacking a formal university education, dylan cultivates a feel for america that ain't taught in schools today.
don't follow leaders, watch the parking meters....
wilentz expertly dissects greil marcus's 'weird old america' in a way that rock journalists cannot even approach. dylan fans will enjoy. music fans might cry uncle. the 'dylan is a great songwriter but can't sing' crowd should stay away.
homeschoolers in the 'self learn' movement will delight upon reading about dylan's self-imposed exile in the nyc public library near the village in 1961, where he indulged in obscure primary documents from civil war and beyond... lacking a formal university education, dylan cultivates a feel for america that ain't taught in schools today.
don't follow leaders, watch the parking meters....
August 26, 2016
On the one hand, Sean Wilentz has written a good book about Bob Dylan, which is not easy to do. It's a completely serviceable book; scholars and critics writing about Dylan will be able to use it, which gets it into the orbit of perhaps only five to ten other Dylan books of which I'm aware. A critical biography, Wilentz trains his analysis on five moments in Dylan's working life: the Blonde on Blonde sessions; the 1975 Rolling Thunder tour; the period of Christian apotheosis culminating in recording, for the Infidels record (though unreleased until ten years later), "Blind Willie McTell"; the "true" (as opposed to marketing/enthusiasm-inspired) comeback that begins with Good As I Been to You and World Gone Wrong (and which are referred to by Wilentz as the Malibu sessions 1993-1995), and culminates in Dylan's writing material for his subsequent three records while snowed in at his Minnesota farm in Winter 1996; and subsequent projects, including his books and most recent records.
Critically, that's a coherent analysis of what's worth focusing on in Dylan's work in this forty-year period: I even sympathize with Wilentz's decision to bring the story up-to-date by looking at the Christmas record of 2009 (despite that neither it nor the Together Through Life record meets the standard of the previous period). Wilentz has steered a course, in other words, around two significant texts in Dylan secondary work, David Hajdu's in some ways excellent group portrait (the Baez-Farina-Dylan triangle) of Dylan's early work, and Greil Marcus's various intepretations of the Woodstock period of The Basement Tapes. And while in other contexts Marcus and Wilentz have been collaborators, in general it may be said that Wilentz, a historian sporting two impressive accounts of New York and America's pre-Civil War period, steers clear of Marcus's mytho-symbolic readings of the compacts pop artists make with their audiences. Rather, Wilentz enjoys doing musicological legwork, and framing achievements he loves in both immediate and culturally astute ways. The Blonde on Blonde chapter made me admire all over again that startling disc; while it may not prove to be the last word in genetic scholarship, it whistles the game into existence, and establishes one claim I have been mulling over myself for sometime, namely that the sound Dylan wants now (on a blues like "Lonesome Day Blues," e.g.) is essentially what he got initially on that record.
.Now, were it true, what would such a claim imply? Wilentz loves lyrics, and is a wily researcher, but I'm not persuaded by his writing on this aspect of Dylan's work; the chapter on Ginsberg, e.g., is fascinating for Wilentz's personal connection to the story (Wilentz's dad is Elias Wilentz; his aunt and uncle Joan and Ted Wilentz -- owners of the Eighth Street bookshop in the Village, above which Ginsberg lived in an apartment -- to say nothing of the countless poets, John Wieners on down, who worked for the Wilentzs), but has little to argue other than that the older poet guided Dylan through Blake (too bad for Dylan) and that the two served each other in various shrewd ways. For me the best chapter here is on the Rolling Thunder Review, which Wilentz sees much more in than I ever have. He's also terrific on "Delia," a song recorded for the Malibu sessions and which Dylan had from countless versions, yet made over movingly. Dylan's craftsmanship is never more evident than on a track like this, and in doing the work on a song like that he no doubt was inspired into the updraft of the late Nineties work. In writing a critical biography, Wilentz seems only to flirt with what he would want to say about Dylan's achievement. Reading Wilentz, we may be learning a lot, and we may be bored, and then again some remark may take us back to Shot of Love ("badly underrated," is the historian's judgment) -- alas, I long ago traded it. The book is intelligent all the way through, while tinged with the fan's enthusiasm that seems to undermine an analysis that actually capitalizes on its own sound judgments -- about, e.g., on which songs to focus. At the end it's hard to feel we've gotten anywhere. It seems to be a good and serviceable book, perhaps not a creative one.
October 5, 2010
Wilentz, a prize-winning American historian and a Bob Dylan fan succeeds, after a skippable introduction, in producing an engaging and highly informative account of Dylan’s place in American music and how American cultural forces have influenced and continue to influence Dylan. He commences with Aaron Copland and the politics of the radical left in the 1930s: Steinbeck, Blitzstein, the WPA, Allan Lomax and proceeds to the more direct influences of Woody Guthrie and the Weavers and Allen Ginsberg and the Beats. He may not give adequate attention to Elvis Presley, a teenage inspiration, but he does explore provocatively the music that Dylan assimilated and reworked with a musicologist’s deep understanding and an artist’s creativity—country and delta blues, folk and spiritual, vaudeville and piano roll music, carnival and minstrel songs, gospel and early R&B, and the pop vocalists and songwriters of the 20s, 30s, 40s, and 50s—Americana of all stripes, with side influences from Brecht and Weill, Rimbaud, Verlaine and Yeats.
Dylan was and is an intellectual sponge and something of an alchemist in the way he could absorb so much so quickly at the start of his career and despite a long, mostly fallow period in the 80s (yet that included such masterful songs as “Every Grain of Sand,” “Dark Eyes,” and the amazingly stark, yet historically and emotionally rich “Blind Willie McTell”) continue to create works that even with their evident roots, their telegraphed borrowings, and occasional outright theft manage to be somehow both original and timeless. In the early 90s he suffered through a kind of writer’s block (this from the guy who, from “Bob Dylan” to “Blonde on Blonde” produced seven albums in four years when he was in his young twenties) that wasn’t relieved until he produced two austere cover albums of early twentieth-century American music, “Good as I Been to You” and “World Gone Wrong.” Going back to the well led to Dylan’s finest string of work since the start of his career: “Time Out of Mind” (1997), “Love and Theft” (2001), “Modern Times” (2006), and “Together Through Life” (2009).
Wilentz writes thematic chapters, roughly chronological in terms of Dylan’s career but not in terms of the musical influences they address, exploring the sources of Dylan’s music—in addition to the chapters on Copland and the Beats, there are chapters about the recording of “Blonde on Blonde,” the Rolling Thunder Revue, the bluesman Blind Willie McTell, and a chapter each on “Delia,” a song inspired by a turn of the century murder in South Carolina and “Lone Pilgrim, a 19th century hymn, two songs he covered on “World Gone Wrong,” and three chapters lumped under the heading of “Recent,” covering his comeback albums, the first volume of his memoirs, Radio Bob, and the various “Bootleg” releases.
It’s not a biography or a comprehensive analysis of Dylan’s career, more a survey of what makes Dylan Dylan and why he is such a quintessential American artist. A fan, Wilentz doesn’t apologize for Dylan’s many mis-steps or shy away from the occasional charge of plagiarism, particularly in the later work. He is not pedantic and only here and there succumbs to the disease of handicapping his prose with paraphrases and near quotes from Dylan’s work. If you have enjoyed any part of Dylan’s career or simply appreciate his contribution to American music, Bob Dylan in America, is a rewarding companion, best enjoyed with CDs to hand.
Dylan was and is an intellectual sponge and something of an alchemist in the way he could absorb so much so quickly at the start of his career and despite a long, mostly fallow period in the 80s (yet that included such masterful songs as “Every Grain of Sand,” “Dark Eyes,” and the amazingly stark, yet historically and emotionally rich “Blind Willie McTell”) continue to create works that even with their evident roots, their telegraphed borrowings, and occasional outright theft manage to be somehow both original and timeless. In the early 90s he suffered through a kind of writer’s block (this from the guy who, from “Bob Dylan” to “Blonde on Blonde” produced seven albums in four years when he was in his young twenties) that wasn’t relieved until he produced two austere cover albums of early twentieth-century American music, “Good as I Been to You” and “World Gone Wrong.” Going back to the well led to Dylan’s finest string of work since the start of his career: “Time Out of Mind” (1997), “Love and Theft” (2001), “Modern Times” (2006), and “Together Through Life” (2009).
Wilentz writes thematic chapters, roughly chronological in terms of Dylan’s career but not in terms of the musical influences they address, exploring the sources of Dylan’s music—in addition to the chapters on Copland and the Beats, there are chapters about the recording of “Blonde on Blonde,” the Rolling Thunder Revue, the bluesman Blind Willie McTell, and a chapter each on “Delia,” a song inspired by a turn of the century murder in South Carolina and “Lone Pilgrim, a 19th century hymn, two songs he covered on “World Gone Wrong,” and three chapters lumped under the heading of “Recent,” covering his comeback albums, the first volume of his memoirs, Radio Bob, and the various “Bootleg” releases.
It’s not a biography or a comprehensive analysis of Dylan’s career, more a survey of what makes Dylan Dylan and why he is such a quintessential American artist. A fan, Wilentz doesn’t apologize for Dylan’s many mis-steps or shy away from the occasional charge of plagiarism, particularly in the later work. He is not pedantic and only here and there succumbs to the disease of handicapping his prose with paraphrases and near quotes from Dylan’s work. If you have enjoyed any part of Dylan’s career or simply appreciate his contribution to American music, Bob Dylan in America, is a rewarding companion, best enjoyed with CDs to hand.
October 1, 2010
WAIT! Before all you anti-Dylan people (the "he can't sing, he just mumbles" crowd, which might be a little more than half the world population) see the title and proceed to ignore anything I have to say here: Read this book anyway! If you have ANY interest in music (beyond FM radio and Lady Gaga downloads) and its connections to poetry, politics, theatre, film, and culture generally, Bob Dylan in America presents a fascinating, readable, far-ranging history not just of Dylan's work and his place in American culture but also of cross-influences and traditions from Romantic poetry through blues and folk to the classical/popular hybrids of Aaron Copland and the Beats.
Dylan fanatics should enjoy this book, since it tells (or retells) much of Bob's biography -- without over-indulging in the nerdy encyclopedic compiling of heroic trivia or minute analyses of every single lyric and utterance, as do many Bob-ographers. But I think even readers who never cared much for Dylan and, especially, never understood his appeal, or why he's been canonized and beatified, will gain some understanding of what it's all about, why the man has been so avidly followed or stalked, adored or abhorred, pored over or puzzled over, and set up in the pantheon and kept there.
It's also probably the most enlightening book I've read on "American culture" writ large: Wilentz casts his nets wide and pulls in a network of traditions, influences, and adaptations. The first chapter, on Copland's early affiliation with Popular Front politics and later transformation into mainstream national symbol sets the tone for Wilentz's investigations into where Dylan came from and some of what went into his work, his (many) personae, and his vision(s) of modern America. Dylan has often been accused of plagiarism, particularly in recent albums like "Love and Theft" (doesn't the title admit, even boast about, it?). Wilentz spends much of the last section of the book exploring Dylan's "thefts" in some detail, as part of the recuperation or continuation of a long tradition of folk/blues borrowings, revisions, permutations. "Folk" music, by definition, has no author, or at least its "authorship" is usually shared by a long line of adapters with often very different versions. Of course, Dylan's very name is stolen -- not invented, but taken from the Welsh poet young Zimmerman first read in the 50s. As T.S. Eliot once wrote (and as Sean Wilentz quotes), "immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different." Wilentz comments elsewhere that "there isn't an inch of American song that [Dylan] cannot call his own. He steals what he loves, and loves what he steals." This is Dylan's criminal genius, or maybe it's the key to American culture.
Dylan fanatics should enjoy this book, since it tells (or retells) much of Bob's biography -- without over-indulging in the nerdy encyclopedic compiling of heroic trivia or minute analyses of every single lyric and utterance, as do many Bob-ographers. But I think even readers who never cared much for Dylan and, especially, never understood his appeal, or why he's been canonized and beatified, will gain some understanding of what it's all about, why the man has been so avidly followed or stalked, adored or abhorred, pored over or puzzled over, and set up in the pantheon and kept there.
It's also probably the most enlightening book I've read on "American culture" writ large: Wilentz casts his nets wide and pulls in a network of traditions, influences, and adaptations. The first chapter, on Copland's early affiliation with Popular Front politics and later transformation into mainstream national symbol sets the tone for Wilentz's investigations into where Dylan came from and some of what went into his work, his (many) personae, and his vision(s) of modern America. Dylan has often been accused of plagiarism, particularly in recent albums like "Love and Theft" (doesn't the title admit, even boast about, it?). Wilentz spends much of the last section of the book exploring Dylan's "thefts" in some detail, as part of the recuperation or continuation of a long tradition of folk/blues borrowings, revisions, permutations. "Folk" music, by definition, has no author, or at least its "authorship" is usually shared by a long line of adapters with often very different versions. Of course, Dylan's very name is stolen -- not invented, but taken from the Welsh poet young Zimmerman first read in the 50s. As T.S. Eliot once wrote (and as Sean Wilentz quotes), "immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different." Wilentz comments elsewhere that "there isn't an inch of American song that [Dylan] cannot call his own. He steals what he loves, and loves what he steals." This is Dylan's criminal genius, or maybe it's the key to American culture.
Read
June 2, 2017This book is a little slow to start but gradually picks up steam. It is more accurately a collection of essays, which address with varying success, the theme of painting Bob Dylan as a master absorber and re-former of numerous pieces of artistic arcana ranging from Aaron Copland (this is not very convincing) through black blues roots of a hundred years ago. The more interesting essays are in the second half of the book, where the author analyzes Dylan's twin set of folk albums of the early 90's (Good As I Been To You and World Gone Wrong) and demonstrates the songs as both antecedents of earlier Dylan works, and as precursors of Dylan's more recent works, focusing especially on 2001's Love and Theft. Critical analysis of Dylan's recent work is lacking and this fills a significant gap in Dylanology, addressing Dylan's Theme Time Radio show and his albums up to and including his Christmas album from last year.
While at times the writing can be slow and a little pedantic (the author is an Ivy League professor after all), it is a book worth reading if you are interested in Dylan and his place in American cultural history.
While at times the writing can be slow and a little pedantic (the author is an Ivy League professor after all), it is a book worth reading if you are interested in Dylan and his place in American cultural history.
May 31, 2015
I’ve always liked Bob Dylan’s work and so I looked forward to this.
I was horribly, horribly disappointed.
The shopping list in my pocket could have been read to more effect that this load of dry academic drivel.
Bob Dylan is one of the most influential musicians of our time and this guy just doesn’t get that in any way shape or form….but don’t just take my word for it, ask someone else who doesn’t like it.
I was horribly, horribly disappointed.
The shopping list in my pocket could have been read to more effect that this load of dry academic drivel.
Bob Dylan is one of the most influential musicians of our time and this guy just doesn’t get that in any way shape or form….but don’t just take my word for it, ask someone else who doesn’t like it.
March 19, 2021
Oh boy, this is a tricky one to evaluate......
Some part of me really wants to give this five stars. I really do.
The writing is brilliant, crystal clear and in many parts the analysis is incredibly thorough and revealing. I am quite jealous of Sean Wilentz' talent as a writer and he really does justice to a topic, Bob Dylan, on which many many people have already written and continue to write.
I only had 1 gripe with this book that is worth mentioning.
Although the book tends to jump around here and there, which might be irritating for Dylan fans who were looking for something more chronological, it should be pointed out that this is not a strict biography. Wilentz looks at certain 'high points' or fascinating moments in Dylan's career and analyses them through a historical lens, for example Dylan's links back to minstrelsy. I found this really fascinating and it has made me look at Dylan in a new light.
The only thing that bothered me, and it's the same thing that has bothered me about almost any biography or book written on Dylan is the author's subjective assessment and sometimes summation of certain songs. I was really disappointed how Wilentz raved about how good The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll is as a protest song, but yet he dismisses other protest songs like The Death Of Emmett Till, which in my point of view is an absolute early (and to some degree overlooked) masterpiece or what the lit crit writers like to call a 'tour de force' (because by using a French word it comes across as smart or something). I don't know how accurate Emmett Till is, as a song, but I have read about how inaccurate the Hattie Carroll song is and to some degree Wilentz acknowledges this - Dylan employing his poetic / literary 'licence' freely. This does lead us to an interesting and important question - does a song have to be truthful and accurate to be powerful? If the answer is 'no' then it comes down to a question of taste. I would prefer my Emmett Till over Hattie Carroll, but he would have it the other way around.
I had the same experience with Clinton Heylin's biography a few years ago, Behind the Shades. While I agreed with his analysis and praise of Blood On the Tracks, that searingly beautiful and heart-wrenching album, I found myself disagreeing with Heylin's opinions of the music Dylan composed during his born-again phase.
Therefore, now I know why there are 2 types of biographies essentially - there are those biographies that only stick to the 'biographical information obtained' (I was about to say 'facts' but that word can be a slippery slope itself) and in this sense such books are 'pure biographies', or to be more precise, 'biographical portraits', and there are biographies that include literary analysis, which can either thrill or irritate the fans. This book falls into the later category but it is biography, literary criticism and history all wrapped up into one neat package.
The above gripes aside, all in all, this is a very good book and extremely well written. Having said that, there were a few chapters (such as the chapter on Aaron Copland) which I did not find interesting but the chapter on the Blonde on Blonde recordings (The Sound of 3 AM), the chapter on Blind Willie Mctell (both Dylan's song and the actual bluesman), the chapter on some of the songs from World Gone Wrong (a very underrated early 90s album by Dylan) and the chapter on Chronicles were all fascinating.
This is not the book you want if you want pure biography but if you want to understand how Dylan fits in better with his predecessors in American history, then this is ideal. Highly recommended
Some part of me really wants to give this five stars. I really do.
The writing is brilliant, crystal clear and in many parts the analysis is incredibly thorough and revealing. I am quite jealous of Sean Wilentz' talent as a writer and he really does justice to a topic, Bob Dylan, on which many many people have already written and continue to write.
I only had 1 gripe with this book that is worth mentioning.
Although the book tends to jump around here and there, which might be irritating for Dylan fans who were looking for something more chronological, it should be pointed out that this is not a strict biography. Wilentz looks at certain 'high points' or fascinating moments in Dylan's career and analyses them through a historical lens, for example Dylan's links back to minstrelsy. I found this really fascinating and it has made me look at Dylan in a new light.
The only thing that bothered me, and it's the same thing that has bothered me about almost any biography or book written on Dylan is the author's subjective assessment and sometimes summation of certain songs. I was really disappointed how Wilentz raved about how good The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll is as a protest song, but yet he dismisses other protest songs like The Death Of Emmett Till, which in my point of view is an absolute early (and to some degree overlooked) masterpiece or what the lit crit writers like to call a 'tour de force' (because by using a French word it comes across as smart or something). I don't know how accurate Emmett Till is, as a song, but I have read about how inaccurate the Hattie Carroll song is and to some degree Wilentz acknowledges this - Dylan employing his poetic / literary 'licence' freely. This does lead us to an interesting and important question - does a song have to be truthful and accurate to be powerful? If the answer is 'no' then it comes down to a question of taste. I would prefer my Emmett Till over Hattie Carroll, but he would have it the other way around.
I had the same experience with Clinton Heylin's biography a few years ago, Behind the Shades. While I agreed with his analysis and praise of Blood On the Tracks, that searingly beautiful and heart-wrenching album, I found myself disagreeing with Heylin's opinions of the music Dylan composed during his born-again phase.
Therefore, now I know why there are 2 types of biographies essentially - there are those biographies that only stick to the 'biographical information obtained' (I was about to say 'facts' but that word can be a slippery slope itself) and in this sense such books are 'pure biographies', or to be more precise, 'biographical portraits', and there are biographies that include literary analysis, which can either thrill or irritate the fans. This book falls into the later category but it is biography, literary criticism and history all wrapped up into one neat package.
The above gripes aside, all in all, this is a very good book and extremely well written. Having said that, there were a few chapters (such as the chapter on Aaron Copland) which I did not find interesting but the chapter on the Blonde on Blonde recordings (The Sound of 3 AM), the chapter on Blind Willie Mctell (both Dylan's song and the actual bluesman), the chapter on some of the songs from World Gone Wrong (a very underrated early 90s album by Dylan) and the chapter on Chronicles were all fascinating.
This is not the book you want if you want pure biography but if you want to understand how Dylan fits in better with his predecessors in American history, then this is ideal. Highly recommended
January 2, 2020
After reading Ian Bell's two part Bob Dylan biography a few years ago (can't recommend them enough!!!!), I've been weary and unsure of any other Dylan books. It felt so wide ranging that anything else would be repetitive. But this book caught my eye. Fellow Dylanologists told me it was one of the good ones, and alas!
Wilentz's book is a wonderful microscope of American history. The chapters are organized chronologically but skip over vast amounts of in Dylan's life. Each one alternates between the deep history of whatever song, composer, true life a song was inspired by, film, folk tale, and musician Dylan took inspiration from (or copied, or what have you) and the music itself. Having a more than entry level background knowledge of Dylan was helpful. I doubt I would've been as interested in this book had I not read a biography or been a heavy listener. There are a lot of nooks and crannies explored here--personnel, lyrics, versions of songs, tours, interviews--that go far deeper than I assume some people or fair-weather fans might care for.
Alternatively, Wilentz's book is also a great entry point for readers and fans to start digging deeper into Dylan's world. A seasoned historian, biographer, and Princeton professor, his ability to tell a story within a story (within a story) (which is, essentially, a Dylan song) makes the subject matter no matter how old or unrelated it may seem to Bob.. fascinating.
He discusses a lot of Dylan's writing, writing process, inspiration, and his music's reception--which might be the most interesting part. The segments on Dylan's relationship to Allen Ginsberg, Dylan's Christmas record, and his SXM radio show might be my favorite parts. But either way I was captivated the whole time. This book surprised me in more ways than one. But I should've known better: there's always more to learn, and there's always more to learn about Dylan. That's what makes him and his music so compelling. Many onion layers and Wilentz, fan and scholar, has a great time peeling them.
Wilentz's book is a wonderful microscope of American history. The chapters are organized chronologically but skip over vast amounts of in Dylan's life. Each one alternates between the deep history of whatever song, composer, true life a song was inspired by, film, folk tale, and musician Dylan took inspiration from (or copied, or what have you) and the music itself. Having a more than entry level background knowledge of Dylan was helpful. I doubt I would've been as interested in this book had I not read a biography or been a heavy listener. There are a lot of nooks and crannies explored here--personnel, lyrics, versions of songs, tours, interviews--that go far deeper than I assume some people or fair-weather fans might care for.
Alternatively, Wilentz's book is also a great entry point for readers and fans to start digging deeper into Dylan's world. A seasoned historian, biographer, and Princeton professor, his ability to tell a story within a story (within a story) (which is, essentially, a Dylan song) makes the subject matter no matter how old or unrelated it may seem to Bob.. fascinating.
He discusses a lot of Dylan's writing, writing process, inspiration, and his music's reception--which might be the most interesting part. The segments on Dylan's relationship to Allen Ginsberg, Dylan's Christmas record, and his SXM radio show might be my favorite parts. But either way I was captivated the whole time. This book surprised me in more ways than one. But I should've known better: there's always more to learn, and there's always more to learn about Dylan. That's what makes him and his music so compelling. Many onion layers and Wilentz, fan and scholar, has a great time peeling them.
November 11, 2021
Not sure many Dylan followers read a book about him, I’m probably the biggest fan he’s got
August 19, 2013
In this part-biography, part-cultural history, Sean Wilentz explores the role Bob Dylan has played in the cultural landscape and history of the United States. Although the historian charts a biographical sketch of the multi-faceted artist, in Bob Dylan in America Wilentz focuses on Dylan’s links to various points in U.S. history, beginning with connections to 1940s and 1950s music and culture. Rooted in historical methods with personal reflection added to the narrative, Wilentz’ invites readers into his experiences growing up, working, and aging with the artist while tracing the depth of Dylan’s role in American culture, history, and tradition.
Bob Dylan in America traces the cultural heritage, development, and career of Bob Dylan, influenced by Popular Front musicians like Aaron Copland, affected by the Beats in the 1950s, and in turn taking his own place as part of the culture of the 1960s to the present. Wilentz argues that Dylan’s varied influences and admiration for numerous forms of entertainment, ranging from “old traditions” of folk to French films, blues songsters, and 19th century minstrelsy, place him in older traditions of American artists whose art becomes part of the landscape and reflects the everyday world around them (13). Furthermore, the study skips lengthy portions of Dylan’s career, remaining tied to historical style and discussion of Dylan’s influences while seeking to understand those sources as Dylan has interpreted and made them part of his “minstrelsy.”
The book begins with composer Aaron Copland and the Popular Front music of the 1920s-1940s that created a “cultural genealogy” for Dylan to follow. Copland’s musical style ranged from overt politically charged material to commercially viable material (44). Meanwhile, World War II stripped the Popular Front movement of “leftist sensibilities,” and Copland’s music became a celebration of modern America. The Beats relationship with the folk movement in New York equally factored in Dylan’s career, particularly the relationship he shared with Allen Ginsberg. This connection likewise impacted Wilentz since Dylan and Ginsberg first met in an apartment above his father’s bookstore. Wilentz was also present at the concert at Philharmonic Hall on Halloween 1964, and comments the performance was Dylan’s “springboard” into the “turmoil” of going electric, including the recording of Blonde on Blonde (104). In 1975, the Rolling Thunder Revue allowed Dylan to create 19th century circus and vaudeville style atmosphere, with reinterpretations of his music and theater based in 1930s French cinema. Interest in musicians like Blind Willie McTell and other blues songsters recorded by the Lomaxes marked the beginning of a new direction for Dylan’s career. Following Time Out of Mind, Dylan has recorded original material more prolifically, but the results are met with praise and criticism, including charges of plagiarism. Wilentz concludes the current Dylan incorporates the numerous personas of his career with older forms of American entertainment, allowing him to simultaneously perform with the voice and music of various time periods (313).
Considering the historical notions of Bob Dylan’s career and role as an American artist illustrates the impact popular culture holds in U.S. history. This part-biography, part-cultural history introduces readers to a larger palette of artistic choices and influences previously not considered, while adding new sources and directions for scholars to examine the long-term effects of popular culture. Fans that have aged with Bob Dylan, like Sean Wilentz, can identify with the enigma of Dylan’s career, while younger fans introduced to Dylan in the 21st century find an exploration of the vast differences in Dylan’s career and catalog, even if the man remains “impossible to know.”
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 9, 2014
If you read Dylan's Chronicles Volume 1, you were exposed to the concept that you could take a few specific periods of time, write long explanative anecdotes about them, and call it an autobiography. Dylan made this work. In "Bob Dylan in America", Wilentz tries something very similar. He picks some specific songs, a recording session, a particular concert, a couple of tours, and the topic of plagiarism to explain how Dylan extends American music. But he does this with extended descriptions. I got the 10 CD unabridged audiobook. Roughly an entire CD covered the history of the song Delia, with Dylan coming in mostly at the end of that discussion. It felt like another entire CD covered blues singer Blind Willie McTell who Dylan wrote about. You get a lot of very specific background in this book, and the selective detail ended up detracting from the readability of the book. You do get plenty of opinions. Wilentz is not afraid of rating the songs, albums, and performances. This makes the book more readable, though it feels less like a history book. Wilentz himself doesn't write with the poetry of Dylan, but he quotes enough of it throughout that it reads like a sibling of Chronicles. This was written with the passion and detail you'd expect from a dedicated fan while maintaining a historian's view of events at the core.
The audiobook includes a handful of snippets of Dylan songs, a stanza at most. They were rare enough that they didn't really add to the audio experience. The author narrated this well.
The audiobook includes a handful of snippets of Dylan songs, a stanza at most. They were rare enough that they didn't really add to the audio experience. The author narrated this well.
November 4, 2010
I have read many biographies of musicians and artists, always interested to learn about their creative methods. I am regularly disappointed with these biographies as they tend to focus on the more tabloid aspects of the composer's life. I am happy to find a book that focuses on the art more than the artist.
Written by a history professor at Princeton University, this book is as much about the American experience as it is about Bob Dylan. While the material is presented in chronological order, it is by no means a retelling of Dylan's life, but rather a collection of academic discussions regarding different aspects of American culture, politics, religion and more, with Dylan's music the link between it all. Topics discussed in this book include:
Aaron Copland
The Beat Generation
Boxing
French avant garde film
Bing Crosby
Jim Crow in the mid-20th century
Famous murder cases from the turn of the century
Music education in the southern U.S. during the 19th century
Circuses, traveling medicine shows, and American minstrels
The Civil War
and of course, music: folk music, the blues, classical music, rock and roll, pop standards, and more.
My only critique is that it could have been even more academic, reversing the emphasis to "America and Bob Dylan," and focusing more on the cultural aspects. Still, that is a small critique. Overall,a great read!
Written by a history professor at Princeton University, this book is as much about the American experience as it is about Bob Dylan. While the material is presented in chronological order, it is by no means a retelling of Dylan's life, but rather a collection of academic discussions regarding different aspects of American culture, politics, religion and more, with Dylan's music the link between it all. Topics discussed in this book include:
Aaron Copland
The Beat Generation
Boxing
French avant garde film
Bing Crosby
Jim Crow in the mid-20th century
Famous murder cases from the turn of the century
Music education in the southern U.S. during the 19th century
Circuses, traveling medicine shows, and American minstrels
The Civil War
and of course, music: folk music, the blues, classical music, rock and roll, pop standards, and more.
My only critique is that it could have been even more academic, reversing the emphasis to "America and Bob Dylan," and focusing more on the cultural aspects. Still, that is a small critique. Overall,a great read!
May 4, 2016
I read somewhere, maybe in this book's intro, that there's over 1,000 books about Bob Dylan. I've read the 33 1/3 book on Highway 61 revisited, and somewhere around here I've got Chronicles Vol. 1 lying around. I didn't intend to read this, nor had I heard of it, but it looked like it might be cool.
Rather than another straight biography, this is a collection of essays that focus on key moments in Dylan's career, some obvious, some not so obvious, including a cover of a song by an obscure blues musician he recorded in the early '80s that wasn't released until years later, on one of those CD compilations.
It spans the course of Dylan's career, from before he even arrived in New York, to his most recent albums and tours as of when this book was published, maybe five years ago. It goes super deep into the history of the songs, and the people, events and what have you that influenced them, in a way that I thought was really interesting and impressive.
There's also a lot of references to various times the author saw Dylan play live, and to the neighborhood where they both lived when the author was a kid and Dylan was beginning his career (the kid's father and uncle, I think, were somehow minor players in that milieu), that probably aren't as interesting to anyone other than the author himself.
Rather than another straight biography, this is a collection of essays that focus on key moments in Dylan's career, some obvious, some not so obvious, including a cover of a song by an obscure blues musician he recorded in the early '80s that wasn't released until years later, on one of those CD compilations.
It spans the course of Dylan's career, from before he even arrived in New York, to his most recent albums and tours as of when this book was published, maybe five years ago. It goes super deep into the history of the songs, and the people, events and what have you that influenced them, in a way that I thought was really interesting and impressive.
There's also a lot of references to various times the author saw Dylan play live, and to the neighborhood where they both lived when the author was a kid and Dylan was beginning his career (the kid's father and uncle, I think, were somehow minor players in that milieu), that probably aren't as interesting to anyone other than the author himself.
May 27, 2019
Read it before, tried again. Mixed bag, methinks. I think the opening connections between Bob and Aaron Copland (apart from Dylan's using "Fanfare for the Common Man'' to open some concerts) is a stretch, and the Beat/Ginsberg thing is pretty well known (although I did like the footnote about Allen: "Once a salesman, always a salesman.'' Still, the lyrical explorations are well-plowed, almost fanboy stuff that you can read on various devotees sites, and the fact that Wilentz is so ga-ga about "Love and Theft,'' one of Bob's lesser efforts is a tip-off, though his liner notes helped him land a gig as "house historian'' on Bob Dylan.com. As Suze Rotola said in one of her interviews about her memoir (which I found much more memorable): "The 60's - oh, la la.''
February 12, 2018
I was al little disappointed with this book. It’s really... what’s the word... specific, or perhaps random.
Bunch of facts scattered around, sometimes pretty interesting, sometimes dull, and not always too coherent. The author’s personal memories are touching but also makes this book scatter pretty or much to only what the author’s experience with Dylan is.
It does pour some light on his later works which is nice. I’d recommend this book only to seriously heavy dylanologists.
Bunch of facts scattered around, sometimes pretty interesting, sometimes dull, and not always too coherent. The author’s personal memories are touching but also makes this book scatter pretty or much to only what the author’s experience with Dylan is.
It does pour some light on his later works which is nice. I’d recommend this book only to seriously heavy dylanologists.
May 3, 2018
I'm not a Bob Dylan fan. I do have a 3 CD greatest collection, thoroughly enjoyed Chronicles Volume 1, & fully appreciate Dylan's place in the rock pantheon. But I'm not a fan. Sean Wilentz is a fan & has written what was, for me, an absorbing examination of various periods of Mr Zimmerman's long & somewhat chequered career. So it's not at all a straight forward biography but well worth the read. What I found particularly interesting was the exploration of Dylan's influences, from Woody Guthrie, through Blind Willlie McTell, to Aaron Copland. The author also investigates the source material for various songs that Dylan either created or covered, including the actual true crime events that occurred a century ago and inspired the song Delia, and I found these investigations fascinating. It is a somewhat academic approach but, as it has been written by a genuine fan, it doesn't read like a thesis. If you are a fan of the grizzled one this should appeal.
February 14, 2021
This book differs considerably from the usual accounts about popular musicians. Aptly, of course, given that the subject is Bob Dylan, himself a bona fide history aficionado, at least of music and poetry, and no mere 'pop star.'
Sean Wilentz also authored a well-received tome about United States history, 'The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln' (1,044 pages!) and a second, less massive (564 pp) one, 'The Age of Reagan.'
His subject, one of the key artists of our times, certainly warrants his historical approach. In many ways it leads to instructive results, although Wilentz does stray rather often into neighbouring fields, with one or two baffling results. For instance, many pages of scholastic detail are devoted to Blind Willie McTell, due to a Dylan song Wilentz regards as iconic. In the end, all the legwork is at the service of elucidating a few choices in Dylan's final phrasing. A closer look at the song might have served this reader well enough, and maybe an account of its claimed excellence--rather than an examination of its roots and how one 19th century songster’s antecedent differed from another’s, and why he chose to crib from one over the other.
All of this is fine for those serious about this subject, and the author clearly is that--along with being a professed fan. Yet these historical digressions often take us from the actual subject to peripheries that sometimes smack of a historian riffing away well beyond reach.
Dozens of pages also establish some intriguing but fairly recondite echoes between Dylan's career and Aaron Copland's. Interesting, yes--both were Jewish-American eccentrics revisiting and reviving folk materials, but is that worth more than a brief digression?
The detail Wilentz delves into in support of this leads to a long chapter, and it smacks more of a publish-or-perish academic than of an author out to illuminate interesting things about his subject.
Few pages are likely to be deeply boring to literate fans--and who among Dylan's fans is interested primarily in the tunes? But in another obscurantist tangent that pads out the book: Wilentz spends pages on ‘fasola compilers,’ a form of notation that Harvard clerics facilitated to counteract the poor vocalizing that was rampant in early 19th century churches.
Or how about a digression about the anti-denominational Christian Connection preachers who collected hymns and sacred songs? Or perhaps you are interested in the fraudulent authorship of numerous sacred songs and hymns (hands up, whoever knows the difference between these two)? So, unless your interests help you to gravitate to these recondite areas, be prepared to skip material.
Among the book's more irritating moments I must include this: "...Dylan, who had picked up the American bardic cudgel from Ginsberg, who had earlier picked it up from Walt Whitman..." (p 167). This is either high-octane pretentiousness or, beyond the pomposity, pretty lofty stuff. Hoping it's something of the latter, one wonders why he overlooks such cudgel-hefting bardic heavyweights as TS Eliot, Wallace Stevens, ee cummings or ________ [insert name of your own bardic, er, predilection]. I'm guessing that even Zimmie himself, a guy never known for modesty, might blush at Wilentz's gushing.
On the other hand--and there very much is one: this is a worthy book, and some things make this book time well-spent.
Wilentz sheds much light on the place in Dylan's art of Ginsberg/Kerouac, as against the folk-songsters. That is, there is an illuminating review of Dylan’s synthesis of the political conscience and earthy communalism of the likes of Phil Ochs and Pete Seeger, with the jazz-and-poetry-loving beats’ anti-social iconoclasm. The tensions between the two streams are well scrutinized, and the author illustrates the aspects from each faction that Dylan takes up.
Also, the pages he devotes to examining of the 'Love and Theft' album - one of his three greatest, in my view--make this book eminently worthwhile.
I admit to a taste for some gossip, especially about Dylan, who features in so many legendary episodes of nastiness (E.g. 'Just cause you like my music doesn't mean I owe you something,' spat out as he turned down some wide-eyed autograph-seeker). But there is little biographical trivia here. You can't have everything, I guess; plus, there's a whole library of books on Dylan. Wilentz even offers an annotated bibliography at the end to help feed such tastes. So, case closed; fair enough: for that, look elsewhere.
So consider overlooking my misgivings: this is a highly recommendable read, with some skipping de rigeur. It may even be the only pop biography I'm ever likely to *re-read*!
Well recommended.
Sean Wilentz also authored a well-received tome about United States history, 'The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln' (1,044 pages!) and a second, less massive (564 pp) one, 'The Age of Reagan.'
His subject, one of the key artists of our times, certainly warrants his historical approach. In many ways it leads to instructive results, although Wilentz does stray rather often into neighbouring fields, with one or two baffling results. For instance, many pages of scholastic detail are devoted to Blind Willie McTell, due to a Dylan song Wilentz regards as iconic. In the end, all the legwork is at the service of elucidating a few choices in Dylan's final phrasing. A closer look at the song might have served this reader well enough, and maybe an account of its claimed excellence--rather than an examination of its roots and how one 19th century songster’s antecedent differed from another’s, and why he chose to crib from one over the other.
All of this is fine for those serious about this subject, and the author clearly is that--along with being a professed fan. Yet these historical digressions often take us from the actual subject to peripheries that sometimes smack of a historian riffing away well beyond reach.
Dozens of pages also establish some intriguing but fairly recondite echoes between Dylan's career and Aaron Copland's. Interesting, yes--both were Jewish-American eccentrics revisiting and reviving folk materials, but is that worth more than a brief digression?
The detail Wilentz delves into in support of this leads to a long chapter, and it smacks more of a publish-or-perish academic than of an author out to illuminate interesting things about his subject.
Few pages are likely to be deeply boring to literate fans--and who among Dylan's fans is interested primarily in the tunes? But in another obscurantist tangent that pads out the book: Wilentz spends pages on ‘fasola compilers,’ a form of notation that Harvard clerics facilitated to counteract the poor vocalizing that was rampant in early 19th century churches.
Or how about a digression about the anti-denominational Christian Connection preachers who collected hymns and sacred songs? Or perhaps you are interested in the fraudulent authorship of numerous sacred songs and hymns (hands up, whoever knows the difference between these two)? So, unless your interests help you to gravitate to these recondite areas, be prepared to skip material.
Among the book's more irritating moments I must include this: "...Dylan, who had picked up the American bardic cudgel from Ginsberg, who had earlier picked it up from Walt Whitman..." (p 167). This is either high-octane pretentiousness or, beyond the pomposity, pretty lofty stuff. Hoping it's something of the latter, one wonders why he overlooks such cudgel-hefting bardic heavyweights as TS Eliot, Wallace Stevens, ee cummings or ________ [insert name of your own bardic, er, predilection]. I'm guessing that even Zimmie himself, a guy never known for modesty, might blush at Wilentz's gushing.
On the other hand--and there very much is one: this is a worthy book, and some things make this book time well-spent.
Wilentz sheds much light on the place in Dylan's art of Ginsberg/Kerouac, as against the folk-songsters. That is, there is an illuminating review of Dylan’s synthesis of the political conscience and earthy communalism of the likes of Phil Ochs and Pete Seeger, with the jazz-and-poetry-loving beats’ anti-social iconoclasm. The tensions between the two streams are well scrutinized, and the author illustrates the aspects from each faction that Dylan takes up.
Also, the pages he devotes to examining of the 'Love and Theft' album - one of his three greatest, in my view--make this book eminently worthwhile.
I admit to a taste for some gossip, especially about Dylan, who features in so many legendary episodes of nastiness (E.g. 'Just cause you like my music doesn't mean I owe you something,' spat out as he turned down some wide-eyed autograph-seeker). But there is little biographical trivia here. You can't have everything, I guess; plus, there's a whole library of books on Dylan. Wilentz even offers an annotated bibliography at the end to help feed such tastes. So, case closed; fair enough: for that, look elsewhere.
So consider overlooking my misgivings: this is a highly recommendable read, with some skipping de rigeur. It may even be the only pop biography I'm ever likely to *re-read*!
Well recommended.
May 13, 2019
If half as much energy was spent just listening to Dylan as has been spent by (let's be honest) old white dudes talking about what Dylan MEANS and why THEIR VERSION OF DYLAN IS THE DYLANEST I think the man himself might not be so damn gunshy about talking about himself.
Might be the last words I'll ever read about Dylan. What's the damn point?
Might be the last words I'll ever read about Dylan. What's the damn point?
April 9, 2013
Bob Dylan in America is the story of Bob Dylan the man and his music: its creation, its evolution, its reinterpretation. The author places Bob Dylan in America: in its cultural and political history.
Those looking for full biography may be disappointed. Those looking for Bob Dylan the man, will find much of him here.
Readers learn how wide Bob Dylan's musical interest has been. Wilentz shows there is hardly an American musical genre that Bob Dylan has not appreciated, learned from and incorporated elements thereof as his own. Bob Dylan is also widely well-read, drawing inspiration from literature, poetry, biography and history. While some speak of Bob Dylan's religious period, America's strong religious traditions continue to deeply influence him.
Bob Dylan has learned from others, taken from others (as all artists do) and then fashioned these strands into his own creative work. In turn, others have taken from him. His music has reshaped America.
I would have learned more from this book had I a fuller knowledge of 20th-century American literature, poetry and art. Helpful too, would have been a stronger background in music, and a fuller awareness of all of Bob Dylan's prodigious output, not just his earlier works. Wilentz presupposes his readers know more about these subjects than we do.
Those seeking a full biography may wish to read elsewhere. However, few will do a better job of placing Bob Dylan in America.
Those looking for full biography may be disappointed. Those looking for Bob Dylan the man, will find much of him here.
Readers learn how wide Bob Dylan's musical interest has been. Wilentz shows there is hardly an American musical genre that Bob Dylan has not appreciated, learned from and incorporated elements thereof as his own. Bob Dylan is also widely well-read, drawing inspiration from literature, poetry, biography and history. While some speak of Bob Dylan's religious period, America's strong religious traditions continue to deeply influence him.
Bob Dylan has learned from others, taken from others (as all artists do) and then fashioned these strands into his own creative work. In turn, others have taken from him. His music has reshaped America.
I would have learned more from this book had I a fuller knowledge of 20th-century American literature, poetry and art. Helpful too, would have been a stronger background in music, and a fuller awareness of all of Bob Dylan's prodigious output, not just his earlier works. Wilentz presupposes his readers know more about these subjects than we do.
Those seeking a full biography may wish to read elsewhere. However, few will do a better job of placing Bob Dylan in America.
May 1, 2024
I struggled to get into this book. Wilentz is a historian I admire, and I was intrigued by his stated purpose of exploring Dylan's influences, artistic evolution, and what all of it can tell us about America. Unfortunately, I just couldn't find traction in Wilentz's rambling essays about Popular Front artists, Beat poets, and his descriptions of the various milieu that influenced Dylan's ever-shifting persona. His interpretations of Dylan lyrics assumed a level of detailed knowledge and fandom that I just don't have, and I found his language sometimes over-flowery leaning toward pretentious. But then, heeding Dylan's admonition to "don't criticize what you can’t understand," I kept at it. Things improved a bit when I listened to recording of the 1964 Philharmonic Hall concert while reading Wilentz's chapter about it. That made the commentary feel a bit more accessible, so I may continue reading making sure to have the music playing to accompany Wilentz's dense prose. I am not sure that will be enough to keep going. Wilentz seemed to be having a great time parsing each Dylan verse, connecting it to his own broad base of cultural and historical knowledge, but if we were at a cocktail party, after nodding my head for a while, I would probably find a way to join a new conversation on the other side of the room.
January 19, 2024
I created a very long playlist of every song or artist mentioned in this book here.
This book was all over the place. Some chapters were informative essays on Dylan’s connection to American art. Although Aaron Copland sets a groundwork for Dylan’s future music, it felt mostly like a mini-bio of Copland that was minimally connected to Dylan. That theme held throughout a lot of the book. It wasn’t until the ending chapters that there was a perfect mesh of Dylan’s music and all of his influences.
So much of the book strayed away from the overall theme. If this is about Dylan’s America, why are we talking so much about the French film Children of Paradise, even if it clearly inspired the Rolling Thunder Revue? Why are you recapping your experiences at his concerts? Most confusingly, why is there a random essay recapping the Blonde on Blonde sessions? It felt like some chapters were previously written essays that were adapted for this publication.
Regardless of the odd structure and content of the book, I still found it mostly interesting. I’m not sure we needed an entire history of the shape note movement to understand The Lone Pilgrim, but I still enjoyed learning about it. There are many worse Dylan books out there, so it’s not a bad one to check out.
This book was all over the place. Some chapters were informative essays on Dylan’s connection to American art. Although Aaron Copland sets a groundwork for Dylan’s future music, it felt mostly like a mini-bio of Copland that was minimally connected to Dylan. That theme held throughout a lot of the book. It wasn’t until the ending chapters that there was a perfect mesh of Dylan’s music and all of his influences.
So much of the book strayed away from the overall theme. If this is about Dylan’s America, why are we talking so much about the French film Children of Paradise, even if it clearly inspired the Rolling Thunder Revue? Why are you recapping your experiences at his concerts? Most confusingly, why is there a random essay recapping the Blonde on Blonde sessions? It felt like some chapters were previously written essays that were adapted for this publication.
Regardless of the odd structure and content of the book, I still found it mostly interesting. I’m not sure we needed an entire history of the shape note movement to understand The Lone Pilgrim, but I still enjoyed learning about it. There are many worse Dylan books out there, so it’s not a bad one to check out.
August 16, 2019
Great read. While Wilentz doesn't painstakingly cover each and every phase of Dylan's career, he chooses moments in time through the decades to illuminate and connect Dylan's work to the continent of ideas, movements, arts, and literature that make up the larger idea known as America. I enjoyed especially the latter third of the book that paints Dylan as an "alchemist" captured here in this extended quote:
"Open to artistic inspiration anywhere he found it, Dylan was not so much a "sponge (although he has always absorbed prodigious amounts) as an alchemist, taking common materials and creating new art. Nothing that came within his field of vision escaped him: 1930s French films, 1850s minstrel songs, the works of Shakespeare, Dolly Parton, Saint John of Patmos, Muddy Waters-- anything of beauty, no matter how terrible, became something to seize upon and make his own" (335). That, to me, is a great description of any American art, always changing, always harkening back, always searching, always making something its own, always struggling to find a voice, and always a little messy. And I think Wilentz captures this theme in a fascinating read: as a representative of American art, there are few finer examples that embody the hodgepodge of America than Dylan.
"Open to artistic inspiration anywhere he found it, Dylan was not so much a "sponge (although he has always absorbed prodigious amounts) as an alchemist, taking common materials and creating new art. Nothing that came within his field of vision escaped him: 1930s French films, 1850s minstrel songs, the works of Shakespeare, Dolly Parton, Saint John of Patmos, Muddy Waters-- anything of beauty, no matter how terrible, became something to seize upon and make his own" (335). That, to me, is a great description of any American art, always changing, always harkening back, always searching, always making something its own, always struggling to find a voice, and always a little messy. And I think Wilentz captures this theme in a fascinating read: as a representative of American art, there are few finer examples that embody the hodgepodge of America than Dylan.
April 27, 2011
I think I would rename this book, Why does Bob Dylan wear cowboy hats?
I'm a fan of Dylan, he's done some brilliant things. But Wilentz points out something--that every body knows, but doesnt pay too much attention to--which is that Dylan (like all music industry folks and pop culture personalities) has sculpted his own image--an image that may or may not have a whole lot in common with the REAL Robert Zimmerman (whatever that means).
I've been on both sides of the fence as to whether sculpting your public persona is good or evil. On the good side you can argue that reinventing one's self can lead to self-actualization, self-evolution, etc. On the bad side is that it can make you look phony, fabricated and calculated.
In today's pop culture environment it is basically expected. Sometimes it is scrutinized (by media types), when the image seems vastly different from the reality. But the line between image and reality can easily be blurred.
With Dylan though, one of the pillars of Rock criticism that he seems to skirt and live up to at the same time is that of "authenticity"...Maybe it's the cowboy hats.
I'm a fan of Dylan, he's done some brilliant things. But Wilentz points out something--that every body knows, but doesnt pay too much attention to--which is that Dylan (like all music industry folks and pop culture personalities) has sculpted his own image--an image that may or may not have a whole lot in common with the REAL Robert Zimmerman (whatever that means).
I've been on both sides of the fence as to whether sculpting your public persona is good or evil. On the good side you can argue that reinventing one's self can lead to self-actualization, self-evolution, etc. On the bad side is that it can make you look phony, fabricated and calculated.
In today's pop culture environment it is basically expected. Sometimes it is scrutinized (by media types), when the image seems vastly different from the reality. But the line between image and reality can easily be blurred.
With Dylan though, one of the pillars of Rock criticism that he seems to skirt and live up to at the same time is that of "authenticity"...Maybe it's the cowboy hats.
July 4, 2011
The author might be one of the greatest historians of our time, but I could not get through his writing. I was hoping to learn about Bob Dylan. The author spent much of the time on other artists and how they influenced Dylan (yes, that's very important) but I was looking for a biography on Dylan the person, how Dylan grew up, how he became interested in music, his environment, schooling, and friends. I acknowledge it's important to know who influenced Dylan and the cultural environment at the time- but I got lost and bored in the narrative. Never did finish the book, a first for me.
December 17, 2015
I think it was 10 discs. I listened to the first two. It wasn't bringing anything to the table. Spent a lot of time talking about Aaron Copland and Allen Ginsburg and what they were up to, but didn't did a good job of connecting the dots and explaining why it was that the author believed these men had a big impact on Dylan. Especially with Copland. I was expecting him to play snippets of Copland and Dylan songs, then explain why they were similar or connected. Instead, I heard phrases like, "Dylan probably heard Copland in his household when he was growing up."
August 25, 2018
Quick re-read for a refresher. I learned more about history than Dylan, but I knew that going in to this book. Wilentz is a historian, so I could only read this in small sections at a time. It is well-written; I'm just a fiction nut. There is much to be read re: Dylan, and this book is worth the time for any Dylanphiles out there. Wilentz frames the history that molded and influenced Dylan. I especially liked the section on Blind Wille McTell.
October 10, 2010
This is one of the better Dylan books. While there is much that will be familiar to those who have read a lot of Dylan "stuff", there is also some new information, or at least an interesting take/perspective on Dylan's career that differs from some of the other works.
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