Down The Highway
The Life Of Bob Dylan
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- $19.99
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- $19.99
Publisher Description
'Engagingly written and scrupulously researched' Observer
An UPDATED EDITION of Howard Sounes' classic, definitive biography to mark the legendary Bob Dylan's 80th birthday
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Bob Dylan was the first figure in the history of popular music to challenge the domination of the three-minute pop song and to bring serious ideas and poetry into the song lyric. A true revolutionary, he was also the first pop performer to adopt the attitudes and lead the life of a bohemian artist. In doing so he not only defined the direction which popular music would take in the second half of the twentieth century, he also defined the lifestyle which would come to be associated with the rock artist.
This new edition of Howard Sounes' critically-acclaimed classic biography of Dylan includes a new chapter that brings the legend's life story right up to date. It gives the complete picture of the man, the artist and performer. Meticulously researched and including hundreds of interviews with Dylan's closest associates, the brand new chapter also covers the last ten years of Dylan's life, and the last (and previously unpublished) interview with Dylan's first serious girlfriend.
Written by the acclaimed biographer of Paul McCartney and Lou Reed, this is a compelling, fast-paced and revelatory read, which takes the reader on a journey from Dylan's childhood in a Minnesota mining town to the status he enjoys today as one of the most iconic figures of contemporary culture.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Dylan was a pampered Midwestern teen who listened to African-American music on the radio. His father bought him a pink convertible and a Harley in the same year; his high school band appeared on television sporting mom-made cardigans emblazoned with the band name "Jokers." He dropped out of his first year of college to explore the Greenwich Village folk scene and meet his hero, Woody Guthrie, into whose hospital room young Dylan barged. "e instinctively played upon his baby-faced unworldly looks, and his considerable personal charm, to make friends would help him... giving him a place to stay or offering him a few dollars," attests Sounes (Charles Bukowski: Locked in the Arms of a Crazy Life) in this exhaustive, up-to-date biography. Though the writing is uneven, Sounes delivers a judicious portrait of Dylan's foibles and virtues. Dylan, he claims, used people variously he mimicked his favorite performers and enjoyed of "the charity of kindhearted women." Much of the book traces his womanizing, from his relationship with Joan Baez to his eight years of marital bliss (before it unraveled) with Sara Lownds. Even his religious conversion was on account of the affections of his back-up singers, one of whom he had a child with and married, a little-known fact. Dylan has burned numerous bridges in his life, though many people remain loyal. Through extensive interviews Sounes aptly captures the contradictory facets of an American folk legend.
