Down the Highway
The Life of Bob Dylan
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4.3 • 8 Ratings
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
The acclaimed biography—now updated and revised. “Many writers have tried to probe [Dylan’s] life, but never has it been done so well, so captivatingly” (The Boston Globe).
Howard Sounes’s Down the Highway broke news about Dylan’s fiercely guarded personal life and set the standard as the most comprehensive and riveting biography on Bob Dylan. Now this edition continues to document the iconic songwriter’s life through new interviews and reporting, covering the release of Dylan’s first #1 album since the seventies, recognition from the Pulitzer Prize jury for his influence on popular culture, and the publication of his bestselling memoir, giving full appreciation to his artistic achievements and profound significance.
Candid and refreshing, Down the Highway is a sincere tribute to Dylan’s seminal place in postwar American cultural history, and remains an essential book for the millions of people who have enjoyed Dylan’s music over the years.
“Irresistible . . . Finally puts Dylan the human being in the rocket’s red glare.” —Detroit Free Press
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.
