Down the Highway - The Life of Bob Dylan by Howard Sounes

 

Of course, I have read many books about Bob, but this was recommended by another friend also named Bob (thanks Bob!) and I found it at a fair price, so what the heck?

Sounes aspiration was to rectify some of the inaccuracies surrounding Dylan's life (often due to Dylan's own tall-tale-telling) and to round of the picture of Bob. Compiling interviews with an impressive number of Bob's friends and family, Sounes does a pretty fine job with a nice, free-flowing style that easily sucks you in. A number of times he claims that the information he is giving has never been told before - something that I can't verify and maybe is unnecessary to stipulate, but I suppose he is trying to give the readers their money's worth.

While Bob's early life is somewhat unremarkable for someone interested in music - a shy kid whose real personality came out when he made music, on piano and guitar, with a fascination with the early rock'n'rollers (especially Little Richard) that evolved into a love for poetry and eventually folk music. After a half-hearted attempt at college, where he hung out at the coffee house scene, he moved to New York where he started meeting important figures - everyone from Woody Guthrie to John Lee Hooker to Dave Van Ronk and many others - and relatively quickly became a name on the burgeoning scene there.

It's a kinda amazing tale how this kinda shy, kinda obnoxious twerp of a kid from small town Minnesota with a Woody Guthrie fixation almost overnight became BOB DYLAN, revered, respected and worshiped'n'adored by fans'n'peers alike, and a master songwriter and a voice of the generation. It's a story that probably could only have happened in the 60's. He did practically turn on a switch and became a true original songwriter instead of yet another folk copyist and churned out incredible classics, one after another, that are still covered and marveled at to this day. But the adulation grew in the extreme - again, only as it could in the 60's - and he eventually turned his back on some of his early supporters.

An interesting point that Sounes continues to being up is Dylan's apparent disinterest in politics - apart from a couple of early rally appearances, coerced by others, and some mostly vague lyrics, he does not get involved in any particular political party or even protest movements. He valued his privacy, as is expected of someone of his celebrity, and had many uncomfortable run-ins with fanatical fans and even did his best to keep his marriages and children out of the spotlight.

By the mid 70's or so, he kinda ran out of steam and spent a long period of time with endless touring and unspectacular albums. As usual for me, the early years are the most interesting, from his days as a struggling unknown to his most respected work. After that, the story revolves mostly around his convoluted love life, his touring (mostly simply saying where he played, without a lot of anecdotes), and his recording, which admittedly, covers a lot of records that I am unfamiliar with. He also intimates that after a while, Dylan was basically touring and recording simply for the money and often his heart wasn't in it and, as evidenced by several albums of covers, his muse has mostly left him.

Sounes does a good job overall, keeps the narrative interesting and, apparently, brings out some previously unheard sources. It's a good one!