No Direction Home: The Life and Music of Bob Dylan - Hardcover

Shelton, Robert

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 068805045X ISBN 13: 9780688050450

Publisher: William Morrow & Co, 1986

Synopsis

An unauthorized biography by the writer whose rave review of Bob Dylan almost twenty-five years ago is generally regarded as the piece that launched Dylan's successful career

About this title

Review:

Robert Shelton, a critic for the New York Times in 1961, caught an early Bob Dylan gig at Folk City in Greenwich Village and wrote an effusive review for the newspaper. The coverage in the Times was a huge boost to the career of the then-struggling folksinger, and Shelton and Dylan became friends, seeing each other frequently around the Village folk scene. When Shelton, in the 1980s, finally got around to finishing his full-length biography of Dylan, he could draw upon a wealth of insider stories from the early days. The book is naturally strongest when describing Dylan's early career, from his coffeehouse gigs as a Woody Guthrie disciple to the insanely high artistic peaks of the mid-'60s. A particularly engaging passage concerns a freeform interview Shelton conducted with Dylan as they flew high above the Midwest in early 1966; Shelton's memories of Dylan are essential reading for fans. Shelton saw much less of the notoriously private Dylan as the years passed, and the book loses momentum as he becomes less of an eyewitness and more of a distant observer, though Dylan's story is credibly told up through the mid-1980s. --Robert McNamara

About the Author:

Robert Shelton (1926-95) wrote about music for the New York Times until the end of the '60s.

About this edition

• Publisher: William Morrow & Co
• Publication date: 1986
• ISBN 10: 068805045X
• ISBN 13: 9780688050450
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 573