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

Robert Shelton

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 184938911X ISBN 13: 9781849389112

Publisher: Omnibus Press, 2011

Synopsis

Robert Shelton met Bob Dylan when the young singer arrived in New York. He became Dylan's friend, champion, and critic. His book, first published in 1986, was hailed as the definitive unauthorised biography of this moody, passionate genius and his world. Of more than a thousand books published about Bob Dylan it is only this one that has been written with the Dylan's active cooperation. Dylan gave Shelton access to his parents Abe and Beatty Zimmerman - whom no other journalist has ever interviewed in depth; to his brother, David; to childhood friends from Hibbing; to fellow students and friends from Minneapolis; and to Suze Rotolo, the muse immortalised on the cover of Freewheelin', among others. No Direction Home took 20 years to complete and when it was finally published the book received widespread critical acclaim. Two decades on, Dylan's standing is higher than at any time since the 1960s and Shelton's book is now seen as a classic of the genre. This new edition, published to coi

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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 was born in Chicago in 1926 and was on the staff of the New York Times for two decades until he came to Europe. Best known as the man who discoveredA" Bob Dylan, he was the principle chronicler of the 1960s US folk revival. His books include the Woody Guthrie collection Born to Win, The Face of Folk Music, The Country Music Story and The Electric Muse. He died in 1995.

About this edition

• Publisher: Omnibus Press
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 184938911X
• ISBN 13: 9781849389112
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 368