A Simple Twist of Fate: Bob Dylan and the Making of Blood on the Tracks - Softcover

Gill, Andy; Odegard, Kevin

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0306814137 ISBN 13: 9780306814136

Publisher: Da Capo Press, 2005

Synopsis

"So fascinatingly behind-the-scenes that it will make you listen to the album as if you've never heard it before."--Esquire

In 1974 Bob Dylan wrote, recorded, reconsidered, and then re-recorded the best-selling studio album of his career. Blood on the Tracks was composed as Dylan's twelve-year marriage began to unravel, and songs like "Tangled Up in Blue" and "Shelter from the Storm" have become templates for multidimensional, adult songs of love and loss. Yet the story behind the creation of this album has never been fully told; even the credits on the present-day album sleeve are inaccurate. Dylan recorded the album twice-once in New York City and again in Minneapolis, with a rag-tag gang of local musicians, quickly rewriting many of the songs in the process. For A Simple Twist of Fate, the authors have interviewed the musicians and producers, industry insiders, and others, creating an engaging chronicle of how one musician channeled his pain and confusion into great art.

About this title

About the Author

Andy Gill is a leading critic for The Independent, and has edited or written for NME, Q, Mojo, Rolling Stone, GQ, and Maxim. He lives in London.

Kevin Odegard was a brakeman on the Chicago and Northwestern Railroad when he was asked to play guitar on Blood on the Tracks. He has written for USA Today, Billboard, and other periodicals. He lives in Wayzata, Minnesota.

From Publishers Weekly

This is a solid look at the background to the making of Blood on the Tracks, considered one of Bob Dylan's greatest recordings since its release 30 years ago. Gill is a skilled British music journalist, as is Odegard, who was one of the Minneapolis session musicians Dylan used to redo five songs recorded three months earlier in New York City. The authors look at the album they believe "set a new benchmark in confessional songwriting" by looking at it from every possible angle: Dylan's musical decision to return to folk after his electric and country periods; the disintegration of his marriage to his first wife, Sara, in the wake of Dylan's various affairs; his strained relationship with his younger brother, David, who helped remake the album in Minneapolis. While the authors do give a truly complete sense of the background that produced the album, much of this has been covered in far more detail in such books as Clinton Heylin's Bob Dylan: Behind the Shades Revisited (which the authors cite) and will be familiar to all Dylan fans. Fortunately, the authors shine throughout the rest of the book, which presents an enormous amount of previously unreported detail about the making of the album—down to the kind of microphones that were used. Their descriptions of the energy and enthusiasm of these musicians will make even the most hardcore Dylan fan hear Blood on the Tracks anew.
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About this edition

• Publisher: Da Capo Press
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0306814137
• ISBN 13: 9780306814136
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 264