Song and Dance Man: The Art of Bob Dylan - Hardcover

Gray, Michael

4.08

126 ratings by Goodreads

9780525206859: Song and Dance Man: The Art of Bob Dylan

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 052520685X ISBN 13: 9780525206859

Publisher: E. P. Dutton, 1972

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Michael Gray's 'Song and Dance Man III', on Bob Dylan's life and work, offers studies of Dylan's' entire oeuvre, and the ever-popular album-by-album guide has also been extensively updated and extended.

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About the Author:

MICHAEL GRAY is a distinguished critic, writer &broadcaster. He graduated in History &English Literature at York University, England, in the 1960s, where he studied under the controversial, brilliant critic Professor F. R. Leavis, and where as a student journalist he interviewed, among others, the eminent British historian A. J. P. Taylor and the legendary American guitarist Jimi Hendrix. His pioneering study of Bob Dylan's work, Song &Dance Man, first published in the 1970s in Britain, America and Japan, was the first full-length critical study of this crucial 20th Century cultural figure. It is now recognised as a classic in its field. A selection of pieces on Dylan, All Across The Telegraph: A Bob Dylan Handbook, published in 1987, was co-edited by Gray and included work by several distinguished academics in the fields of English &American Literature and Music. In 1996, Michael Gray co-authored The Elvis Atlas: A Journey Through Elvis Presley's America, published in hardback in New York by Henry Holt. The massive Song &Dance Man III: The Art of Bob Dylan was published by Continuum in March 2000. A special reprint appeared in the US in April 2001, when Gray delivered talks at a number of US universities; a fourth reprint was published in New York and London in 2002 and a fifth in 2004. Michael Gray is recognised as a world authority on the work of Bob Dylan and is an expert on rock'n'roll history and the blues, with a special interest in pre-war blues. Please visit his blog at http://bobdylanencyclopedia.blogspot.com.

Review:

"Monumental, endlessly illuminating" - Rolling Stone (Rolling Stone)

"Impressive." —Christianity Today (Christianity Today)

"Notably, there is a fat, new edition of Michael Gray's huge and wonderful critical work, Song and Dance Man (a lifetime's labor). Cranky, eloquent, opinionated, exhaustive, Gray's book proves that scholarship can be fun to read....The secret engine driving Dylan's art is lost to us, deep inside a black box. Michael Gray's intellectual efforts in Song and Dance Man probably come as close as analysis can to unlocking possible sources, chasing arcane references, connecting the dots." —The News & Observer (The News & Observer)

"The definitive critical work."—Evening Standard (London), 2/24/03 (Evening Standard (London))

“Extraordinarily useful... I have always admired Gray’s reach, tone, and acuity but the research here is just amazing.” - Greil Marcus (Greil Marcus)

“One of the three best books of the year.” (Andrew Motion, British Poet Laureate, The Observer, London)

“Immense and immensely illuminating... It is wonderfully comic and serious and sharp. I am enjoying it hugely and learning from every page.” - Christopher Ricks (Christopher Ricks)

“In examining the influences that shaped Dylan into one of the most influential postwar artists, Gray draws on everyone from Elvis to Eliot, Robert Johnson to Rimbaud...This huge work is overwhelming... ‘It’s all been written in the book,’ sang Bob Dylan. Now it really has.” - The Times, London (The Times, London)

“Illuminating, wry and exhaustive.” - Newsday, US (Organ Australia)

“The definitive critical work.” - EVENING STANDARD, London, 2003 (Evening Standard)

“The third (and allegedly final) edition of Michael Gray’s pioneering tome... runs to a colossal 900 pages and confirms once again Gray’s position as the doyen of Dylan scholars... even in its initial modest form, [it] was profoundly significant... His book invented a new school of rock criticism which made most of the writing that had gone before seem superficial, irrelevant and trivial... The third edition of Gray’s lifetime study displays an almost insane degree of scholarship... quite dazzlingly brilliant... an intellectual tour de force... an essential companion. * * * * * ” - UNCUT, London (Uncut)

“Indispensable... His research is formidable, and his knowledge encyclopedic... great cogency, confidence and authority... a quite splendid critic... Gray can explain how the text [of a song] works poetically. It’s a rare gift:... [his] expositions of ‘Every Grain Of Sand’, ‘Angelina’, ‘Jokerman’ and ‘Under the Red Sky’ are utterly definitive... at the heart of this book is some of the finest critical writing ever done about Bob Dylan.” - STEPHEN SCOBIE, University of Victoria, Canada & author of Alias Bob Dylan: (Stephen Scobie)

“Serious Dylan criticism... intricate analyses... monumental.” - BRYAN APPLEYARD, Sunday Times, London: (BRYAN APPLEYARD)

“A startling piece of scholarship. By scrutinizing Dylan’s canon, Gray achieves a fresh read of his life... Song & Dance Man III overshadows others’ accounts of secret marriages and mythic motorcycle crashes, and it entirely outdoes other analyses... frank, insightful, unassailably excellent.”

“The original ‘Song & Dance Man’ was a pioneering piece of rock scholarship... Written with great intelligence and passion... the result was the first important book about a rock artist’s output, not just their life... But these 250 pages are merely a fragment of the 900-page monster which Gray has [now] unleashed... magnificent... soaked in insight.” - Record Collector, London (Record Collector, London)

“It is the most penetrating and clear-headed work... a monumental achievement.” - DAVID HAJDU, author of Positively 4th Street (DAVID HAJDU, author of Positively 4th Street)

“Fascinating, scholarly and very readable... The longest and most relevant chapter for Blueprint readers [‘Even Post-Structuralists Oughta Have The Pre-War Blues’], is... packed solid with informative and enthralling reading. I cannot congratulate Gray enough for this outstanding chapter... [a] very important study. A thoroughly enjoyable and informative book by an author who writes knowledgeably, with style and with great insight - very highly recommended to all.” - BLUEPRINT, British blues magazine (BLUEPRINT, British blues magazine:)

“This book is an event... delivering prodigious analyses of Dylan’s artistry and his polymath sources in pre-war blues, nursery rhymes, fairy tales and Hollywood movie dialogue... Gray maintains a ruthless integrity regarding Dylan himself. * * * * * ” - Q, London (Q, London)

“A mammoth work of scholarship, often enthralling and never less than illuminating. His chapter on Dylan’s sources in the blues... is almost worth the price of admission alone... This is trenchant and thought-provoking stuff, and pretty much characterises Gray’s style and his approach to a subject who has suffered more than most at the hands of lesser, and less well-informed, critics.” THE OBSERVER, London, 2003 (THE OBSERVER, London, 2003)

“...[T]he real story of Blood on the Tracks...lies within the lines of the album’s 10 songs, in the sound that Dylan pursued and finally captured, in the landscape of regret, memory and hope that opens up when ever the album is played. To delve into these songs is to study some of the finest works in American song. The job requires someone with the boldness and breadth of knowledge shown by Michael Grey whose hefty study Song and Dance Man puts the bulk of rock-crit writing about Dylan to shame.” –Salon.com, 4/27/04

"...[an] in-depth scholarly analys[is] of Dylan as a poet, comparing him with showing influences of such writers as Keats, John Donne and Eliot....recommended." -SDTtoday, October 12, 2004 (Harper Barnes St. Louis Post-Dispatch)

"Monumental, endlessly illuminating" - Rolling Stone (Sanford Lakoff)

"Impressive." —Christianity Today (Sanford Lakoff)

"Notably, there is a fat, new edition of Michael Gray's huge and wonderful critical work, Song and Dance Man (a lifetime's labor). Cranky, eloquent, opinionated, exhaustive, Gray's book proves that scholarship can be fun to read....The secret engine driving Dylan's art is lost to us, deep inside a black box. Michael Gray's intellectual efforts in Song and Dance Man probably come as close as analysis can to unlocking possible sources, chasing arcane references, connecting the dots." —The News & Observer (Sanford Lakoff)

"The definitive critical work."—Evening Standard (London), 2/24/03 (Sanford Lakoff)

“Indispensable... His research is formidable, and his knowledge encyclopedic... great cogency, confidence and authority... a quite splendid critic... Gray can explain how the text [of a song] works poetically. It’s a rare gift:... [his] expositions of ‘Every Grain Of Sand’, ‘Angelina’, ‘Jokerman’ and ‘Under the Red Sky’ are utterly definitive... at the heart of this book is some of the finest critical writing ever done about Bob Dylan.” - STEPHEN SCOBIE, University of Victoria, Canada & author of Alias Bob Dylan: (Sanford Lakoff)

“A startling piece of scholarship. By scrutinizing Dylan’s canon, Gray achieves a fresh read of his life... Song & Dance Man III overshadows others’ accounts of secret marriages and mythic motorcycle crashes, and it entirely outdoes other analyses... frank, insightful, unassailably excellent.” (Sanford Lakoff)

“The original ‘Song & Dance Man’ was a pioneering piece of rock scholarship... Written with great intelligence and passion... the result was the first important book about a rock artist’s output, not just their life... But these 250 pages are merely a fragment of the 900-page monster which Gray has [now] unleashed... magnificent... soaked in insight.” - Record Collector, London (Sanford Lakoff)

"...[an] in-depth scholarly analys[is] of Dylan as a poet, comparing him with showing influences of such writers as Keats, John Donne and Eliot....recommended." -SDTtoday, October 12, 2004 (Sanford Lakoff St. Louis Post-Dispatch)

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