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Summary
Summary
From the world's leading authority on Bob Dylan comes the definitive biography that promises to transform our understanding of the man and musician--thanks to early access to Dylan's never-before-studied archives.
In 2016 Bob Dylan sold his personal archive to the George Kaiser Foundation in Tulsa, Oklahoma, reportedly for $22 million. As the boxes started to arrive, the Foundation asked Clinton Heylin--author of the acclaimed Bob Dylan: Behind the Shades and 'perhaps the world's authority on all things Dylan' ( Rolling Stone )--to assess the material they had been given. What he found in Tulsa--as well as what he gleaned from other papers he had recently been given access to by Sony and the Dylan office--so changed his understanding of the artist, especially of his creative process, that he became convinced that a whole new biography was needed. It turns out that much of what previous biographers--Dylan himself included--have said is wrong.
With fresh and revealing information on every page A Restless, Hungry Feeling tells the story of Dylan's meteoric rise to fame: his arrival in early 1961 in New York, where he is embraced by the folk scene; his elevation to spokesman of a generation whose protest songs provide the soundtrack for the burgeoning Civil Rights movement; his alleged betrayal when he 'goes electric' at Newport in 1965; his subsequent controversial world tour with a rock 'n' roll band; and the recording of his three undisputed electric masterpieces: Bringing it All Back Home , Highway 61 Revisited and Blonde on Blonde . At the peak of his fame in July 1966 he reportedly crashes his motorbike in Woodstock, upstate New York, and disappears from public view. When he re-emerges, he looks different, his voice sounds different, his songs are different.
Clinton Heylin's meticulously researched, all-encompassing and consistently revelatory account of these fascinating early years is the closest we will ever get to a definitive life of an artist who has been the lodestar of popular culture for six decades.
Reviews (3)
Kirkus Review
Bob Dylan (b. 1941) has spent decades augmenting his singular talent by mythologizing, misdirecting, and outright lying about his life. This ambitious biography seeks the truth. Noted music historian and critic Heylin has already written 10 books about Dylan, including the well-regarded biography Bob Dylan Behind the Shades (1991), as well as portraits of the Velvet Underground, Sex Pistols, Springsteen, and other rock luminaries. Here, the author is armed with material from Dylan's papers and outtake footage from tour documentaries now housed at the Gilcrease Museum in Tulsa. Even with those documents, not to mention Dylan's own autobiography, Chronicles, and hundreds of interviews and press conferences over the years, the story of how Bobby Zimmerman from Minnesota became one of music's most influential and enduring artists remains murky. To his credit, Heylin leans into the confusion, documenting who said what and how they would know even though it makes some parts, especially the chapters on Dylan's early years, hard to follow. We still don't even get a straight story on the origin of the name change. "Even in 1960," writes the author, "he delighted in spinning yarns, telling close friend Dave Whitaker that it 'was his mother's name, and that he had taken it because…he didn't want to be known by his father's name.' " The last part of that statement, at least, was true. But since his Jewish mother's family had come from Russia, it must have seemed to the worldly Whitaker rather unlikely that her family name was Welsh for 'son of the sea.' " Heylin is on stronger footing in his discussions with eyewitnesses and analysis of documentary footage and studio recordings from sessions for such classics as "Like a Rolling Stone" or "Visions of Johanna." In these passages, the narrative becomes an enlightening, informative delight. Impressively researched, this deep look at Dylan's early career and initial stardom is a decidedly uneven but enjoyable ride. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Virtually no one has written as much about Bob Dylan as Heylin, yet he has more to say. Much more, after scouring the Bob Dylan Archive at the Gilcrease Museum in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The previously unseen material he viewed there led him to the conclusion that he had to rethink Dylan's entire life and career. Heylin begins in the summer of 1953 at Camp Herzl in northern Wisconsin, where the young Bobby Zimmerman made his public performing debut on Talent Night, vamping on the piano with the risqué R & B classic "Annie Had a Baby" and proclaiming that he was going to be a rock n roll star. The book concludes with the summer of 1966 with Dylan living in Woodstock, New York. It's always been difficult to separate fact from fantasy when considering this iconic songwriter and performer, but, as always, Heylin separates the chaff from the wheat. Full of dizzying amounts of detail and plentiful anecdotes, the result is an exhaustively meticulous but thoroughly entertaining account of the early to middle years of the elusive Mr. Dylan. We may never really get to know him, but Heylin may well have taken us as close as we can get. A must for Dylan fans and for admirers of Heylin's work and a mesmerizing triumph.
Library Journal Review
The latest work on Bob Dylan by his longtime biographer Heylin (Dylan: Behind the Shades) focuses on the artist's first 25 years and attempts to sort out many myths of his life. Heylin's endeavor to understand all things Dylan might never be fully realized, but this book is filled with absorbing details that help flesh out this most elusive of characters. What sets the book apart from other biographies is Heylin's access to Dylan's archive, held temporarily at Tulsa's Gilcrease Museum, with its collection of manuscripts, recordings, and outtakes from documentaries. Heylin covers Dylan's songwriting, recording, and performing, as well as his evolving persona and the friends and lovers who surrounded him as his fame and influence mounted. The heart of this book is a narrative of the roughly 18 months during 1965--66 when Dylan recorded three masterpiece songs, "went electric" at the Newport Folk Festival, and launched one of the most infamous tours in rock history, where angry folk fans heckled Dylan for his new sound. Heylin relies on contemporaneous remarks and more recent remembrances that reflect potentially faulty memories and even some myth-making of their own. VERDICT Dylan remains an enigmatic figure. Heylin's book will be appreciated by devoted fans and is another valuable addition to a puzzle that might never be completed.--James Collins, Morristown-Morris Twp. P.L., NJ
Table of Contents
| That all-important intro ... 2-3-4 | p. 1 |
| Prelude - July 29th, 1961: Down By The Riverside | p. 17 |
| Part 1 A Thief Of Thoughts | p. 23 |
| 1 January to May 1961: Big City Blues | p. 25 |
| 2 Summer 1953 to January 1961: On The Road To Damascus | p. 47 |
| 3 May to October 1961: The Kindness Of (Friends & Other) Strangers | p. 75 |
| 4 November 1961 to March 1962: The Balladeer Fires Broadsides | p. 99 |
| 5 April to October 1962: How Many Roads, So Many Roads | p. 124 |
| 6 May 1941 to June 1959: Have You Heard The News? | p. 150 |
| 7 October 1962 to April 1963: A New World Singer In Ye Olde Worlde | p. 174 |
| 8 April to November 1963: He's Not The Messiah, He's A Very Naughty Boy | p. 202 |
| Winterlude #1 (November/December 1963): Off The Road | p. 230 |
| Part 2 A Thief Of Fire | p. 239 |
| 1 January to June 1964: Becoming Withdrawn | p. 241 |
| 2 June to November 1964: Meet The Beat | p. 265 |
| 3 November 1964 to April 1965: Walking Down A Crooked Highway | p. 288 |
| 4 April to June 1965: Call Me Vérité | p. 312 |
| 5 June to September 1965: The Rites Of Summer | p. 339 |
| 6 September 1965 to March 1966: Both Kinds Of Music | p. 366 |
| 7 March to May 1966: I've Been All Around This World | p. 396 |
| 8 May 1966: Man, I'm Not Even Twenty-Five | p. 424 |
| Winterlude #2 (June/July 1966): Off The Road Again | p. 453 |
| Acknowledgements | p. 459 |
| Notes on Sources | p. 462 |
| Index | p. 499 |