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Music for
Grown-Ups Newsletter
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14/09/2006 High praise for the new Rough Guide to Bob Dylan
The Rough Guide concept – feisty travel books for the young and young-at-heart - was a striking innovation: the series immediately plugged a yawning gap. Having exhausted tourist destinations, the publishers eventually rolled out the concept to cover music, among other things. The Rough Guide music books - on opera, jazz and world music - are exemplary; only the early volume on rock music fails to excite this reviewer. The more recent titles, on the big-hitting popular musicians, from Sinatra to Elvis and The Stones to the Beatles, are just as good. The new (2nd) edition of Nigel Williamson’s The Rough Guide To Bob Dylan is probably the best of all. The first edition, published a couple of years ago, was impressive. The new edition, updated and presented in the series’ bigger format, is an essential purchase. Its primary audience is the general music fan with a leaning towards Dylan, but it will also appeal to hardcore Zimnuts, even those, like me, who already own over a hundred different Bob titles. The Rough Guide is really a book of two halves. The first half, tracking Dylan’s history, is, as its author readily acknowledges, adapted from myriad original sources. It’s none the worse for that – for summarising a groaning shelf of earlier books, and acres of magazine cuttings, in intelligent, accessible prose, and peppering it with the insight of a seasoned Dylanophile, Williamson deserves the gratitude of neophyte and hardcore fan alike. The second half of the Rough Guide is entirely original, consisting of Williamson’s evaluation of Dylan’s recorded legacy. Succinct, finely judged album reviews and discussion of the "Top 50" songs are the main attraction. Williamson's fine, thoughtful prose is a pleasure to read: knowledgeable, and fair-minded, too. What I like most about the writing is the independence of mind – where else have you seen praise for albums like Empire Burlesque, Dylan & The Dead, Before The Flood, Real Live and MTV Unplugged? These normally maligned releases are reassessed, upwards, here – and rightly so. Williamson’s generosity of spirit shines through, too: he consistently errs on the side of the positive - an unusual trait in Dylan books. But he’s unafraid of calling a spade a spade when it’s warranted – Knocked Out Loaded, Down In The Groove, anyone? But, even here, the criticism is delivered with grace. Not for this writer the malice which undermines some others. Launched last week, the book is commendably up-to-date - it even covers the early XM Radio shows. Complementing the fine prose, The Rough Guide is beautifully designed. The handy size, judicious use of an entire gallery of telling photographs, and the bite-sized pullout text, on themes as varied as The Live Aid Debacle and Tarantula, make this the most accessible, user-friendly, and inviting of Dylan books: you just want to pick it up and read it. The Dylan Rough Guide isn’t perfect - though it doesn’t miss by much. A careful reading might pick up factual errors and omissions – they are unavoidable in a book of this nature - but I noticed very few on my speed read: University of “Keel”; there was a Byrds covers album long before the 2001 release mentioned here; Chronicles was treated to a compilation 2CD of much of the music mentioned in the book; Dylan’s “US tour” with Joni Mitchell and Van Morrison took in only, if memory serves, a handful of dates on the N American West Coast; and some of the covers pictured in the Books chapter are of the American editions – English readers, for example, will search for them in vain. Some might cavil at the balance of the book – Dylan’s legacy, the albums, is covered in only 45 pages (of 321), though the Top 50 Songs chapter takes the legacy pagination to a quarter of the book. I’m no great lover of musical biography, but I think the balance here of life/music is about right. And every Dylan fan will disagree with some of Williamson’s “Top 50” songs. I, for one, would ditch the over-rated Sad-Eyed Lady Of The Lowlands, a shaggy dog story I’ve never once succeeded in sticking with to the end. And I’d add Mississippi. Nit-picking apart, The Rough Guide to Bob Dylan is a very fine addition to the growing library of Zimmerman books. Author and publisher deserve high praise: they have just delivered a fitting celebration of the life and work of a towering genius.
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