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Customer Reviews

Having been a Bob Dylan fan/enthusiast for over 40 years, this scrapbook was a wonderful surprise! I was expecting a fairly simple book... it is anything but. I love the way it is put together. It's an actual "scrapbook", filled with many items of fun and informative memorabilia... very creatively done.

For the most part I have been only a collector of the songs of Bob Dylan... the music and the lyrics. All I needed to know about the man was, and still is, in his songs. However, since the realease of 'Chronicles Vol I' and the Martin Scorsese Documentary, 'No Direction Home' I have been searching for more. This scrapbook... what a treat!

What a gift! Dylan's "Chronicles" gives us fascinating insight into the mind of the twentienth century's greatest songwriter. (Of, course he's a gifted and innovative artist, but revelations from "The Bard of Hibbing" are a real treat.)

His autobiographical memoir mainly focuses on keys portions of his life. He vividly shares his childhood, college days, the struggling times before he established himself, and influences that brought him to the top. There are some references to his celebrated work, but he mainly jumps ahead to his comeback, the making of "Oh, Mercy," and his collaboration with Daniel Lanois. The recollections give us the sights, sounds, celebrities, and influences that coalesced into the master we have come to know. Fortunately for us, his memory is so keen and clear that we are easily transported to every place and time. We hear about the influences we know (Woody Guthrie, the Seegers) and the ones we don't know, including those we've never heard of before. He also shows us the key nightclubs, hangouts, and residences that shaped his life. The details make the sojourn all worthwhile. Another special feature is when he separates fact from fiction about himself, even when the latter was his own creation. But, the best highlights are when he is able to trace his thoughts back to key compositions and show the insight by which they were created.

The book's focus is sharp, but there is some disappointment, as well, about his chosen destinations. There seems to be some jumps between synapses in his memory (but, in all fairness, it is subtitled, Volume 1, so there is more to come). The presentation is sometimes damaged when he jumps so far ahead in his life; it is jarring at times. One may want to know more about his motorcycle accident, "Blonde on Blonde," The Band, "The Basement Tapes," but that may have been saved for another day (volumes two or three, hopefully!) However, in his defense, this book chronicles what is important to Dylan, a worthy focus in its own right. Some of the best moments he shares include how fame ruined his domestic life, how he refused to be pigeon-holed, how he didn't want to be turned into an activist (rather than the artist he wanted to be). The details of his Woodstock residence and his attempts to sabotage his own career to escape the fray are illuminating.

Sincere and lucid, "Chronicles" is a reader's feast that easily may never have come to fruition for many reasons. It is a fascinating read from a fascinating man.

Dylan is by far the greatest songwriter of all-time and perfectly deserving of a noble prize in literature if ever one is bestowed upon him. However this stream of consciousness book is pure crap. It will be a highly collectible book if you have the first edition, first printing in good conditon in about 50 years. Till then read Lyrics 1961-2001 or Chronicles vol.1 instead.

"Younger Than That Now" is subtitled "The Collected Interviews with Bob Dylan," which implies you'll find every interview Dylan has given through the years. That may be an impossible task, but certainly it would be practical to collect the interviews he gave to major publications in one thick volume.

"Younger Than That Now" doesn't do that. Notably absent are the interviews I was hoping to find, particularly Dylan's hilariously elusive conversation with Jann Wenner in a 1969 issue of Rolling Stone in which Wenner tries and fails to get Dylan to acknowledge that he's a "youth leader" and a spokesman for someone other than himself. Then there's the 1978 interview with Jonathan Cott, also in Rolling Stone, that, in hindsight, hinted at his conversion to Christianity while also demonstrating his sense of humor.

So, "Younger Than That Now" isn't definitive. As long as you know that before you dive in, it's a worthwhile read collecting many memorable exchanges Dylan had with the press through the years.

Brian W. Fairbanks

This book on the complete lyrics of Bob Dylan is far worth every penny you will pay for it. It is so beautifully bound, and so easy to read these fantastic lyrics that Dylan has written through his life. However, all of Bob Dylan's songs with the Traveling Wilburys are not included here, but just take a look at what is here, and you will probably forget what is missing.

Arrived quickly and even better than I thought from the description. Hundreds of Dylan songs with words and chords for each. Just what you need to get you started imitating the great master!

Bob Dylan is not only a great songwriter and performer, but has had a long-standing interest in other media, particularly filmmaking and the visual arts. Some of his drawings and paintings illustrated his book Lyrics 1962-1985, the album covers of The Band's Music from Big Pink and his own album, Self Portrait. Drawn Blank is the most comprehensive collection of his art work to date. In a brief introduction to the book, he calls the work "sketches for paintings that either never were painted, have yet to be painted (or more likely never will be painted)." He states that the drawings were executed over a three-year period between 1989 and 1991 (though hard-core fans have identified many of them as having been executed earlier, possibly from 1985). The drawings are expressionistic and realistic: portraits and interiors and landscapes, many apparently drawn while on the road, from hotel room windows and other places he was passing through.

The obvious question raised by a book like Drawn Blank is whether the drawings succeed on their own terms or simply function as pop culture fetishes. Drawn Blank seems to tackle this question by treating its material simply and straightforwardly, and with a minimum of hype: there is no text in the book other than Dylan's introduction; no information is given about who the drawings depict, where they were drawn, or when they were done. Perhaps like Dylan's well-known avoidance of stage patter, this is a way of trying to let the works speak for themselves and to maintain Dylan's privacy - and indirectly, to add to the mystery and glamour of the work, to make it more abstract.

The drawings in Drawn Blank show some of Dylan's conservative tendencies as well as his moral interests. In the introduction, he mentions a high school art teacher's advice to draw what you see "so that if you were at a loss for words, something could be explained and, even more importantly, not be misunderstood." While the drawings show Dylan's attempts to "get at something other than the world we know" through drawing from observation, viewed in the context of his music, they are somewhat disappointing - they don't show the same range of imagery and are not as involved with metaphor as his songwriting. They are functional; like Dylan says, a way for him to "relax and refocus a restless mind." Some of the most interesting drawings in Drawn Blank are those where earlier drawings are visible underneath later ones - what may be a skull, barely visible underneath a still life; a cross that says "Jesus Saves" underneath a drawing of a neighborhood seen through a window; a figure showing through a drawing of a tree. The style of many of the drawings has an effect like that of Dylan's singing voice or his harmonica playing - gratingly smudgy, apparently unschooled, but with a stubborn integrity that can grow on you. They are as uncommercial a bunch of drawings as one might see, sent into the world to see if anything might happen as a result.

Drawn Blank's "On the Road"-like pictures of rural America, roadside stops, dressing rooms, cars and trucks, bicycles, playground equipment, tables and chairs, naked women's butts, and friends make no great claims for themselves. The drawings offer an intimate look at another way Dylan views the world, and offer a way of vicariously traveling with Bob in a way that is unavailable through performances and recordings. Dylan's straight-ahead effort to experience and understand the world through drawing helps to make Drawn Blank appealing. At the same time, Dylan uses drawing to maintain his distance, to create some private space in the middle of the commercial and very public world he occupies. In Drawn Blank, Dylan's artwork, like his music, gives him a way of both capturing private experience and offering that experience publicly, as a gift.

(adapted from a review first published in Texte zur Kunst, August 1995)


A friend and I were out shopping a few weeks ago and we both picked up Bob Dylan's "No Direction Home: The Soundtrack" CD, which is the 7th volume in Dylan's archival Bootleg Series, and also the soundtrack for Martin Scorsese's excellent PBS documentary of the same title. The album is outstanding and now that my shopping pal's birthday is coming up, Halloween actually, I decided that Dylan's "Lyrics, 1962-1985" would be a near perfect gift. She is a major Dylan fan, as am I, and we have been for almost forty years. Time flies!

One of the deciding factors for making this purchase is that the hardcover volume edition makes an excellent, elegant presentation. The cover is laminated and each poem is printed singly on large, cream-stock pages with colored headers. Arranged by album, the book is a compilation of all of Dylan's writings and drawings, ('62 - '85), some wonderful pen sketches ranging in topic from roadside scenes to the romantic, plus 120 new compositions and an Index of song titles. "Lyrics, 1962-1985" is an extraordinary celebration of the artist's/composer's work.

"Highway 61 Revisited," "Blonde on Blonde," Tangled Up In Blue," "Masters of War," "Don't Think Twice, It's Alright," "With God On Our Side," "It Ain't Me Babe," "My Back Pages," "Subterranean Homesick Blues," "Stuck Inside of Mobile With the Memphis Blues Again," "You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go," "Tonight I'll Be Staying Here With You," "This Wheel's On Fire," "Shelter From The Storm," etc., and hundreds of others - they're all here! Dylan's liner notes and stream-of-consciousness short prose pieces really enhance the text.

Bob Dylan is a songwriter, musician and poet - an artistic genius and innovator whose tremendous body of work has had a major impact on over 40 years of American music, from the oldest anonymous folk ballads through blues and country into rock-and-roll. He expanded popular music by including politics, social commentary and philosophy into its vocabulary. He told more folks what was happening than the politicians and news reporters combined...and the counterculture loved him! We still do! While exploring and creating musical styles, Dylan did remain true to his roots in traditional American song.

I am so sorry that the book is out of print. Fortunately, I was able to purchase it, "New," from an Amazon marketplace seller at a very reasonable price. Highly recommended!
JANA

Editorial Reviews

Created as a companion piece to Martin Scorsese's PBS documentary No Direction Home: Bob Dylan, The Bob Dylan Scrapbook, 1956-1966 is a visual and educational treat for old and new Dylanphiles alike. Written by Robert Santelli, the director of Seattle's Experience Music Project and curator of the museum's Bob Dylan's American Journey exhibit, the book is very well researched and presented in a scrapbook format filled with removable reproductions, including handwritten lyrics of "Gates of Eden," "Blowin' in the Wind," and "Chimes of Freedom," programs of Dylan's historical performances, various bits of memorabilia, and endless amount of photographs. The Bob Dylan Scrapbook, 1956-1966 will provide the new Dylan fan with loads of background information and anecdotes that were left out of Scorsese's film. Lifelong Dylanphiles will likely know Dylan's late 1950s to mid 1960s history already, and will be enchanted by the endless reproductions that are strategically placed throughout the book. If that wasn't enough, the book also includes a 45 minute CD of 18 interviews, ten of which appeared in the No Direction Home documentary. If you ever want to open someone up to the world of Bob Dylan there is no better place to point them to this incredible trifeca: No Direction Home: Bob Dylan on DVD, No Direction Home: The Soundtrack (The Bootleg Series Vol. 7) on CD, and this wonderful book. --Rob Bracco

One would not anticipate a conventional memoir from Bob Dylan--indeed, one would not have foreseen an autobiography at all from the pen of the notoriously private legend. What Chronicles: Volume 1 delivers is an odd but ultimately illuminating memoir that is as impulsive, eccentric, and inspired as Dylan's greatest music.

Eschewing chronology and skipping over most of the "highlights" that his many biographers have assigned him, Dylan drifts and rambles through his tale, amplifying a series of major and minor epiphanies. If you're interested in a behind-the-scenes look at his encounters with the Beatles, look elsewhere. Dylan describes the sensation of hearing the group's "Do You Want to Know a Secret" on the radio, but devotes far more ink to a Louisiana shopkeeper named Sun Pie, who tells him, "I think all the good in the world might already been done" and sells him a World's Greatest Grandpa bumper sticker. Dylan certainly sticks to his own agenda--a newspaper article about journeymen heavyweights Jerry Quarry and Jimmy Ellis and soul singer Joe Tex's appearance on The Tonight Show inspire heartfelt musings, and yet the 1963 assassination of John Kennedy prompts nary a word from the era's greatest protest singer.

For all the small revelations (it turns out he's been a big fan of Barry Goldwater, Mickey Rourke, and Ice-T), there are eye-opening disclosures, including his confession that a large portion of his recorded output was designed to alienate his audience and free him from the burden of being a "the voice of a generation."

Off the beaten path as it is, Chronicles is nevertheless an astonishing achievement. As revelatory in its own way as Blonde on Blonde or Highway 61 Revisited, it provides ephemeral insights into the mind one of the most significant artistic voices of the 20th century while creating a completely new set of mysteries. --Steven Stolder

Published to coincide with the tenth anniversary of his passing, Jerry Garcia: The Collected Artwork is a profusely illustrated showcase of, and appreciation for, Jerry Garcia's art, life, and creative spirit. Opening with a foreword by Mickey Hart, the collection features more than 100 full-color reproductions of his paintings, drawings, and prints. This historic presentation of Jerry's distinguished body of work (which includes pen and inks, acrylics, watercolors, and digital media) is at once a stunning art book in an accessible, coffee-table format and an intimate and playful celebration of his creativity.

Edited by April Higashi, art curator and archivist of the Jerry Garcia estate, each chapter opens with a commentary on the art presented in the context of Jerry's life and times. Punctuating these essays are "interludes," illustrated by candid photographs, featuring interviews, anecdotes, and remembrances by key cultural figures as well as those closest to Jerry. Participants include Bob Dylan, Patti Smith, Herbert Gold, Donna Godchaux, Victor Moscoso, Carlos Santana, Baron Wolman, Paul Pena, and members of the Garcia and Grateful Dead families.

Bob Dylan wrote Tarantula in 1966. It existed for years only in dog-eared bootleg copies, but was eventually published in 1971. The book captures the tone and spirit of the turbulent times in which it was written.

Gathered here are the most revealing and personal of Dylan's interviews. As a group they show a brilliant, adored, and eclectic musician, unsettled and angered by the fame and reverence surrounding him.

This collection contains Bob Dylan's lyrics, from his first album, Bob Dylan, to 2001's "Love and Theft."



...features over 329 tunes,including all of his greatest hits as well as his lesser know work...songs include: Blowin' In the Wind,Just Like A Woman,Mr.Tambourine Man, She Belongs to Me and hundreds more

An extraodinary collection of drawings and sketches-of women, hotel rooms, cityscapes, and more-by the world's best-known singer-songwriter, each accompanied by a note or short poem.

Matching folio to the Martin Scorsese picture No Direction Home: Bob Dylan. With melody, chord symbols, and full lyrics.

Songs include:
When I've Got Troubles
I Was Young When I Left Home
Dink's Song
Rambler Gambler
Man of Constant Sorrow
This Land Is Your Land
Song to Woody
Baby Let Me Follow You Down
Sally Gal
Blowing In the Wind
Only a Pawn in Their Game
Masters of War
The Hour When the Ship Comes In
Mr. Tambourine Man
Maggie's Farm
She Belongs to Me
Love Minus Zero
It's All Right Ma, I'm Only Bleeding
Outlaw Blues
It's All Over Now, Baby Blue
Like a Rolling Stone
Tombstone Blues
It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry
Desolation Row
Ballad of a Thin Man
Highway 61
Just Like Tom Thumb Blues
Visions of Johanna
Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again
Leopard Skin Pill Box Hat

The complete collection includes all of Dylan's writings and drawings plus 120 new writings. Index of song titles.

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