Introduction

Dylan's friends--from Pete Seeger to Bruce Springsteen to Rosanne Cash to Bono to Tom Petty--offer insight into the singer-songwriter's artistic genius and personality. This is an oral history of a major musician who played a significant role in America's cultural history. His story is told by the musicians who were at his side during the `60s rollicking changes and artistic breakthroughs. Bob Dylan: Intimate Insights provides a keen portrait of the friendships that helped shape important musicians whose voices influenced our society as a whole. Herein are insights not only into Dylan's elusive personality but into the lives of the major musicians of our times.

Musicians included...
Liam Clancy
Pete Seeger
Joan Baez
Bobby Vee
Maria Muldaur
Johnny Rivers
Kris Kristofferson
Ronnie Hawkins
Rosanne Cash
Tom Petty
Bruce Springsteen
Bono
The Beatles

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Excerpt

Foreword:

Many members of Generation X look back on the ‘60s with a slight twinge of envy: all that community, “make love not war,” what was that like? Speaking for one who was there, it was a euphoric time to be young in America, and the generations that came of age in the 1960s and 1970s had a feeling of belonging to something larger than themselves. Folk music gave birth to protest songs, which Pete Seeger traces in his book on the songs of the civil rights movement, Everybody Says Freedom (co-authored with Bob Reiser, Norton, 1989). The music had an incredibly moving, spiritual power. When Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his “I Have a Dream” speech at the Washington March in 1963, Dylan and Joan Baez sang together in front of a quarter of a million people, and Peter, Paul and Mary sang “Blowin’ in the Wind.”

During the ‘60s, whether fighting for racial equality or protesting the Vietnam War, music was the glue that held the community together: our common language. It was not just the dynamic power that emanated from Dylan’s band playing “Like a Rolling Stone” or “Maggie’s Farm,” or the explosive passion that smoldered from Hendrix as he wailed “Purple Haze.” It was also the words that unified people, the words that connected people, and Dylan was the master.

“Come mothers and fathers

throughout the land

And don’t criticize

what you don’t understand

Your sons and your daughters

are beyond your command

Your old road is

Rapidly agin’”

“The Times They Are A Changin’”

B. Dylan Copyright 1963, renewed 1991 Special Rider Music

From the simplicity and universal feeling of “Blowin’ in the Wind” and “The Times They are a Changin’” to the hymn-like reverence of “With God On Our Side,” Dylan crafted songs that became poetic anthems of the civil rights and peace movements. As Joan Baez said, “Nothing could have spoken better for our generation than ‘The Times They Are a-Changin’.’” Yet he did not rest there. Later, with savage imagery in songs like “Desolation Row” or “It’s Alright Ma/I’m Only Bleeding” he rode like an outlaw where others had not tread:

“ Darkness at the break of noon

Shadows even the silver spoon

The handmade blade, the child’s balloon

Eclipses both the sun and moon

To understand you know too soon

There is no sense in trying….”

“It’s Alright Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)

B. Dylan

c 1965 by Warner Bros. Inc.

He combined the influences of the Beat poets Gregory Corso, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and Allen Ginsberg with his own rhythmic, driving lyricism and painted vivid portraits of the streets, of confusion, despair, irony and love.

Other songs would contain softer, more musical, poetic rhymes: “I once loved a woman/A child I am told/I gave her my heart/But she wanted my soul.” (“Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright”). Yet as Baez said, it was his “disjointed, magnificent, and magical words” that would set him apart from songwriters of yore.

“To dance beneath the diamond sky

With one hand waving free

Silhouetted by the sea, circled by the circus sands

With all memory and hate driven deep beneath the waves

Let me forget about today until tomorrow….”

“Mr. Tambourine Man”, B. Dylan

copyright 1964, renewed 1992 Special Rider Music

Through the power of his lyrics Dylan redefined folk rock. By expanding the genre’s boundaries he cleared a path for others to follow. Many artists have covered Dylan songs, yet certain musicians have distinguished themselves with their handling of the material. When Bruce Springsteen was heralded as “the future of rock & roll” by Jon Landau in 1974, he was also compared to Dylan, a great compliment. The powerful images and political import of songs by Pearl Jam and U2 also owe a debt to Dylan. Both bands also covered many Dylan songs: from Pearl Jam’s “Masters of War” to U2’s “All Along the Watchtower.” It’s exciting to hear Bono talk about his gratitude for Dylan’s inspiration and the spirit he tries to capture when he performs Dylan songs like “Hurricane” and “Maggie’s Farm.” When Springsteen inducted Dylan into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1988, he told the audience at the black-tie dinner at the Waldorf Astoria in New York that he wouldn’t be where he was if it were not for Dylan’s inspiration. “There isn’t a soul in this room who doesn’t owe you their thanks,” Springsteen said to the honoree in front of the music industry crowd.

Dylan was the first to blend rock with great literary influences. By synthesizing his musical roots – Little Richard, Chuck Berry, Hank Williams, Robert Johnson – with the poetic influences – Allen Ginsberg, Kerouac, Woody Guthrie, Blake, and Rimbaud – he elevated rock to a new form. Consider the impact of “Desolation Row, ””Visions of Johanna,” and “Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands.” In writing such songs, Dylan expanded folk and rock boundaries to new, rich, and original levels of musicality. He also introduced to rock music the hard-bitten realism and social conscience prevalent in folk, moving the rock genre from the lilting love songs of the 1960s to a more socially relevant, aware music that captured the times from “The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll” to “Subterranean Homesick Blues” and “It’s Alright Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)”.

And what did he look like in the early days? We have seen the photos, now we hear from his friends. Donovan was introduced to Dylan by Joan Baez in 1964, who described him as, “Dressed all in black, he wore a pair of Anello & Davide boots worthy of any gypsy. He was quite small and slight of frame, a very pretty young man with bad teeth and curiously solid hands. His slim features were widened at the jawline with powerful muscles. Definitely the thinking girl’s dreamboat.” view abbreviated excerpt only...

Discussion Questions

From the Author:

1) Why has Bob Dylan always had the reputation for being such an elusive performer, so careful of his privacy?

2) Why is Bob Dylan considered the premier songwriter of the baby boomer generation?

3) Which musician's interview in this book did you enjoy the most? Pete Seeger? Kris Kristofferson? Rosanne Cash?

Weblinks

»	Author Kathleen Mackay's web site
»	Reviews
»	Library Journal Review An essential purchase for all Dylan fans and for libraries with large popular culture collections.

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