No Direction Home: The Life and Music of Bob Dylan

If you are going to read about Bob Dylan, this is really the only place to start. Every other biography is and must be based on Shelton, who came closer by far to Dylan and his crowd than any other biographer. This edition is also complemented by a complete discography that lists every song on every album and by a time line that goes beyond the book's ending point in the late 70s, bring it up to 2011. This book is extremely well researched and extremely well-written by a writer with great empathy for Dylan's artistic and humanistic spirit. There are other good analyses of Dylan and his myriad of influences and his influence, but you need to read this first to have a basis for understanding him and his achievements.I've been listening to Dylan on and off and runnin' hot and cold since the mid-Sixties. Sometimes I've heard the music and it has touched me so that I wept. At other times, Dylan's words have rung true for my generation, at least the more radical and compassionate among us. Then again, there have been years, nay decades, when I struggled to find one song on three or four albums that spoke to me or made my feet wander across the floor.Robert Shelton's biography of Dylan was much more than I had imagined it to be, revealing intimate details, illuminating dark corners, unveiling rough edges, all while honoring Dylan's extraordinary spirit and enigmatic personality. At times when Dylan shucked and jived every reporter and writer and human being who approached him, there were moments when he allowed Shelton to come closer. This includes allowing Shelton to interview the Zimmermans, the only journalist ever given such access. Shelton also became a regular, if on again and off again, friend and companion to the rapidly evolving Dylan over the course of more than a dozen years. Shelton was not merely a writer looking in, but he hung out with Dylan, his friends, his girlfriends and his bands.One senses that Shelton's own artistry and personal struggles--he was caught up in the Red Scares of the late 50s and early 60s--helped him to understand Dylan, perhaps America's greatest musical artist. The image of Dylan which emerges is complex, nuanced. We see Dylan evolving so rapidly in his song-smithing and artist persona that even his closest friends and family barely recognized him after not seeing him for a mere six months. We see Dylan struggle with fame and glorification, simultaneously relishing and violently rejecting the pedestal he is placed on by his fans and critics. Shelton reveals the boiling intensity with which Dylan dealt with everyone in his life, an intensity borne of creative integrity, overweening ambition, surrealistic ideology, and flailing neuroses, that leaves the hero alone and lonely repeatedly. And we see Dylan grasping at the words and visions that come from his unconsciousness, sometimes at his behest, but often unbidden. Shelton is sometimes right there with him, trying to unravel the meaning of Dylan's rhythmic thought dreams.By the time I finished this Biblical length and depth of a book, while I knew Dylan better, he was still a mystery to me. Beyond his incredible creativity, I also saw what a human, all too human individual he was and is. So: Great Man, Great Book about him--Read it!

This is not THE FIRST, but is THE MOST DETAILED BIO OF DYLAN THRU MID 80's t by the long time lead folk writerfor THE NEW YORK TIMES, Bob Shelton, born Shapiro, died in London, where his archives related to this and other bookson 'folk music,' which he wrote and published, now reside. One of the main ingredients which keeps one reading this author-centeredbook is the continued access to intimate scenes, people, etc. such as access to Baez, Dylan's p arents and friends, and family, as wellas to other key scenes as Dylan moved from a Greenwich Village based folk singer, to a Nashville recording World Rock Star (withBlonde on Blonde, recorded in Nashville, and now the center of the Dylan-Cash display there for the next year plus 2015on) and beyond.Whether Dylan's (to this writer) clear reference to post - Holocaust scenes, and cultural criticism cast in the familiar blues formats ofmid-Western Chicago blues give enough clues to Dylan's connection with prophets like Isaiah or Amos. Of course this will be the longer perspective view of his work, probably not especially detailed until long after his death, which, like BB's, may be a decade or so away, or much further. While we're in this period of discussion of whether he was a singer, a songwriter, a poet, a metaphysical serious thinker, a theologically interesting figure, or just a wandering Jew from the Midwest with an harmonica strapped to his chest, this book will remain one of the top few Must Reads, for anyone interested in the discussion on the never ending Bob Dylan seminar...cheers for summer reading Howard Romaine

I wanted to like this book more. I enthusiastically ordered it remembering Shelton's original, breakthrough review in the NY Times. Over the years I enjoyed and greatly respected Mr. Shelton's balanced and incisive music reviews. His book "The Face of Folk Music" with photos by David Gahr (the greatest music photographer of all time, in my opinion) has been, since the day I first bought it in the very early '70's, my top emotional guilty pleasure.I see now, I believe, that Mr. Shelton greatly benefitted by serious editing at the Times. Without it this is heavy going....even ponderous. Yes there is deep, deep detail but it is a heavy slog. Florid over-description makes it seems, at times, that the author was trying to out-image Dylan himself. Apparently, with his artistic evaluations intact, Mr. Shelton secretly was falling under Mr. Dylan's mythological aura, ultimately defeated--like Phil Ochs--by internal comparisons to The Legend.This is definitely a worthwhile read but ultimately sad. Set aside a lot of time to finish it.

Who is Bob Dylan? None of the biographies I've read - Sounes, Heylin, Scaduto, and a short book by Toby Thompson (1971) - are by people that really knew him. Shelton is the New York Times reviewer who heard Dylan play in a Greenwich Village coffee house not too long after he came to NY and wrote a very promising review about him, which helped him on his way... Shelton also got to know him, spent time with him, and was able to piece many things together and interview people that were not mentioned in the other books. The interviews and stories are interesting and informative, fill in gaps left by the other books, and we get more of a feeling of Dylan, especially before he came to NY and as he was developing. This is a very well written book. Fans will like it a lot.

Having been a Dylan fan for many years and having my interest reawakened by the long-overdue Nobel Prize, I turned to the definitive guide to his life. I was not disappointed. Robert Sheldon conveys the ups and downs of a remarkable life and career of the most prolific of rock legends as could only be written by someone who was there. Whilst some of the philosophical and poetical references are not always accessible, they add depth to the phenomenon that is Bob Dylan. Perhaps there is something worth exploring with Rimbaud, Jung, Ginsberg et al.? Or maybe we should all just listen to the entire Dylan Catalog, whenever we have about 60 hours or more to spare...

Great condition, fantastic price, delivery experience very good.

Shelton is the primary myth-maker of Dylan, bringing us to familiar territory which still has the power to inspire.

essential reading for all Dylan fans even though it's taken me a long time to get round buying it ! a very good book..

Arrived on time, looks fine