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    Bob Dylan In America
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    Bob Dylan In America
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    Bob Dylan In America
    Audiobook11 hours

    Bob Dylan In America

    Published by Penguin Random House Audio

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    One of America's finest historians shows us how Bob Dylan, one of the country's greatest and most enduring artists, still surprises and moves us after all these years.

    Growing up in Greenwich Village, Sean Wilentz discov­ered the music of Bob Dylan as a young teenager; almost half a century later, he revisits Dylan's work with the skills of an eminent American historian as well as the passion of a fan. Drawn in part from Wilentz's essays as "historian in residence" of Dylan's official website, Bob Dylan in America is a unique blend of fact, interpretation, and affinity-a book that, much like its subject, shifts gears and changes shape as the occasion warrants.

    Beginning with his explosion onto the scene in 1961, this book follows Dylan as he continues to develop a body of musical and literary work unique in our cultural history. Wilentz's approach places Dylan's music in the context of its time, including the early influences of Popular Front ideology and Beat aesthetics, and offers a larger critical appreciation of Dylan as both a song­writer and performer down to the present. Wilentz has had unprecedented access to studio tapes, recording notes, rare photographs, and other materials, all of which allow him to tell Dylan's story and that of such masterpieces as Blonde on Blonde with an unprecedented authenticity and richness.

    Bob Dylan in America-groundbreaking, comprehensive, totally absorbing-is the result of an author and a subject brilliantly met.


    From the Hardcover edition.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateSep 7, 2010
    ISBN9780307714985
    Unavailable
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    Reviews for Bob Dylan In America

    3.5/5

    57 ratings7 reviews

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    • 1/5
      I’ve always liked Bob Dylan’s work and so I looked forward to this.

      I was horribly, horribly disappointed.

      The shopping list in my pocket could have been read to more effect that this load of dry academic drivel.

      Bob Dylan is one of the most influential musicians of our time and this guy just doesn’t get that in any way shape or form….but don’t just take my word for it, ask someone else who doesn’t like it.
    • 4/5
      This is an engaging book from start to finish by a clear-eyed Dylan fan. Wilentz admits up front that Dylan has hit some pretty deep valleys in his career, particularly in the 1980s, but the real joy in this book is the way Wilentz places Dylan and his work in historical context, drawing on the political, social, cinematic, literary and musical history that has influenced Dylan and his songs. I particularly liked that Wilentz goes beyond telling us how Dylan composes his songs to telling us why he does so.
    • 5/5
      Nobody better to write this history of Bob Dylan of the good old USA than an historian, and a good one at that. Not a hack like Doris Kearns Goodwin who has actually plagiarized at least as much as Bob Dylan has been accused of, which by the historical facts stated in this book was a lot. But all artists steal. The good ones make the stolen work their own. The bad ones merely are imitators, as somebody else has already said, not me. This book was a delight to read. The writer obviously loves music and Bob Dylan. He was lucky to have been raised in a time and place that mattered. There is nothing amateur and celebrity-driven in this book. This is a valuable piece for anybody interested in knowing more about who Bob Dylan really is and where he might have come from.
    • 3/5
      For better and worse, this book is exactly what one would expect from a Princeton history professor with an encyclopedic knowledge of Bob Dylan. The book has a lot of informative background details about how Dylan became the artist he became, explaining Dylan's influences and development. On the other hand, Wilentz hears a lot of allusions both in Dylan's lyrics and music that I am skeptical ever existed in Dylan's mind.
    • 4/5
      In which the progressive historian snuffles around among the always-fascinating Dylan's musical roots and influences. The book is nominally anchored in the author's attendances at Dylan concerts through the years, but that is a less important part of the book than the reviews I've read make it out to be. The author makes many outstanding observations abour Dylan's songs, and this book would be a borderline masterpiece if it had been edited by somebody who had the nerve to get the two "Interlude" chapters out. These chapters examine, in tedious detail, the life of Blind Willie McTell (a chapter on F. R. Leavis would have been just as relevant) and the origins of the song commonly known as "Frankie and Johnny", which is the sort of musicological/folklorist pedantry which was boring a generation of folkies to sleep in Sing Out! back in the sixties. The author undertakes the interesting but apparently to most people futile task of trying to interest the reader in Dylan's recent output, which has been spotty for thirty years or so.
    • 4/5
      I picked this one up because I'm a rabid Dylan fan, have appreciated Sean Wilentz's writings in the Bootleg Series books & on bobdylan.com, and had run out of audiobooks to listen to on my daily 2 1/2 hour commute to and from work. For casual listeners of Dylan, or of music in general, the book will probably frustrate you if it doesn't bore you. For those of us who would rather take five essential albums rather than books to a deserted island, this work will thrill you. Not only does the author make masterly demonstrations of how Dylan weaves an intricate tapestry with and within American music, but only Sean Wilentz has the ability to make you believe "Masked & Anonymous" wasn't only a decent movie, but one that demonstrates a key point in Dylan's canon. Most highly suggested as an audiobook, with its inclusion of snippets of tunes that demonstrates Wilentz's points.
    • 4/5
      While the first couple of chapters are a bit dubious (the connections between Copland and Dylan are more parallels than links) it ends up as a fascinating exploration of Dylan's relentless mining of deep veins of American culture.