Product Description

Bob Dylan stands out with Elvis Presley and The Beatles in a triumvirate of popular-music artists of unparalleled achievements, influence and public fascination. He changed popular music in the 1960s, and helped define that decade with songs "Blowin' in the Wind" and "Like a Rolling Stone". Yet he resisted those who attempted to define him. An artist of indomitable energy and single-mindedness, he went on to create new work - on albums such as "Blood on the Tracks" and "Time Out of Mind" - which rivals his past glory. He has outlasted all his contemporaries, selling more than 56 million records over 40 years. In 2001, the year of his 60th birthday, Bob Dylan is as relevant to a young audience as to those who grew up with his music. This work celebrates the grandeur of Dylan's artistic achievement and reveals the complete life story of the reclusive, mercurial and eccentric man who has been an enigma for so long. This biography is based on a mountain of research conducted over three years, including interviews with more than 250 people in Dylan's life - lovers, friends, relatives, former employees and music stars. Many interviewees are key people who have not spoken before. Author Howard Sounes takes the reader to the heart of Dylan's life and work.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #23176 in Books
• Published on: 2002-03-04
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 624 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Down the Highway delves into the life of Bob Dylan, one of popular music's enduring legends. In the course of his 40-year career he has sold more than 56 million records, has performed countless live gigs, has long been regarded as the preeminent songwriter of his time and yet he is still an enigma. Despite dragging his increasingly raddled body through a gigging schedule that would exhaust a musician a third his age, he remains notoriously reclusive. And to be frank, no-one reading Down the Highway will know him that much better by the end. The Bob Dylan rockography business has been a hugely profitable industry over the years and Howard Sounes' book is a worthy addition. It quotes chapter and verse on all the important--and unimportant--details of Dylan's life from his early days as poet/folk troubadour through his switch to electric guitar, to drugs, films and superstardom. The research is exhaustive and much of it is new: Sounes has tried to chat to everyone who was even tangentally involved in Dylan's career and goes into depth about his secret marriage to backing singer Carolyn Dennis in 1986. But what the book amounts to is an extraordinary collection of facts about the singer, but only a vague sense of what makes him tick. Dylan has always been a man who has preferred to let his music and lyrics do the talking; either Dylan refused permission or demanded an exorbitant sum to reprint them, but the absence of any lyrics leaves a noticeable hole in the text for the less knowledgeable or fanatical reader. It will be less of a problem, though, for the diehard Dylan fans, and for them Sounes' biography will be a crucial must-have buy. For the rest of us, it will be a book too far. --John Crace

Observer, April 29, 2001
Engagingly written and scrupulously researched

OK Magazine, April 20, 2001
A brilliant and revelatory new biography

Customer Reviews

a fascinating story of a living legend
whata great book,this is the best dylan book i have read it gives such depth and knowledge of the great man ,who has always managed to keep him self to himself.the writer must have done years and years of reserching. the book expands from bobs mother and father to bobs early school friends and girl friends.then on to his first arrival at grenwich village and his meeting with his hero woody guthrie this book just covers it all even secret wives bob has had .over all this gives you more understanding of the man his music and his life than any other book made

Great Book
As someone who's listened and loved Dylan's music for years, but never read much about him, I thought this was a great introduction to his life and music. Well-researched and informative, but at the same time never boring or overly-pedantic. It also felt a really balanced and intelligent book to me: one that didn't gloss over Dylan's personal difficulties, but also didn't try to paint him more negatively than need be. It conveyed both his strengths and his weaknesses, and ultimately much of his humanity.

approach with caution
Sounes is a good writer, but, and it's a big but, he has a tabloid mentality. Well researched and all that, the big scoop of this book is the 'revalation' of Dylan's second marriage. Ther rest of the detail is about Dylan's cash flow, properties he owns. I'm sure you're starting to get the picture. Not really too much about music though. I suspect the author has little interest in any kind of music let alone Dylan's. He measures the success of an album by its highest position in the US chart rather than attempt any kind of insightful account of the musical or lyrical content. Sounes shows little empathy for Dylan's art and despite the tempting quotes from the hardback reviews he is little more then a hack, albeit a good one. Read Heylin's 'Behind The Shades, Part 2', he tends to pass off opinion as fact but at least he writes out of a passionate interest in his subject.