Since a teacher labeled me a Dylanologist in junior high—hey, cut me some slack, this was even before middle schools existed—I’ve read dozens of Bob books. Now, this book’s author, Clinton Heylin, has written ten books just on Dylan, and many more about rock and punk music. I was already experiencing a certain gravitational pull from this, his latest Bob book, when a knowing relative gave it to me for my birthday. Why would he write another one, when he’s known by many to have written one of the definitive books on Mr. Dylan, Bob Dylan: Behind the Shades? Simple, because in 2016, Dylan sold his personal archive to the George Kaiser Foundation in Tulsa, Oklahoma. After that $22 million sale, the foundation asked Heylin to come and assess the materials. Seemingly, the very definition of a kid in a candy store. Combining that with other materials from Sony Music and Dylan’s office, he realized that he had a whole other world of information with which to correct the record. Anyone familiar with Dylan, knows that, not only does he never want to do a song the same way twice, but he has never wanted to give the same answers to the flood of questions about himself and his music. The owner of a Woodstock café owner who had exposure to Dylan, once said of him. “He’s got so many sides, he’s round.”

The book goes through time in chapter bites of a few months, from 1961 to July of 1966, when the man disappeared after his famous/infamous motorcycle accident. When he finally came back after that crash, his appearance was different, the sound of his voice had changed, and his songs were different. But readers won’t be able to read about that from Heylin, until he publishes the second and final volume of this revision. What a tease. If I could line up for it now, I’d be tempted.

Heylin does slide in much information about Robert Allen Zimmerman’s early life and music evolution throughout this book. Each chapter begins with some pretty fascinating and revealing quotes from Dylan himself, the people he played with, outsiders, music critics and insiders, as well as both hostile and enthusiastic members of the press. The author has a clever way of reflecting his subject with his own humor and word play. I should also say that if you haven’t read much about Dylan, be prepared to see a young man treat people badly as he’s finding his way in a world around him that is changing constantly … in short, he can be a real ass. With the press he could be extremely hostile, coy, non-responsive, or playing any of many different games. The reader has to always remember that the times were changing, as this was all new territory … they were revolutionary times. In the beginning, Dylan was a sponge in how he was absorbing everything from accents, musical stylings, lyrics and expressions, even the clothes he wore, before he became a true American original—and one who loved nothing more than to be constantly changing his spots.

Dylan himself might be the least reliable source of all, because as he says in Martin Scorsese’s film, Rolling Thunder Revue, when asked about the 1975 tour, “I can’t remember a damn thing.” On the other hand, considering the abundant amounts of drugs in circulation around and within Dylan, maybe that line is purely factual. Before his history was a known entity, he loved to tell people that he was from New Mexico. As Dave Van Ronk once said, “You never could pin him down on anything. He had a lot of stories about who he was and where he came from, [but] he never seemed to be able to keep [any of] them straight.”

It’s always easy to write Dylan off as being way past his discard date, but like his 2020 album Rough and Rowdy Ways topping charts in both England and the states, it’s unwise to ever doubt that he can still connect with music fans.

The New York Times said of Heylin, “The only Dylanologist worth reading.” I find myself much the richer for having read the book. I’m as fascinated by Dylan as I ever have been during all the different stages of my own evolution … since that junior high classroom. Vicky, my choice of a life and business partner, and my wife of over thirty years, spent many hours and miles in our car singing along with me and Bob. I always figured that it was going to be a rough day for the two of us when the news of Dylan’s eventual death came our way, but now that Vicky has died, I’ll face that day very alone, unless he outlives us both. I’m left with a simple question, who will be the last man standing from our traveling trio? ( )

One of the first LP record albums I purchased as a teen was Bob Dylan‘s Greatest Hits. The included poster hung in my bedroom. I also had the 45s of Mr. Tambourine Man and Rainy Day Women 12 & 35, now in my jukebox.

I knew a few facts about Bob Dylan. Very few. Clinton Heylin’s biography The Double Life of Bob Dylan: A Restless, Hungry Feeling 1942-1966 was a madcap, twisted, crazy funhouse ride of a story. I hated Dylan and he broke my heart.

Dylan’s determination to succeed was relentless. He was a poser. A user. A dissembler. Adept at reinventing himself.

He was a huge sponge soaking up everything and constantly writing, typing away on his typewriter, oblivious to all around him, locked into his own world as he wrote. He wrote more than he could remember.

Heylin’s depth of knowledge of all things Dylan enables him to sniff out the fake from the factual, shaking out truth from fiction. Dylan himself was a master magician at covering up his past. Other people who were ‘there’ tell conflicting stories.

Dylan arrived in New York to be embraced by the folk music scene, paying homage to Woody Guthrie in his hospital bed, and finding good souls to give him a couch or a place on the floor to crash. Leading lights of the folk music world championed him. He wrote iconic protest music that became the background music of the time. Blowing’ in the Wind. The Times They Are A Changin’.

Well, you know, it seems to be what the people like to hear.~Bob Dylan

quoted in The Double Life of Bob Dylan by Clinton Heylin
Was it genuine, arising from Dylan’s soul? He later said it was what was ‘in’. And when he was over it, he did his own thing, scandalously adopting the next big thing in music. He went electric. The audiences wanted the ‘old Bob Dylan,’ booing him across the world. In response, he turned up the volume.

Then there is the issue of talent. He arrived in New York a mediocre talent on the guitar and harmonica, with that gravely singing voice. As Bobby Zimmerman, a Minnesota Jew with a Sears Silvertone guitar given to him by his mother (the same guitar my mom bought me in 1966), he played a good rock and roll piano and admired Hank Williams. Then he heard the Kingston Trio recording of Tom Dooley. (Oh, yeah, I sure remember that one, and I have my aunt’s 45 on my juke box.) It was his first reinvention. Now, he was doing the folk thing because it was ‘in.’

He had a lot going against him but he also had a lot going for him. Self confidence, for one. The ruthlessness artists need to succeed. And something else, a charisma that grew on listeners and brought them under his thrall. Leaving protest folk, his lyrics represented a personal iconography that we can’t always translate into logical language, filled with images and references that elude us while invoking an emotional response. In other words–poetry.

The book ends in 1966, Dylan a mere twenty-five and already burned out by the cage of fame, living on the edge, fueled by alcohol, drugs, physically and psychologically worn to a skeleton from an overindulgence of the senses, at a breaking point. And another chance to reinvent his life.

Details of his career are unrolled, the recordings, the record deals, the shows. The entire culture is laid out, the shifting alliances, the sharing and stealing of songs, the late night poker games and alcohol and drugs. And of course, the women he loved and the women who loved him, the hearts he broke.

I received a free egalley from the publisher through NetGalley. My review is fair and unbiased. ( )