Recorded Books Inc. - Down The Highway: the Life Of Bob Dylan

Praise for Down the Highway:

Fascinating and finely written. The strength of [Down the Highway] is to penetrate behind the music so as to provide a sense of [Dylans] life.

The New Republic

Wonderfully surprising.

The New York Review of Books

With little sensationalism, the inscrutable and intensely private Dylan is dissected, measured, and categorized.

Esquire

Many writers have tried to probe [Dylans] life, but never has it been done so well, and so captivatingly.

The Boston Globe

Sounes appears to know every nuance of every track Dylan has ever recordedand the inspirations for famous songs.

The Washington Post Book World

Irresistible What Dylanphile wouldnt want to sift through what Sounes has dug up?

Detroit Free Press

Sounes open[s] new angles on the enigmatic polyhedron that is Dylan.

The Nation

Magnificently realized.

Mojo

Souness book has the definite virtue of being the last one youll ever need to read about Dylan.

Salon.com

[Down the Highway] must stand as the definitive work. [and] the best psychological profile anyone is likely to produce for some time.

St. Paul Pioneer Press

By far the best Bob Dylan biography.

Rock & Rap Confidential

[This] fast-paced book has a fine interest in details [and is] rich with the observations of new witnesses.

Variety

The music book of the year. [Sounes] meticulously researched book (drawing on 250 original interviews) is the most persuasive portrait of Bob Dylanthe teenage Robert Allen Zimmermans inventionever presented.

Uncut

Also by Howard Sounes

Fab: An Intimate Life of Paul McCartney
Charles Bukowski: Locked in the Arms of a Crazy Life
Bukowski in Pictures
The Wicked Game
Seventies
Fred & Rose
Heist

THE LIFE OF BOB DYLAN

HOWARD SOUNES

Copyright 2001, 2011 by Howard Sounes

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review. Scanning, uploading, and electronic distribution of this book or the facilitation of such without the permission of the publisher is prohibited. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the authors rights is appreciated. Any member of educational institutions wishing to photocopy part or all of the work for classroom use, or anthology, should send inquiries to Grove/Atlantic, Inc., 841 Broadway, New York, NY 10003 or permissions@groveatlantic.com .

First published in Great Britain in 2001 by Doubleday
an imprint of Transworld Publishers

This revised and updated edition published in Great Britain in 2011
by Doubleday an imprint of Transworld Publishers

Published simultaneously in Canada
Printed in the United States of America

eBook ISBN-13: 978-0-8021-9545-6

Grove Press
an imprint of Grove/Atlantic, Inc.
841 Broadway
New York, NY 10003

Distributed by Publishers Group West

www.groveatlantic.com

For Jane Sounes and Claire Weaver

BOB DYLAN IS an artist of almost unrivaled importance in modern, popular music. He is a great recording star, an extraordinary live performer, an iconic figure of popular culture, and, most important, he is the preeminent songwriter of his time.

His reputation does not rest on commercial success. Dylan has sold, throughout the world, approximately 100 million records, including thirty-seven million albums in the United States. Although these figures seem huge, they are less impressive when one considers that his near-contemporaries, The Beatles, are estimated to have sold a billion records, including 177 million US albums and numerous number one singles. Dylan has enjoyed surprisingly few hits, never achieving a number-one single in America, and not placing a single in the top forty since 1979. Dylan has always been considered more of an album artist. Yet, as of 2010, he languished at forty-second place in the Recording Industry Association of America (R.I.A.A.) league table of lifetime sales, lagging behind younger artists such as Madonna and Prince, even outsold by the likes of Rod Stewart and Foreigner. Still, Bob Dylans greatest albums, such as Blonde on Blonde and Blood on the Tracks, are touchstones of popular culture, works of such depth and quality that they place him in the front rank of entertainers.

Dylan tours the world relentlessly, and is one of the hardest-working live performers in music. On stage, he is truly dynamic, exuding a palpable charisma comparable to the likes of Elvis Presley and Frank Sinatra. But he stands apart from these great artists because aside from a limited number of cowriting credits given to Presley they did not write their own material. In addition to being a performer, Dylan is the author of approximately 600 original compositions, including popular classics like Blowin in the Wind, The Times They Are A-Changin , Like a Rolling Stone, Forever Young, Knockin on Heavens Door, and Tangled Up in Blue. These songs are as diverse in subject matter and as rich in imagery as the work of a major poet or novelist. For the most part, they were written with ease. Dylan has always felt he is a channel for divine inspiration, and has said that the words stream through him. The ability to create brilliant work over a long period of time, without straining for ideas, is the signal characteristic of his genius.

Bob Dylan changed music in the 1960s by bringing poetic lyrics to popular song. He was not afraid to say serious things in a medium that had never been taken particularly seriously, and did so with such deftness, wit and lan that he inspired others to follow. Almost every singer-songwriter of recent times owes him a debt, including John Lennon and Paul McCartney. The Beatles were greatly influenced by Dylan, who was a star before they were and who has long outlasted them. Indeed, his longevity in the front rank of popular music is another achievement that sets him apart.

Lennon and McCartney were a songwriting team, like the teams of Goffin and King, Jagger and Richards, and Leiber and Stoller. Collaboration is commonplace in songwriting because few artists have both a talent for melody and a facility for language. For the most part, however, Dylan has written on his own, just as he has built his live shows on solo performances. He is a fundamentally self-contained man. He walks out there alone. He comes back off that stage alone. He writes those songs alone. He is his own man. He stands proud in his shoes. He dont need nobody to do nothin, says former girlfriend Carole Childs. Hes that gifted and that talented.

Such is the power of his work that Dylan has become more than an entertainer. He is a minstrel guru to millions who hear their deepest thoughts and feelings expressed in his songs, an artist who is perceived to be an original thinker, whose work encapsulates wisdom. Bob Dylan lyrics have become figures of speech. Blowin in the Wind may be the best-known example. Others are money doesnt talk, it swears and to live outside the law, you must be honest. His quips are included in compendiums of modern quotations, such as his reply to a question from