Patti Smith Unauthorized Victor Bockris
In 1991 Clinton Heylin published what was considered the most definitive biography of Bob Dylan available. In 2001 he altogether revised and reworked this hugely acclaimed book, adding new sections, substantially reworking text, and bringing the story up-to-date with Dylan’s explosive career in 2000.
Bob Dylan: Behind the Shades Revisited follows the story of Dylan from his modest beginnings in Minnesota to his arrival in New York in 1961, his subsequent rise in the folk pantheon of Greenwich Village in the early ’60s, and his cataclysmic folk-rock metamorphosis at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965. In the succeeding eighteen months, Dylan freed Highway 61 Revisited and Blonde on Blonde, and embarked on the legendary 1966 World Tour that culminated with an unforgettable concert at the Royal Albert Hall. Heylin details it all, along with the true story of Dylan’s motorcycle accident, his noteworthy reemergence in the mid-’70s, the only exacting account of his arguable conversion to born-again Christianity, the Neverending Tour, and yet another unbelievable Dylan resurgence with his 1997 Grammy Album of the Year Award-winning Time Out of Mind.
Deemed by The New Yorker as “the most readable and reliable” of all Dylan biographies, this book will give fans what they have always wanted — a chance to get to know the man behind the shades.
From Publishers WeeklyBecause he was refused access to Dylan for this unauthorized biography, Heylin (Bob Dylan: The Recording Sessions, 1960A1994) was driven to dig specially deep. In this update to his 1991 tome, based on unpublished manuscripts such as the diaries from Dylan’s 1974 tour and the Blood on the Tracks recording sessions, which were unavailable 10 years ago, along with new, primary interviews, Heylin documents “a constant, unresolvable conflict amid man and artist.” This makes for a morbid, even though fascinating, 40-year epic with a 260-person chorus that boasts childhood friends, George Harrison, Robbie Robertson, Joan Baez and Dylan’s respective and sundry “unworthy muses.” Everyone, it seems, is singing Dylan’s praises and cursing him at the same time, but Heylin is capable to make out his subject’s voice: the former Robert Zimmerman is a prisoner to his 1960s persona, he says, and in the musician’s attempts to protect his artistic and humane right to change, he had to tardily withdraw from his overdemanding public. Although this biography ought to be touted for not fixating on Dylan’s golden Blonde on Blonde era (it briefly covers the 1990s), amid the lines, Heylin is nostalgicAnot for the pre-motorcycle accident, amphetamine-wired Dylan, but for a younger, less tired one who writes closely as much as he tours. With a subtitle that says “revisited,” only die-hard fans will be amidst the few more than willing to crack this tome. (Oct.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library JournalHeylin has put together the firstborn finish biography of this most knotty of rock ‘n’ roll icons since Anthony Scaduto’s Bob Dylan ( LJ 4/15/72). Other recent biographies, such as Robert Shelton’s No Direction Home ( LJ 9/1/86) and Bob Spitz’s Dylan: A Biography ( LJ 11/15/88), focus on Dylan’s career until his motorcycle accident in 1966. These gloss over the subsequent years of his career, a amount of time that includes a great deal of of his best work. Heylin attempts to rectify their omission with this impressive chronological look at Dylan’s life from his beginnings in Hibbing, Minnesota through his galore roles. Heylin’s thesis is that Dylan is constantly reinventing himself, not inevitably to good effect (e.g., his poor albums of the early 1980s). The source material is largely second-hand interviews, altho Heylin conducted numerous of them himself for the British magazine Telegraph . This biography is neither fannish adulation nor axe-grinding screed, but a reasonable and sharp analysis of one of the 20th century’s most indispensable musicians. It also includes an impressive sessionography, a lengthy bibliography, and a list of people cited and their relationships to Dylan. Highly recommended.
- Keith R.A. DeCandido, “Library Journal”
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From BooklistWhen Behind the Shades basi appeared almost 10 years ago, it stood out from the pack of Dylan biographies because Heylin devoted substantial attention to Dylan in the 1980s, when he for the most part abandoned songwriting and recording for an ongoing series of concerts that came to be known as the Never Ending Tour. This modified edition places even more outstanding special and significant stress on Dylan’s second act, putting the lie to those who maintain that Dylan was a expended force. Lengthy coverage of Dylan in the ’90s, for the duration of which he freed the badly acclaimed Time out of Mind , isn’t all that is new. Overall, the contents are said to be 80 percent antecedently unpublished or revised. Heylin, who has written two further and added Dylan books and cofounded the leading Dylan zine, combines expert critical analysis with exhaustive research. Besides extracting quotes from a heap of 200 consultations with Dylan, Heylin spoke to hundreds of Dylan’s friends and fellow musicians. The resulting volume offers elaborated info and clear or deep perception into a still-vital artist. Gordon Flagg
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Patti Smith Unauthorized Victor Bockris Picture
Patti Smith Unauthorized Victor Bockris Photo
Patti Smith Unauthorized Victor Bockris Pic
Patti Smith Unauthorized Victor Bockris Picture
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35 of 37 people found the following review helpful.
 Thus far, the definitive biography
By Francis Flannery
Clinton Heylin’s revised edition of Behind the Shades is, at this point, the definitive Dylan biography, and is not likely to be surpassed anytime soon. In spite of it’s comparative neglect in relation to Sounes’ Down the Highway (published closely simultaneously, to coincide with Dylan’s 60th birthday), Heylin’s book is a more informative and rewarding book.
In tone, Heylin’s writing is not as journalistic as Sounes’, and more judgmental of Dylan as artisan and musician. It draws to a great extent on consultation material with associates and friends of Dylan’s, and is significant in giving elaborate attention to Dylan’s career in the 80′s and 90′s, which is necessary for any individual seeking to comprehend Dylan’s recent critical resurgence.
Based on his noesis as the world’s pre-eminent Dylan scholar, Heylin gives extensive commentary on Dylan’s albums and their recording, a procedure he has given even dandier attention to in his associate book Bob Dylan: The Recording Sessions (1994). This is one of the major divergences amid Heylin’s book and Sounes’. Sounes does not focus so much on Dylan as a musician or even Dylan as a lyricist. Sounes’ biography is more, well, biographical, providing tons of anecdotal accounts of Dylan’s life and travels, while missing the point – Dylan matters because of his music and his lyrics above all else. His life, so cloaked in mystery and seclusion, is a mystery, and will stay so. A recording artisan is ultimately most communicative through their recordings – through what they are, what they’re not, and how they are staged to the artist’s audience. Sounes attempts to fill in the mystery of Dylan’s life, which is at last an inconceivable task, at the expense of communication any real understanding of his music.
Heylin’s biography is also superior in that it draws on an extensive cognition of Dylan’s unreleased recordings. When dealing with a subject whose own officially freed canon is so oftentimes poorly representative of his recording career, Heylin’s cognition is wide-ranging and intensely critical. An informed and considered discussion of Dylan’s unreleased recordings, which are in galore cases superior to those he has chosen to issue, is exceptionally primary when examining Dylan’s 1980′s output, a series of albums at times marred mainly by the selections of which songs and takes of songs to include on the freed albums. Sounes hardly acknowledges the existence of important unreleased recordings, and that diminishes the importance of his biography considerably.
Sounes’ one trump over Heylin’s biography is the much-publicized revelation of Dylan’s second marriage. How important this biographical detail is to understanding or appreciating Dylan’s music, however, is very debatable. If you are looking for an easily-readable, readily-digestable account of Dylan’s life with little elaborated discussion of his music, go for the Sounes bio. Otherwise, Heylin’s Behind the Shades, exceptionally in it is new revised edition, is the real deal and is the preeminant Dylan bio. Highly recommended.
18 of 19 people found the following review helpful.
As Objective and Thorough as a Biography may be.
By Alan Koslowski
In Behind the Shades Revisted, Heylin presents his conclusions with the astute, apart eye of a detective. Some reviewers are skeptical of an unauthorized biography, but Heylin efficaciously defends his approach: With authorized biographies, the subject has uttermost approval of the finished product. Consequently, the results are unavoidably subjective and incomplete. Heylin culls from a multitude diverse roots (interviews with musicians Dylan has worked with, friends, former girlfriends, ex-wives, to name just a few), presenting numerous dissimilar sides of his subject. Heylin has never interviewed or even met Dylan, and while this makes Behind the Shades feel more or less detached, it offers more potential for objectivity. [Dylan is notoriously disingenous with reporters, so the value of first-hand consultations is probably negligible.]
Heylin describes Dylan’s childhood and adolescence in northern Minnesota. Dylan’s roots (both personal and musical) are described; Dylan has been enthusiastic regarding music at least since his early teens. Heylin provides elaborated analysis of Dylan’s early influences (mostly American pop icons like Little Richard) and follows his evolution for the duration of his early 20s, when he encountered folk and blues. He then proceeds to describe Dylan’s artistic heyday for the duration of the mid-60′s, his late 60s-early 70s hiatus, and his mid-70s resurgence.
One of the most impressive distinct elements of Heylin’s writing is his willingness to talk about Dylan’s for the most part derided work for the duration of the 80s-early 90s. While Dylan’s work for the duration of this era has been understandably ridiculed (though Heylin’s interpretation of much from this amount of time is a little more positive than most other critics), his analysis provides necessary clear or deep perception into his subject.
Whether deliberately or not, Heylin brings about a dichotomous portrait of Dylan. The younger Dylan (ca 1960-68) is a vibrant, often times affable personality with unwavering idealism. As the story progresses, the pressures of fame and the demanding nature of celebrity get started to take there toll to the extent that it seems to affect Dylan’s work. By the time Behind the Shades concludes, Dylan is staged as a weary, somewhat confused and misanthropic curmudgeon no longer capable of formulating new material that is inspired or surprising. This is the only debatable flaw with Behind the Shades. This conclusion might have seemed utterly reasonable in 1999 (when the edition I read was published), but the release of Love and Theft in 2001 more or less discredits Heylin’s conclusion. Heylin may hardly be blamed for this; Love and Theft, Dylan’s most inspired work in fifteen years (and his most extroverted since the 60s), was a totally unexpected triumph, but it does make the last chapter seem a little dated.
Despite it’s slight flaws in the last chapter or two (hardly his fault) Heylin has invented a rich, multi-faceted portrait. By interspersing a good deal of quotes from Dylan’s associates within his own writing, Heylin brings about a book of some voices. Heylin unquestionably has strong views, but tries to be reasonable and accurate, and makes each crusade to present contrary perspectives. Despite it’s seemingly daunting length (700+ pages), Behind the Shades is compellingly readable; his approach is always well-defined, and oftentimes clever (he subtly reference Dylan’s lyrics on galore occasions). Behind the Shades is a critical, goal to be attained portrait of pop music’s greatest (and most psychologically elusive) songwriter.
13 of 13 people found the following review helpful.
A Balanced Account of Dylan’s Life and Artistry
By A
Clinton Heylin’s empirical approach to examining Bob Dylan’s career is freshening in the world of libelous, trash rock biography.
Rather than throwing out lofty, outrageous statements–like Bob Spitz in his 1989 “Dylan” biography–Heylin lets his roots do the talking. The bulk of “Behind the Shades” relies on first-hand accounts from those close to Dylan, with their names accentuated in bold print. This not only reads well, but at the very least, presents an illusion of believability to Heylin.
Sure, Heylin has an agenda. His preference of Dylan’s outtakes and bootlegs, versus his commercially freed recordings, may be discouraging and hindering (see Heylin’s “The Recording Sessions”). But such shortcomings are forgiveable, giving careful consideration to Heylin’s appreciation of Dylan’s artistry. And even though the… price tag might be gorgeous steep, this is a lavishness item that no Dylanologist will have to be without.
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