Positively Bob Dylan

On Monday, March 30, Clinton Heylin – author of the biography “Bob Dylan: Behind the Shades” and “Bob Dylan: The Recording Sessions” – will speak about his new book “Revolution in the Air: The Songs of Bob Dylan, 1957-1963″. The most comprehensive book on Dylan’s song lyrics ever written, including songs that no one has ever heard, is the first of two volumes that tracks the creation of Dylan’s first 300 songs. It will possibly change how Dylan’s lyrics are interpreted and understood. Arranged in a surprising chronology of when each song was actually written rather than when it appeared on albums, it uncovers surprising facts spanning Dylan’s career up prior to Blood on the Tracks. Newly discovered manuscripts, anecdotal evidence, and a seemingly limitless knowledge of every Bob Dylan live performance contribute to this definitive resource.
Heylin’s event will take place on Monday, March 30 at 7pm at Spoonbill & Sugartown, Booksellers (218 Bedford Ave., Brooklyn, NY 11211). It is free and open to the public. A book signing and Q&A will follow.

As the Bob Dylan magazine ISIS reports in its latest issue, there will be an exhibition of original paintings and limited edition prints by Bob Dylan from 14 June 2008. The exhibition will include new, previously unseen works. It will take place at London’s Halcyon Gallery in Mayfair, one of Europe’s leading galleries for contemporary art in its 25th anniversary.
Bob Dylan’s interest in painting was probably influenced by artist Suze Rotolo, Bob’s girlfriend in the early 1960s. Examples of his early works can be found on the covers of his albums of “Self Portrait” (1970) and “Planet Waves” (1974), but only recently he agreed to a very first official exhibition at the Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz in Germany from October 2007 until February 2008, entitled “The Drawn Blank Series Watercolor and Gouache Paintings Exhibition”. The initial idea for that came from a book of drawings and sketches done by Dylan from 1989 to 1992, which were published under the title “Drawn Blank” by Random House in 1994. You can read the official press release by Columbia Records here, or take a look at some of the paintings on this page of the Guardian website.

Check out this interview with Zainab in addition to the posting below, Exclusive offer: Dylan’s original 1st Chronicles manuscript. When I asked for the permission to put it on YouTube, Zainab added that it was actually at the end of August when she and Hans Marius Stormoen received the second Chronicles manuscript from Simon and Schuster, and not in September as said in the video interview.

When Zainab McCoy, visual and performing artist from Philadelphia who is currently living in Oslo contacted me, I was immediately astonished by the unique item she had to offer: Her late husband Hans Marius Stormoen translated Dylan’s “Chronicles, Volume 1″ into Norwegian. After his work was finished, Zainab asked him what to do with the original manuscript. His simple reply was “Put it in the trash. Or just do whatever you want to do with it”, she tells me. But of course this is not what you would do with a true collector’s item.
To everyone’s surprise, just before Bob Dylan’s book was going to be released worldwide and Stormoen was nearly halfway finished translating it, the phone rang. It was the Chief Editor of the Norwegian publishing house, telling him to immediately stop his translation, “Dylan has sent us a new manuscript”! On the same day the new version of the manuscript arrived from New York, the one that would later end up as the official book release. Zainab’s job was to read both versions and mark the changes that Dylan had made so that her husband could easily find them and not have to completely run through what he had already translated. A complicated task, as she confirms.
Back to the first, completely unedited manuscript: As Zainab told me, in the first manuscript you can hear Dylan’s voice, his casual unedited way of speaking and writing. It even includes Bob’s personal note to the editor “type written on the PC”. None of the manuscripts contain any handwriting by Dylan. Still since there were so many changes made from the first to the second manuscript, the original unpublished version remains an important item for every serious rarities collector and Bob Dylan fan.

Please note that the authenticity of the original Chronicles manuscript copies can be verified by Morten Malmø, Chief Editor at DAMM/EGMONT in Oslo, Norway, who personally hand delivered the first manuscript to Hans Marius Stormoen, who also translated several other works such as Bob Dylan’s “Scrape Book”. He died on June 1, 2006, whilst in the middle of translating Sharon Osbourne’s autobiography “Extreme”.

Supported by positively-bobdylan.com Zainab McCoy now exclusively offers to sell the original first manuscript to the highest bidder – THIS IS A CALL TO SERIOUS COLLECTORS ONLY! McCoy will request a face-to-face meeting with the eventual buyer to see and purchase the complete manuscript. It will NOT be sent via e-mail! In case you are seriously interested, you may contact her at hmstormo@hotmail.com.