Positively Bob Dylan » Books

Heylin presents “Revolution in the Air”

Mike Hobo — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 20:36:14 +0000

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.

Dylan’s second exhibition of original paintings

Mike Hobo — Fri, 09 May 2008 19:48:18 +0000

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.

Zainab McCoy on Chronicles translation

Mike Hobo — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 19:35:06 +0000

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.

Exclusive offer: Dylan’s original 1st Chronicles manuscript!

Mike Hobo — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 07:23:50 +0000

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.

A Freewheelin’ Time Again

Mike Hobo — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 14:09:04 +0000

65 years old Suze Rotolo is going to release her book “A Freewheelin’ Time: A Memoir of Greenwich Village in the Sixties” in May. The official release date is May 13, 2008 but it can already be pre-ordered on Amazon.com.
Rotolo is perhaps best known from the 1963 cover photography of “The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan”, where she is walking through Greenwich Village with Bob. Both she and her sister Carla were close friends of Bob in the early 1960s. Her political and artist background is often regarded as having influenced Dylan’s early songwriting and his interest in art, especially painting.

A few years after having lost her connection to Dylan she got married to an Italian film editor. Their son now works as a musician in New York. Her latest public interviews on Dylan were for PBS news in 2004 and for Martin Scorsese’s documentary “No Direction Home” in 2005. The release of her new book comes along with the 45th anniversary of the “Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan” album.

The definite John Hammond biography

Mike Hobo — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 15:41:33 +0000

“The Producer: John Hammond and the Soul of American Music” is the ultimate guide to one of America’s key figures in popular music, John Hammond.- The man who recognized and supported the talents of Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen among many others at the earliest stage of their careers.
Author Dunstan Prial, a freelance journalist, builds his well written and carefully researched biography upon interviews with family members, friends and musicians. Dylan fans will particularly be interested in his account of signing Bob Dylan to Columbia Records, but there’s much more of essential value in the book for anyone interested in music history. Hammond’s journey was a constant search for distinct talent and personality, and it was his extraordinary love for music that made him find it in Dylan, Springsteen, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Aretha Franklin, Billie Holiday, Benny Goodman, Count Basie, Leonard Cohen, and many others.
Prial’s book is a must-read for anyone interested in popular culture and music, especially for Bob Dylan fans.

> “The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan” produced by John Hammond 1963
> “The Producer” Paperback at Amazon.com

The Bobiography: Just Like a Dylan Song

Mike Hobo — Tue, 12 Oct 2004 12:15:23 +0000

It seemed so impossible, yet it happened: During the past 3 years Dylan wrote his (first) autobiography entitled “Chronicles, Vol. 1″. It was released on October 5 and is also available as an audio book (CD and cassette) read by actor Sean Penn.
There’s two important facts that you need to know if you haven’t already read it: First, the book is written much like a Dylan song itself, mysterious and dark, it leaves a lot of space for interpretation, it’s neither complete nor chronological. And secondly, Dylan leaves out everything that might diminish his status as the unknown superstar. There’s not a single hint concerning his relationships, drugs, or religion. On bobdylan.com you can read that Chronicles focuses “on significant periods in Dylan’s life and career”, but what’s behind Dylan’s closed doors remains unknown. Read it, it’s a great piece of art, but if you want a complete biography you might very well better take a look at Clinton Heylin’s “Behind The Shades Revisited”.