Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan (born Robert Allen Zimmerman May 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter, musician, and poet. He is one of America's great popular songwriters, and his enduring contributions to the American oeuvre are comparable to those of Stephen Foster, Irving Berlin, Woody Guthrie, and Hank Williams.

Chronicles Vol. 1

After a lengthy delay, October 2004 saw the publishing of Bob Dylan's autobiography, Chronicles, Vol. 1. He once again confounded expectations. Dylan wrote three chapters about the year between his arrival in New York in 1961 and recording his first album, focusing on the brief period when he wasn't famous while virtually ignoring the mid-1960s when his fame was at its height. He also devoted chapters to two lesser-known albums, New Morning (1970) and Oh Mercy (1989), which contained insights into his collaborations with poet Archibald MacLeish and producer Daniel Lanois. In the New Morning chapter, Dylan expresses distaste for the label "spokesman of a generation" and he evinces disgust with his more fanatical followers.

Related Topics:
Chronicles, Vol. 1 - Oh Mercy - Archibald MacLeish - Daniel Lanois

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Another section features Dylan's account of a guitar-strumming style in mathematical detail that he claimed was the key to his renaissance in the 1990s. Despite the opacity of some passages, there is an overall clarity in voice that is generally missing in Dylan's other prose writings, and a noticeable generosity towards friends and lovers of his early years. At the end of the book, Dylan describes with great passion the moment when he listened to the Brecht/Weill song "Pirate Jenny", and the moment when he first heard Robert Johnson?s recordings. In these passages, Dylan suggested the process which ignited his own song-writing.

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Six weeks after its publication, Chronicles, Vol. 1 was number 5 on the New York Times' Hardcover Non-Fiction best seller list and climbing. Simultaneously, Amazon.com and Barnesandnoble.com reported it as their number 2 best seller among all categories. Chronicles Vol. 1 is the first of three planned volumes.

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