Chronology; Introduction Kevin J. H. Dettmar; Part I. Perspectives: 1. Bob Dylan and the Anglo-American tradition David Yaffe; 2. Bob Dylan and 'The Great Recession' Michael Denning; 3. Bob Dylan as songwriter Anthony DeCurtis; 4. Bob Dylan as performer Alan Light; 5. Bob Dylan and collaboration Martin Jacobi; 6. Bob Dylan and gender politics Barbara O'Dair; 7. Bob Dylan and religion R. Clifton Spargo and Anne Ream; 8. Bob Dylan and the Academy Lee Marshall; 9. Bob Dylan as cultural icon David Shumway; Part II. Landmark Albums: 10. The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan (1963) Eric Bulson; 11. Bringing It All Back Home (1965) Jean Tamarin; 12. Highway 61 Revisited (1965) Robert Polito; 13. Blonde on Blonde (1966) Michael Coyle and Debra Rae Cohen; 14. The Basement Tapes (1967; 1975) Alex Abramovich; 15. Blood on the Tracks (1975) Carrie Brownstein; 16. Infidels (1983) Jonathan Lethem; 17. Love and Theft (2001) Eric Lott; Works cited.
A lively set of new essays on Dylan's work as a writer and composer and on his place in American culture.
Kevin J. H. Dettmar is W. M. Keck Distinguished Service Professor and Chair in the Department of English, Pomona College, California.
These indispensable new books of Bob Dylan criticism carry on important critical traditions. Dettmar's (Is Rock Dead?) compilation of critical essays and reviews, like The Bob Dylan Companion: Four Decades of Commentary and Studio A: The Bob Dylan Reader, among others, is being marketed as a classroom text to support the growing number of college courses offered on Dylan. Its 17 essays are divided between "Perspectives" (e.g., Dylan and religion, Dylan and gender, Dylan as a performer) and "Landmark Albums." In this latter section, an unexpected choice is Infidels (1983), ably critiqued by novelist Jonathan Lethem. The historian Eric Lott writes on Love and Theft (2001), a wickedly appropriate match-up since Dylan took his album title from Lott's book of the same name. In his fourth book on Dylan, Heylin provides an encyclopedic account of every song written by Dylan, from his juvenile efforts in the late 1950s to songs from Planet Waves in 1973; a second volume is promised. The songs are arranged chronologically, according to the date written, and range in length from a few sentences to several pages. The longer entries are not surprising-e.g., "Like a Rolling Stone" gets eight pages, and "Blowin' in the Wind" gets five. The book's great value is the discovery of many songs that Dylan either never performed or exist only on hard-to-find bootlegs. For each of the 300 songs, the first known performance and studio versions are cited, and Heylin offers analysis from his close reading of Dylan's life and career. This fascinating book is a perfect companion to Heylin's Bob Dylan: The Recording Sessions, 1960-1994 and will have the same hypnotic effect on Dylan fans as Michael Gray's The Bob Dylan Encyclopedia. Like the Cambridge Companion, it is highly recommended for academic libraries.-Thomas A. Karel, Franklin & Marshall Coll. Lib., Lancaster, PA Copyright 2009 Reed Business Information.
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