One typically pleasant Southern California evening -- circa 1985 -- a lean, black-jean-and-leather-jacketed, tousel-headed man staggered across a Sunset Strip parking lot and proceeded to tumble face first across the hood of my car. As his grimacing visage came within inches of the windshield, and he pushed himself back to his feet, leaving grimy hand prints on the glass, I was shocked to realize that the man was Bob Dylan. Some 15 years later, my wife and I attended an outdoor concert at the Starwood Amphitheater in Murfreesboro, TN: Paul Simon opened for Dylan. Simon and his all-pro outfit exhibited superior musicianship, strong dynamics, and exceptional song craft. Dylan's rag-tag bunch was sloppy and disorganized. But, what made the Dylan segment intolerable was that the icon himself spent much of his set playing extended, amateurish guitar solos. What a complete waste. We gathered up our blanket and picnic basket and hit the road.
I had seen Dylan in concert twice before. Once in his original, ramblin' man incarnation with Joan Baez: two Martin-wielding folkies, both pure and wonderful. Then, three decades later at the Rose Bowl, Dylan held his own, even in a stadium filled with 90,000 music lovers. I guess the point I'm making is you never know what to expect from Dylan, which is precisely how I felt when I cracked Chronicles: Volume One. I'd have to say that, in this revealing memoir, the author utilizes the mother tongue with consummate skill. He invites us inside the railroad-car apartments, onto the sidewalks of Greenwich Village and the tiny stages of the Manhattan folk clubs of the early '60s. He puts the unforgiving winter wind on our faces and introduces us to the bohemian personalities of the day, from bushy-faced Dave Van Ronk to baby-faced Eric Anderson. He takes us into the recording studio with John Hammond, Jr. and matter-of-factly reveals his sudden, overnight leap to penning some of the most incredible American songs every written.
The first half of this book is wonderful. Then, suddenly, I felt uprooted. My fly on the wall had to suffer through observing a tortured soul in uncomfortable isolation. "Yes" to the people and the places. "Yes" to reliving the times. But, I had a hard time hanging with Dylan in a Long Island kitchen while he wrestled with fatherhood and tried to reconcile the conflict of a Jew finding Jesus.
Rand Bishop, author of Makin' Stuff Up, The Absolute Essentials of Songwriting Success, and Grand Pop.
Get more detail about Chronicles: Volume One.
No comments:
Post a Comment