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Amazon.co.uk Review
Down the Highway delves into the life of Bob Dylan, one of popular music's enduring legends. In the course of his 40-year career he has sold more than 56 million records, has performed countless live gigs, has long been regarded as the preeminent songwriter of his time and yet he is still an enigma. Despite dragging his increasingly raddled body through a gigging schedule that would exhaust a musician a third his age, he remains notoriously reclusive. And to be frank, no-one reading Down the Highway will know him that much better by the end. The Bob Dylan rockography business has been a hugely profitable industry over the years and Howard Sounes' book is a worthy addition. It quotes chapter and verse on all the important--and unimportant--details of Dylan's life from his early days as poet/folk troubadour through his switch to electric guitar, to drugs, films and superstardom. The research is exhaustive and much of it is new: Sounes has tried to chat to everyone who was even tangentally involved in Dylan's career and goes into depth about his secret marriage to backing singer Carolyn Dennis in 1986. But what the book amounts to is an extraordinary collection of facts about the singer, but only a vague sense of what makes him tick. Dylan has always been a man who has preferred to let his music and lyrics do the talking; either Dylan refused permission or demanded an exorbitant sum to reprint them, but the absence of any lyrics leaves a noticeable hole in the text for the less knowledgeable or fanatical reader. It will be less of a problem, though, for the diehard Dylan fans, and for them Sounes' biography will be a crucial must-have buy. For the rest of us, it will be a book too far. --John Crace
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Observer, April 29, 2001
Engagingly written and scrupulously researched
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Indispensible Dylan Biography,
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This review is from: Down The Highway: The Life Of Bob Dylan (Paperback)
Aside from Bob Dylan's own book 'Chronicles', 'Down The Highway' is one of the truly indispensible books written about Bob. It's perhaps less scolarly in its approach than Michael Gray's predominantly lyrical thesis 'Song And Dance Man' and although it does share in common with Clinton Heylin's 'Behind The Shades' a desire to write a more conventional biography its approach is a little different placing more emphasis on Bob's non-musical activities.
Howard Sounes does an excellent job of uncovering information particuarly about Bob's relationship with women which also includes his second marriage which up to the point of this book's appearance was pure speculation. Although Howard Sounes is not a music journalist like many of Bob's biographers he leaves little doubt that he does have a sincere love of Bob's music as well as a desire to uncover what he can about Bob's private life. Of course Bob has always been careful to cover his tracks to maintain his privacy so 'Down The Highway' is always going to lack some of the fine detail that can be found with biographies written about many of Bob's contemporaries. Despite seemingly decidedly sketchy in places it is most definitely an illuminating read. I find Bob's poor treatment of women the book's main talking point and i do feel at a loss to understand how someone who can write such meaningful music which has such a strong moral thread running through it can be so callous, uncaring and deceiving. I raise my hands to Howard Sounes for bringing this (and many other details relating to Bob) to my attention.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Thoroughly researched and very readable.,
By
This review is from: Down The Highway: The Life Of Bob Dylan (Paperback)
"Down the Highway" is an enjoyable and readable Dylan biography. Sounes has interviewed a very large number of people who've known Dylan, as well as consulting a wide range of documentary sources, and he weaves this raw material into an atmospheric and convincing narrative that really captures the excitement of Bob's early career, as well as the difficulties and pathos of his more recent years. There's not a lot of detailed appreciation of the music, although there are some interesting observations (Did you know that no song on John Wesley Harding has a chorus?) as well as vivid descriptions of some of Dylan's varied live performances over the years.Sounes is broadly sympathetic towards his subject, whilst steering well clear of sycophancy, and he builds up a believable and subtle picture of a unique and enigmatic man who, with all his faults, remains for fans and friends alike a strangely compelling figure.
8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
a fascinating story of a living legend,
This review is from: Down The Highway: The Life Of Bob Dylan (Paperback)
whata great book,this is the best dylan book i have read it gives such depth and knowledge of the great man ,who has always managed to keep him self to himself.the writer must have done years and years of reserching. the book expands from bobs mother and father to bobs early school friends and girl friends.then on to his first arrival at grenwich village and his meeting with his hero woody guthrie this book just covers it all even secret wives bob has had .over all this gives you more understanding of the man his music and his life than any other book made
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