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Down the Highway: The Life of Bob Dylan
 
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Down the Highway: The Life of Bob Dylan (Paperback)

by Howard Sounes (Author)
4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
RRP: £12.99
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Frequently Bought Together

Down the Highway: The Life of Bob Dylan + Chronicles: Volume One + No Direction Home: Bob Dylan [DVD] [2005]
Price For All Three: £15.46

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Product details

  • Paperback: 624 pages
  • Publisher: Black Swan; New edition edition (4 Mar 2002)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0552999296
  • ISBN-13: 978-0552999298
  • Product Dimensions: 20 x 12.6 x 4 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 14,122 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in these categories:

    #2 in  Books > Music, Stage & Screen > Music > Composers & Musicians > Rock & Other Styles > Bob Dylan
    #4 in  Books > Music, Stage & Screen > Music > Styles > Folk Music
    #25 in  Books > Biography > Film, Television & Music > Theatre

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Product Description

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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What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing This Item?

Down the Highway: The Life of Bob Dylan
80% buy the item featured on this page:
Down the Highway: The Life of Bob Dylan 4.2 out of 5 stars (15)
£4.49
Chronicles: Volume One
11% buy
Chronicles: Volume One 4.0 out of 5 stars (51)
£5.99
Lyrics: 1962-2001
3% buy
Lyrics: 1962-2001 4.3 out of 5 stars (3)
£12.99
Revolution in the Air: The Songs of Bob Dylan 1957-1973
3% buy
Revolution in the Air: The Songs of Bob Dylan 1957-1973 3.8 out of 5 stars (6)
£14.00

 

Customer Reviews

15 Reviews
5 star:
 (9)
4 star:
 (2)
3 star:
 (2)
2 star:
 (2)
1 star:    (0)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
4.2 out of 5 stars (15 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars a fascinating story of a living legend, 11 May 2003
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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8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Great Book, 24 Aug 2004
By A Customer
As someone who's listened and loved Dylan's music for years, but never read much about him, I thought this was a great introduction to his life and music. Well-researched and informative, but at the same time never boring or overly-pedantic. It also felt a really balanced and intelligent book to me: one that didn't gloss over Dylan's personal difficulties, but also didn't try to paint him more negatively than need be. It conveyed both his strengths and his weaknesses, and ultimately much of his humanity.
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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Well, I mean 4 and a half stars....., 9 Jul 2002
I'm an avid reader of Dylan biographies and this, to a point, is one of the finest. It is flawlessly detailed, with the stories of not only himself but brief detail of his parents', grandparents' and friends' lives! It even tells you Dylan was 7lb 1oz at birth! Impressive.
I enjoyed this book very much, until it got to the chapter on 'Faith'. The author couldn't have expressed more clearly his disregard for the Christian religion. He expressed his feelings freely but subtly, claiming that during Dylan's time in this faith, 'Dylan had lost touch with his audience and lost touch with his talent'. He dismisses every album during this period as religious babble. A true understander of Dylan's work would see the beauty in all his work whether it has God in it or not! And, as a past reveiwer said, the author shows no understanding of what Dylan is really all about. He talks more about his scandellous love affairs and the million dollar law cases than the depth of his songs or the causes he fought for.
So guys, I admit, it is a good read, VERY informative, but dont be out off by the personal remarks the author may make. Finding out about the genius is always interesting!
Enjoy!
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant read!
This book matches up to every good review it has. It's a fantastic comprehensive insight into the enigmatic Dylan's life. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Daff

5.0 out of 5 stars How to write a rock biography.
A straightforward chronological account of Dylan's life exploring the development of his music and his live performances, Howard Sounes. Read more
Published 2 months ago by DDH255

3.0 out of 5 stars solid but not definitive
Good, but my feeling is it rests too much on the laurels of the newly-uncovered information at the expense of covering other ground more fully. Read more
Published 22 months ago by least toughest in the infants

5.0 out of 5 stars Indispensible Dylan Biography
Aside from Bob Dylan's own book 'Chronicles', 'Down The Highway' is one of the truly indispensible books written about Bob. Read more
Published on 27 Sep 2006 by Jervis

2.0 out of 5 stars So - what's so great about this?
I'm pretty confused about the amount of praise lavished on this book.

First off - this seems like a very BIG book but, when examined, the print size is large and so the actual... Read more

Published on 16 Jun 2005 by G. J. Mcintyre

4.0 out of 5 stars Warts & All
Having already read Larry Sloman's account of The Rolling Thunder Revue Tour, I was under no illusions as to the lifestyle of such a prominent songwriter/performer as Bob Dylan... Read more
Published on 12 May 2003 by Nomadic Man

5.0 out of 5 stars Probably the best biography of Dylan
Having read all the major books about Bob Dylan, I have to say that this is probably the best, in the sense that it gets the balance right of the music and the life of the man. Read more
Published on 31 Aug 2002 by brian thomas

2.0 out of 5 stars Mediocre addition to the stack of Dylan biographies
A workmanlike trawl through Bob Dylan's back pages by journalist Howard Sounes, released to coincide with Dylan's late 90's artistic and public renaissance. Read more
Published on 9 Jun 2002 by johnson284284

5.0 out of 5 stars Informative and interesting
This was an extremely interesting book to read. It is well written and covers Dylan's life with almost flawless detail. Read more
Published on 29 May 2002 by pclarke0046@hotmail.com

5.0 out of 5 stars Thoroughly researched and very readable.
"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... Read more
Published on 24 May 2002 by Julian Day

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