Listening to Bob Dylan

This book presents the importance of listening to Bob Dylan’s recorded work as the essential basis for a deeper understanding and appreciation of his achievements. Here is a guide for both the curious listener and the enthusiastic Dylan fan, for both the nonspecialist who enjoys music and the professional. While fully acknowledging his celebrated gifts as a lyricist, this book embraces Dylan’s primary identity as a performing songwriter. For Bob Dylan, the creation of music, and its interpretation by voice and instruments, are as important as the words he sings. His performances offer inspired examples of an inclusive art form that is much more than the simple sum of its individual parts. Dozens of individual songs receive detailed attention, ranging from those released on Bob Dylan’s first album (1962) to those heard on his latest (2020) and including widely heralded selections like “Blowin’ in the Wind” and “Like a Rolling Stone” along with lesser-known numbers equally worthy of discussion. Individual chapters explore Dylan’s recordings from multiple standpoints: his vocal style, the role of his harmonica, the songs as musical compositions, the instrumental arrangements, and the differences between live and studio performances of particular songs. A composite picture emerges of Dylan as a versatile, astute, and expressive artist, truly a man (in Duke Ellington’s words) “beyond category.”