Name: The Bob Dylan Encyclopedia HAR/CDR Edition
Author: Michael Gray (Author)
ISBN: 9780826469335

The Bob Dylan Encyclopedia HAR/CDR Edition book cover

The Bob Dylan Encyclopedia HAR/CDR Edition

Author(s): Michael Gray (Author)

Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
Publication Date: June 15, 2006
Edition: HAR/CDR
Language: English
Print length: 755 pages
ISBN-10: 0826469337
ISBN-13: 9780826469335

Book Description

The Bob Dylan Encyclopedia HAR/CDR Edition is one of the most wide-ranging, informed, entertaining, provocative, and compulsively readable books ever written about popular music. It's the culmination of over thirty years of dedicated research and scholarship by Michael Gray.

Inside these pages, you'll find a world of ideas, facts, and opinions. It's a world in which Baudelaire flows on from the Basement Tapes and A.S. Byatt looks out at the Byrds; in which Far from the Madding Crowd follows Ezekiel and Bob Geldof introduces Jean Genet; and in which Hank and William Carlos Williams stand side by side while J.R.R. Tolkien trails the Titanic. Most of all, of course, it's a world in which everyone and everything interconnects, in endlessly fascinating ways, with one of our greatest living artists: Bob Dylan.

"Michael Gray... probably Dylan's single most assiduous critic." -New York Review of Books

"Fans of Bob Dylan have a multitude of choices when it comes to biographies and retrospectives, but author Michael Gray outdistances them all with this voluminous collection of all things Dylan. ... Insightful and entertaining, Gray's tome will broaden appreciation of the artist, his influences and his legacy." -Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"...has all you need to know, and more" -Richard Corliss, Time

"This is no mere catalog of facts, but a work of oceanic immersion. It has wit, opinion, style, and asks to be read, not just consulted." -Village Voice

"Deeply impressive...destined to be the most important Dylan book, bar none."-Gerry Smith, The Dylan Daily

"Utterly idiosyncratic." -Janet Maslin, New York Times

"Amazingly well-researched and surprisingly readable work." -Library Journal (starred review)

"Door-stopping detail." -Toronto Star

"Magnificent...won't just astonish readers with its detail about Dylan's work...contains so many insights and refutes so many myths about the rock 'n' roll era in general that it's invaluable as both a reference guide and a personality study." -Nashville City Paper

"Comprehensive and up-to-date." -Slate

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Rock 'n' roll historian and Bob Dylan authority Gray offers a detailed volume featuring entries related to Dylan's life, artists who influenced him and were influenced by him, musical styles he created, and background stories of specific Dylan songs and recordings. Gray states in his preface that this work was prompted by friends and readers of his books (Song & Dance Man: The Art of Bob Dylan, 1972, and its 900-page revised edition, 2000) who suggested that he present some of that material in a more "reference-based" way.

Most of the entries are sketches of musicians, although Gray includes actors, authors, and other nonmusicians. These entries provide brief biographies and then explain how the people are connected to Dylan: how they worked with him, influenced or were influenced by him, and which of his songs they performed or recorded. The 3-page entry for Johnny Cash, for example, tells of Cash's defense of Dylan when Columbia Records wanted to drop him, their first meeting at the Gaslight Cafe in Greenwich Village, and their duo performances and recordings.

Gray's opinions and editorializing are prevalent throughout. This makes for unique entries, such as Interviews and the myth of their rarity (in which he claims Dylan actually averaged one interview per month over 40 years) and Dylan being "bored" by his acoustic material 1965-66, the myth of. In fact, the entire book is written in a refreshingly relaxed manner, as befits a music critic and fan.

The volume comes with more than 100 black-and-white illustrations and an accompanying CD-ROM with a searchable PDF version of the text. Although there is another published Dylan reference work, Oliver Trager's Keys to the Rain: The Definitive Bob Dylan Encyclopedia (Billboard, 2004), the current volume is a valuable addition to academic and large public library collections, primarily because of Gray's knowledge and reputation as a Dylan expert. Steven York
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review

All you need to know, and more, about Dylan -- Richard Corliss, Time.com, May 2006

Amazingly well-researched and surprisingly readable -- Library Journal, June 2006

An utterly absorbing, incredibly rich tapestry of interrelated information...witty and opinionated...read[s] as breezily as a summer novel. -- Portland Mercury, September 7, 2006

Deeply impressive...destined to be the most important Dylan book, bar none. -- Gerry Smith, The Dylan Daily, June 15, 2006

Deeply impressive...destined to be the most important Dylan book, bar none -- Gerry Smith, The Dylan Daily - June 15, 2006

Door-stopping detail -- The Toronto Star, May 2006

Gray's entries on Ray Charles and Sam Cooke alone make you want to rush out and grab this right away -- Nashville City Paper, May 2006

From the Publisher

From the October 2006 issue of Rolling Stone:
Thoroughly researched and highly idiosyncratic, The Bob Dylan Encyclopedia HAR/CDR Edition is a fascinating reference - with essential information and cool arcana in entries like 'Aaronson, Kenny' (Dylan's bass player, 1988-89), 'nursery rhymes, Dylan's use of, pre-1990' and 'Zimmerman, David' (Dylan's kid brother). Michael Gray eschews the dispassionate voice typical of reference books for a highly opinionated take on his muse's work. The entry for the 1983 album Infidels offers, 'Another ragbag collection of insipid material'; the 'Victoria's Secret' item merely reads, 'See co-option of real music by advertising, the.' Still, where else can Dylan fans find detailed information on the two unnamed women ('Dylan, Sara' and 'Dennis, Carolyn') Dylan refers to as 'my wife' in Chronicles? Also included is a CD-ROM with a searchable PDF of the entire book.

From the Back Cover

The Bob Dylan Encyclopedia is one of the most wide-ranging, informed, entertaining, provocative, and compulsively readable books ever written about popular music. It's the culmination of over thirty years of dedicated research and scholarship by Michael Gray.

About the Author

MICHAEL GRAY is a distinguished critic, writer &broadcaster. He graduated in History &English Literature at York University, England, in the 1960s, where he studied under the controversial, brilliant critic Professor F. R. Leavis, and where as a student journalist he interviewed, among others, the eminent British historian A. J. P. Taylor and the legendary American guitarist Jimi Hendrix. His pioneering study of Bob Dylan's work, Song &Dance Man, first published in the 1970s in Britain, America and Japan, was the first full-length critical study of this crucial 20th Century cultural figure. It is now recognised as a classic in its field. A selection of pieces on Dylan, All Across The Telegraph: A Bob Dylan Handbook, published in 1987, was co-edited by Gray and included work by several distinguished academics in the fields of English &American Literature and Music. In 1996, Michael Gray co-authored The Elvis Atlas: A Journey Through Elvis Presley's America, published in hardback in New York by Henry Holt. The massive Song &Dance Man III: The Art of Bob Dylan was published by Continuum in March 2000. A special reprint appeared in the US in April 2001, when Gray delivered talks at a number of US universities; a fourth reprint was published in New York and London in 2002 and a fifth in 2004. Michael Gray is recognised as a world authority on the work of Bob Dylan and is an expert on rock'n'roll history and the blues, with a special interest in pre-war blues. Please visit his blog at http://bobdylanencyclopedia.blogspot.com.

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