Bob Dylan celebrated his 84th birthday on May 24. As of this writing, Dylan is still on the road, headed for another joint. While the plethora of books on Dylan over the years do not compare in sheer volume to books on The Beatles, many good books are published that seek to find new angles to untangle this enigmatic artist of unmatched talent and continued relevance.
Two recent books are a fine example of such an approach. The first focuses on Dylan’s Blood on the Tracks album, and the other is the first biography of Richard Manuel of The Band. The Band was significant to some of Dylan’s key periods, and the Manuel book covers The Band’s time with Dylan extensively. It is not only a must-read for Band fans and scholars but also for Dylan fans and scholars.
Blood in The Tracks is arguably Dylan’s best work after the mountaintop triumvirate of the 1960s of Bringing It All Back Home and Highway 61 Revisited in 1965 and Blonde on Blonde in 1966. Released in 1975, the album wasn’t so much a comeback for Dylan as a watershed next step in the evolution of a restless and endlessly talented artist who, in addition to his never-ending tour, seems incapable of making anything less than another historic album in a career filled with historic markers.
This book looks at the unheralded musicians who made up the Minnesota sessions for Blood on the Tracks. Original sessions for the album were done in New York, and the album was ready to go, and the artwork for the jacket was even in place. However, spurred on primarily by his brother David, Dylan decided to rerecord some of the tracks in his native Minnesota. With the help of David, Dylan worked with local musicians, and the fruits of their labor comprised nearly half of the album that was finally released.
The story of these musicians and their significant part in the sessions for the album was pivotal to its success. This book humanizes the sometimes overblown glitz of the music business and focuses on the hardscrabble existence even the most talented musicians must often endure in an unforgiving industry that sometimes eats its young.
The first-hand accounts of nearly all of the local Minnesota musicians involved in the album and of many of those who were part of or supportive of the scene and musicians are copiously documented and provide a richly drawn tapestry of a heretofore unheralded and under-reported musical mecca. Dylan fans, especially those in love with Blood on the Tracks, will devour this wonderful book.
The Band is one of the most mythological groups in pop music history. Their time together marked a hard-fought rise to the top. Their live finale, The Last Waltz, spawned what must be considered the greatest rock music movie ever made.
Life for most of the members of the group after The Last Waltz was not easy. All of that and more is covered in this recent, definitive biography of one of the members of the group, Richard Manuel. Levon Helm and Robbie Robertson both published their own memoirs, and there have been a handful of books on the group. Mystery Train by Greil Marcus, published in 1975, which included essays on several artists, including The Band, is considered by many to be one of the best books ever written about pop music.
This Manuel biography adds greatly to the biographical and historical canon of the group. The book is well researched, covers in great depth Manuel’s life in Canada long before he was in The Band, and chronicles the lean years after The Last Waltz and his tragic suicide in 1986 at the age of 42. The book has also been beautifully produced.
The thick, hard-cover book is printed on glossy paper and includes a plethora of photographs and memorabilia. The writing here is passionate, and it’s clear the writer poured everything he had into this work. The book highlights just how important Manuel was to the group. It’s also a cautionary tale of yet another drug and alcohol casualty in rock history, and the wonderful soul that Manuel was, making the story even sadder.
This is perhaps the best book related to The Band since the Marcus essay in Mystery Train, other than the memoirs of Helm and Robertson. There will be a second posthumous Robertson memoir published in November, Insomnia, about his time scoring film soundtracks for Martin Scorsese.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
Blood in the Tracks: The Minnesota Musicians Behind Dylan’s Masterpiece by Paul Metsa and Rick Shefchik
A
Richard Manuel: His Life and Music, from the Hawks and Bob Dylan to The Band by Stephen T. Lewis
A+
