The Formative Dylan: Transmission and Stylistic Influences, 1961-1963 (American Folk Music and Musicians, No. 7.) by Todd Harvey

by Todd Harvey

The Formative Dylan examines the roots of Bob Dylan's acoustic period. Through short articles that detail the histories of 70 songs, this book describes the influences upon Dylan's earliest recordings.

Genres: Nonfiction

Hardcover

First published October 23, 2001

Reviews

[Jeff · Rating 5 out of 5]

A discovery. I've been retracing paths in this book for a week, and the scholarship's solid sense authenticates itself. Todd Harvey wants to establish texts, which -- the more you know about folk songs, the literary process they participate in, the more vexingly crucial this work becomes. Harvey's musicology and compositional genetics is rock solid. It's just not a book for the layperson, so don't expect it to be. It ought to straighten out mis-prisions among the non-specialist interpreters, though I have little hope for those on this page who froth on elsewhere endlessly about Dylan's compositional methods in the memoir. Just so, it's on the short shelf of useful books about Dylan.