The Double Life of Bob Dylan: A Restless, Hungry Feeling, 1941-1966

by Clinton Heylin

From the world's leading authority on Bob Dylan comes the definitive biography that promises to transform our understanding of the man and musician—thanks to early access to Dylan's never-before-studied archives. In 2016 Bob Dylan sold his personal archive to the George Kaiser Foundation in Tulsa, Oklahoma, reportedly for $22 million. As the boxes started to arrive, the Foundation asked Clinton Heylin—author of the acclaimed Bob Behind the Shades and 'perhaps the world's authority on all things Dylan' ( Rolling Stone )—to assess the material they had been given. What he found in Tulsa—as well as what he gleaned from other papers he had recently been given access to by Sony and the Dylan office—so changed his understanding of the artist, especially of his creative process, that he became convinced that a whole new biography was needed. It turns out that much of what previous biographers—Dylan himself included—have said is wrong. With fresh and revealing information on every page A Restless, Hungry Feeling tells the story of Dylan's meteoric rise to his arrival in early 1961 in New York, where he is embraced by the folk scene; his elevation to spokesman of a generation whose protest songs provide the soundtrack for the burgeoning Civil Rights movement; his alleged betrayal when he 'goes electric' at Newport in 1965; his subsequent controversial world tour with a rock 'n' roll band; and the recording of his three undisputed electric Bringing it All Back Home , Highway 61 Revisited and Blonde on Blonde . At the peak of his fame in July 1966 he reportedly crashes his motorbike in Woodstock, upstate New York, and disappears from public view. When he re-emerges, he looks different, his voice sounds different, his songs are different. Clinton Heylin's meticulously researched, all-encompassing and consistently revelatory account of these fascinating early years is the closest we will ever get to a definitive life of an artist who has been the lodestar of popular culture for six decades.

Genres: Music, Biography, Nonfiction, Biography Memoir, History, Audiobook, Memoir

520 pages, Hardcover

Published May 18, 2021

Reviews

[Paul Bryant · Rating 3 out of 5]

Just what the world needs, another Bob Dylan biography. How many are there already? 17? 18? But this one has a pretty good excuse for existing. The author is far and away the most reseachingest, most obsessive-fan-accurate Dylan biographer there ever was. Clinton Heylin has already written ten books on Dylan including a giant biography from 2011 which this now replaces. In the last ten years mountains of Dylan archives have been made available and Mr Heylin has mountaineered the whole lot, so this is the Last Word. Until the next Last Word.



Mr Heylin is the best biographer Dylan has had. (Maybe that’s not saying a great deal.) But Mr Heylin is notorious amongst Dylan fans for suffering from a particular form of Tourette’s Syndrome which causes him to involuntarily type out regular insults in his books about every other writer about Bob Dylan. An example of this is right here on page 3

A former tabloid reporter aka professional dirtdigger, name of Howard Sounes, had decided to …go all National Enquirer on the man called Alias. The result : a depressingly well-trundled, semi-literate stroll Down the Highway.

And on page 6 we have a comment about Ian Bell’s Once Upon a Time

Never in the history of biography has someone done less research for more poundage… it would barely qualify as sufficient for a college freshman’s first essay on pop culture

But once these savage lunges are out of the way there are no more of them, so that was a relief. Ah, yes… until he gets on to the subject of Joan Baez

Joan Baez, who could pierce the walls of Jericho with her contralto at twenty paces. Thankfully, she arrived too late to sing her party piece “We Shall Overcome”

THIS BOOK IS ONLY ABOUT 1961 – 1966

Dylan changed his songwriting, his singing voice and his personality every six months or so during this period, casually inventing entire new dimensions of popular music as he went along, leaving everyone out of breath and intimidated and maybe even hiding. So this is the great purple period. From Woody Guthrie imitator with a strong dash of Charlie Chaplin to absurdist acid rocker on a world tour in five years flat. Heylin demonstrates quite chillingly that Bob started out as a very likeable 20 year old wannabe and ended up as a character-assassinating entitled hateful supercilious hipster king surrounded by an entourage of sneering indoor sunglasses wearers. As the music got better and better, which it did, Dylan got worse and worse. And realising that, he bailed out by staging a fake (or extremely hyped) motorbike accident in mid 66.

(I’m happy to say that the likeable version resurfaced later, as anyone who’s heard Theme Time Radio Hour with your host Bob Dylan can confirm.)

IF I WALK TOO MUCH FARTHER MY CRANE'S GONNA LEAK

Now maybe it was me but I kind of got the impression that Mr Heylin started to drown in all these archives, especially the drafts upon drafts of early versions of lyrics which we are continually being told are located in the Tulsa Museum of Bobness or were sold at Sotheby’s for two million dollars. The last chapters are stuffed with this horrible melange of half-thoughts and unlyrical scraps. Look! Here is a fragment that is the missing link between Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues and Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window… pardon me for not being gripped. And while Mr Heylin was entranced by all these previously ungoggled-at details he seems to miss framing some of the more dramatic moments in a familiar can’t see the trees for the wood problem that besets those too close to their material.

But heck, you can skate past this aggravating stuff, and what you’re left with is a helter-skelter tale of one of the two or three most significant figures in popular music during the most significant six years of his life. Greatness strikes where it pleases.

[Still · Rating 5 out of 5]

Despite Heylin's constant taking shots at other Dylan biographers this is probably the best biography of Bob Dylan written.
In the last two-thirds of the book it slowly becomes a tragedy.
More a fable about a boy who lost his shadow while chasing after fame.

For fans of Dylan this is a highly recommended read.

[Michael Reilly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Heylin complains in his introduction that Dylan researchers are usually referred to as "obsessives" but Shakespeare researchers are called "scholars". Heylin is a Dylan obsessive, in the best possible way.

This is his eleventh book on Dylan. Depending on how you count his revisions, this is his second or third version of a full biography. This five hundred page book, volume one of two, covers the period from Dylan's arrival in New York in January 1961 to just before his motorcycle accident in the middle of 1966, with two chapters mixed in covering his first nineteen years from 1941 to 1960.

Heylin is a pugnacious biographer. He battles Dylan, other biographers, memoir writers, Dylan friends, careless reporters, lying businessman and faulty memories to get to the truth of what happens. He slashes away at those he considers sloppy or wrong. This is not a voice-of-God biography. Heylin explains why he is correct and they are wrong.

Dylan is the perfect subject for this kind of biographer. Dylan did not want to be understood by anyone. He lied, made up stories, deflected questions and spread a cloud of bullshit around himself. More importantly, Dylan was a willfully complex person. He was never one type of person and he changed constantly. The best quote in the book is from Bernard Paturel. He owned a café in Woodstock that Dylan frequented. He said that Dylan "got so many sides he is round."

Heylin spends huge energy trying to straighten out what happens. He spends two pages on who was in the car with Dylan when he first drove from Minneapolis to New York. He unravels when Dylan wrote which songs, who was in each recording session and the sources and inspiration for the lyrics and melodies. Heylin interviews everyone. He has read every newspaper story, magazine article and book about Dylan. He mines great stuff from auction catalogs of Dylan letters, notebooks, and memorabilia . He is the first one to have deeply mined the massive collection of papers Dylan sold to the University of Tulsa. He has scoured the business records of the record companies and publishers who handled Dylan.

Heylin also tries to understand what kind of man Dylan was. There is much that is unpleasant about him. He was a compulsive liar. He was wildly insecure. He was a compulsive philanderer who expected absolute loyalty and love from the woman in his life. He bullied and abused those who worked for him and tended to surround himself with flunkies. Heylin is brutally honest about Dylan the man.

Dylan the musician was an earthquake. He created the idea that pop music was not just entertainment. The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, The Byrd's, and every singer songwriter acknowledged that Dylan changed their idea of what they were doing. (He is also to blame for a huge amount of pretentious crap by performers who tried to do what he did, but who were not geniuses.)

Heylin tells the story of the pop world coming to grips with Dylan. Dylan had a difficult and tense relationship with the Beatles. He famously humiliated Donovan, who was called the English Dylan. Phil Ochs was a well known folksinger and songwriter. In their earlier days, he and Dylan were rivals. Ochs was a master of the protest song. Heylin tells the story of Ochs criticizing Dylan for his electric sound and Dylan delivering a crushing response; "Phil, you're not a songwriter, you're a journalist."

The book is packed with fascinating details.

Dylan's first paid gig in New York was two weeks at Gerde's Folk City as the opening act for John Lee Hooker. Hooker is my favorite bluesman. Those are the shows I would most liked to have seen in history. It is interesting that they both were playing acoustic guitars in those shows, although they both, in the end, believed that they should be playing their music with electric guitars.

Dylan tells a newspaper interviewer that he doesn't write songs like Woody Guthrie anymore because "Woody's words are group words." That neatly summarizes Woody's weakness as a songwriter. Almost all of his songs have a verse or two that are preachy "group words". They are usually the verses people skip.

Heylin makes the claim that "Visions of Johanna" is possibly Dylan's greatest song. It is a perfectly respectable opinion. I have had at least forty songs over the last 54 years which I have considered to be Dylan's greatest song. "Vision of Johanna" was not on that list. Today at 7:52 pm I would say that "Tomorrow is a Long Time" is Dylan's greatest song.

In 1961 Peter Stampfel, later a founder of "Holy Modal Rounder", said that Dylan was singing traditional songs but "his singing style and phrasing were stone rhythm and blues." That is a brilliant way to explain the difference between what he was doing and what Pete Seeger or the Kingston Trio was doing.

It struck me that the jazz players in the fifties hated rhythm and blues because it was a driving sound with a simple 4-4 or 6-8 beat. There was no room to open and groove. Heylin quotes Robbie Robertson trying to explain to a new drummer what Dylan was looking for from his drummer. Robertson tells him "Rule number 1, don't swing, never swing". When Dylan went electric, he was doing his version of rhythm and blues.

Heylin takes shots at everyone. I don't agree with him that Joan Baez "sucked the life out of" Dylan's songs. Most of Dylan's friends, wives and business associates come in for criticism, some fair and some not

Many of his shots at other writers seem gratuitous. Dave Marsh is a good writer who has written a lot of interesting stuff about Dylan. Heylin is discussing a collection of Dylan photographs. He slides in , "as Dave Marsh notes in his insipid introduction.." While taking a shot at John Lennon's ignorance of publishing rights, he says, 'what he knew about song-publishing law could written on a penny black stamp with room left over for the collected insights of Philip Norman." Norman is a biographer who is best known for his Beatles book. Heylin seems to feel that he can't be a great rock writer unless he shows that all the other ones are no good.

A few quibbles.

Heylin has a casual wise-guy writing style. He has fun and enjoys turning a phrase. I enjoy his habit of explaining how he knows what he tell us. Sometimes, however, he loses control of his sentences. They go on for so long with so many twists and turns that I found I had to re-read them to follow the point. An example; "The first rockzine of its kind, "Crawdaddy" would tap into enough of a latent demand to convince Williams to quit formal education, and for a more businesslike "rock fan" on the West coast to form "Rolling Stone", ultimately stealing his thunder." It doesn't all have to be in one sentence.

One editing problem is not Heylin's fault. His footnote are excellent. He uses them for fun stuff that don't fit into the narrative and for some zingers. At several point the footnotes are misaligned to the page. There is a footnote on a page with no indicator in the text. It turns out it is a footnote to the text on the next page. I suspect last minute editing and no checking of the footnote editing.

I enjoyed this book much more than the above would indicate. This is a very smart guy with a huge amount of knowledge and feel for the subject and the scene. He is writing about the greatest songwriter of my lifetime who is also a wildly complicated and difficult man. Any one interested in Dylan should read this.

[Nancy · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the first LP record albums I purchased as a teen was Bob Dylan‘s Greatest Hits. The included poster hung in my bedroom. I also had the 45s of Mr. Tambourine Man and Rainy Day Women 12 & 35, now in my jukebox.


I knew a few facts about Bob Dylan. Very few. Clinton Heylin’s biography The Double Life of Bob Dylan: A Restless, Hungry Feeling 1942-1966 was a madcap, twisted, crazy funhouse ride of a story. I hated Dylan and he broke my heart.

Dylan’s determination to succeed was relentless. He was a poser. A user. A dissembler. Adept at reinventing himself.

He was a huge sponge soaking up everything and constantly writing, typing away on his typewriter, oblivious to all around him, locked into his own world as he wrote. He wrote more than he could remember.

Heylin’s depth of knowledge of all things Dylan enables him to sniff out the fake from the factual, shaking out truth from fiction. Dylan himself was a master magician at covering up his past. Other people who were ‘there’ tell conflicting stories.

Dylan arrived in New York to be embraced by the folk music scene, paying homage to Woody Guthrie in his hospital bed, and finding good souls to give him a couch or a place on the floor to crash. Leading lights of the folk music world championed him. He wrote iconic protest music that became the background music of the time. Blowing’ in the Wind. The Times They Are A Changin’.

Well, you know, it seems to be what the people like to hear.~Bob Dylan

quoted in The Double Life of Bob Dylan by Clinton Heylin
Was it genuine, arising from Dylan’s soul? He later said it was what was ‘in’. And when he was over it, he did his own thing, scandalously adopting the next big thing in music. He went electric. The audiences wanted the ‘old Bob Dylan,’ booing him across the world. In response, he turned up the volume.

Then there is the issue of talent. He arrived in New York a mediocre talent on the guitar and harmonica, with that gravely singing voice. As Bobby Zimmerman, a Minnesota Jew with a Sears Silvertone guitar given to him by his mother (the same guitar my mom bought me in 1966), he played a good rock and roll piano and admired Hank Williams. Then he heard the Kingston Trio recording of Tom Dooley. (Oh, yeah, I sure remember that one, and I have my aunt’s 45 on my juke box.) It was his first reinvention. Now, he was doing the folk thing because it was ‘in.’

He had a lot going against him but he also had a lot going for him. Self confidence, for one. The ruthlessness artists need to succeed. And something else, a charisma that grew on listeners and brought them under his thrall. Leaving protest folk, his lyrics represented a personal iconography that we can’t always translate into logical language, filled with images and references that elude us while invoking an emotional response. In other words–poetry.

The book ends in 1966, Dylan a mere twenty-five and already burned out by the cage of fame, living on the edge, fueled by alcohol, drugs, physically and psychologically worn to a skeleton from an overindulgence of the senses, at a breaking point. And another chance to reinvent his life.

Details of his career are unrolled, the recordings, the record deals, the shows. The entire culture is laid out, the shifting alliances, the sharing and stealing of songs, the late night poker games and alcohol and drugs. And of course, the women he loved and the women who loved him, the hearts he broke.

I received a free egalley from the publisher through NetGalley. My review is fair and unbiased.

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the most well-researched (thanks to Tulsa and lots of new work by the author) biography of Bob Dylan there is, and I've read them all. It's a pity it ends after the '66 tour, and I hope Heylin is able to convince his publishers to do two more volumes instead of just one.

This only really covers the years of 1961, when Dylan went to New York, to mid-66, with good flashbacks to his real youth. The level of detail is perfect. Heylin is not shy about pointing out errors in others works (and boy, is he not shy), but he is also good at owning up to his own mistakes in other books, especially about the contracts that Columbia and Dylan and Grossman signed. Previously, it had been presented as a Grossman power grab, and it was, but it was also Columbia taking advantage of a young Bob Dylan. It'll take the next volume to get to the bottom of this.

(I found two errors in the book, a misspelling of Samuel R. Delany's name as "Delaney" and calling a different composer the composer of The Good The Bad and The Ugly soundtrack, instead of Ennio Morricone.)

Those who aren't familiar with Dylan's career, or don't have the correct level of obsession, might want to skip it in favor of a more complete biography, though I don't have one to recommend. As for me, who is obsessed enough, I found it to be very enjoyable and informative read. It'll be a long time before we get a better biography. I'd give it 5 stars, but I like to reserve those.

[Craig Werner · Rating 2 out of 5]

Docked a star for Clinton Heylin's smug, self-satisfied, condescending attitude and near-Trumpian reliance on ridicule of those he doesn't agree with.

It's not definitive, but Heylin, whose written better books on Dylan before, has delved deeply into the archive, especially the materials that have become available at the Tulsa Dylan collection. If what you want to know about Dylan is precisely what date he most likely started writing (fill-in the song), this is your book. But because Heylin's convinced he's the only Dylan writer worth heeding, he doesn't draw on easily available material about major parts of the story. Sounes and Shelton, while not always precise on details, are a hell of a lot better if you want a sense of the art and the life.

[Sean Keeley · Rating 2 out of 5]

There's some good detail in here for Dylan diehards (like me), but Heylin's insufferable authorial voice makes it a slog. From the sneering introduction, which disparages all other Dylan biographers, to the footnotes quibbling about trivial recording minutia, Heylin wears his status as supreme Dylan expert with an arrogant self-regard that is both alienating and eyeroll-inducing. Heylin clearly has an axe to grind, and his own writing style, replete with incessant winks to Dylan lyrics, doesn't help matters. Desperately needed a harsher editor.

[v · Rating 3 out of 5]

It appears that Bob Dylan has systematically inconvenienced a great many people -- sometimes even screwed them over -- and one of them is Clinton Heylin. Dylan self-mythologizes, and Heylin's task on this earth seems to be demythologizing Dylan with buckets of facts, scans of contracts, and scraps of paper with first drafts typed on them, many of which he has found in a newly opened archive. But if Heylin has facts, he does not often have the evocative, human details that could save an otherwise average biography of this kind.
Sure, Dylan's story (especially once he's dropped the Prince of Protest act in 1964) is engaging enough in its own right to carry the book through to the end; I think Dylan began, perfected, and surpassed every strand of 1960s Anglo-American popular culture by about 1967, and this biography's chapters on the confrontational and drug-addled 1966 electric tour in particular really capture how he'd made The Velvet Underground possible.
Since Heylin does an acceptable job of a job needing done, I'm curious enough to read the next volume(s) when they're out on recluse Dylan, divorcee Dylan, Christian Dylan, washed up Dylan, bitter old man Dylan, pencil-mustached croaker Dylan, and any others I might have missed.

[Steve · Rating 5 out of 5]

The guy sure knows his Bob. This will/should stand as the definitive version of the first part of the Dylan saga. It's certainly better than the current, dumb Hollywood version. Yes, it's lengthy, but a page turner I plowed through in 3 days. One can certainly disagree with some of Heylin's snarky editorializing, but the man has done his research. Highly recommended for all Bobcats.
Now, on to volume 2!

[Tony Cinque · Rating 4 out of 5]

You are what you eat.

The young Bobby Zimmerman ‘ate’ voraciously and indiscriminately of everything he liked and could lay his hands on. Whether organic or synthetic.
With neither pride nor shame he gorged himself.
He took from whomever, whatever, whenever.
What he took, became one with him.

‘Bob Dylan’ was born out of what he ‘ate’.

If you’re a Dylan fan and haven’t read a biography about him for a while, reading this current one will reacquaint you with the man behind the shades. (And if you’re really keen, go back and re-read some of the other biographies to fill in the many gaps that this one leaves out.)

Onto Vol. 2 now….

[T. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Just started this book. I read an earlier book by this author and I am reminded of his superior, snotty tone. I suppose that his research is solid. But his snark and insults toward other books about Dylan are off-putting. He seems to think he alone is the Dylan expert.

The research looks quite impressive although his determination to track down facts about some relatively minor story or incident seems a little unnecessary. Who cares really what song was played where first or the exact moment Dave Van Ronk met Dylan? The various versions of things Dylan said are supposed to show how he doesn't tell the truth. But a lot if these are unimportant to begin with and if the principal has different versions of some incident or conversation, so what?

The cultural scene in NYC in that era is fascinating, however, and I am learning a lots about what went on in the folk world.

Also, when it comes to comments about Dylan's romantic life, the writer's tone is juvenile and slightly puerile. I won't bother to quote, but it seems like this older male writer here is tickled and titillated by the goings on among the young men and women of Greenwich in the early 60s. Yuck.

I have continued to read this now and again. The research is impressive but the tone is snarky and somewhat presumptuous. He is writing about events and scenes at which he was not remotely present and yet he presumes to judge and insert conclusions that are often just random speculation. And asserts what people were thinking and what their motives were. I find this kind of thing irksome. I imagine it would be rather annoying to have someone like Heylin excavating your life and all the people around you in excruciating detail, all with this arrogant, judging attitude. Yuck.

Also, Heylin betrays a crude sexist view of women. They are lassies, blondes, buxom blondes, beauties, waifs, etc. Not a decent way to describe people.

Plus, labeling Allen Ginsberg a "notorious homosexual" is telling. And some reference to a gay man suppressing his "pederastic yearnings." What is that all about??? The book is littered with this kind of dismissive description of people. Don't like.

Condescending remarks about the Beatles from this author are also telling. Just like Dylan, the Beatles were surrounded by this madness of fame, adulation, and all kinds of weird frenzy. This would be enough to drive just about anyone insane. Yet they handled it remarkably well.

[Ciaran · Rating 3 out of 5]

Enjoyable but as always Clinton Heylin has to be unnecessarily insulting towards players in the story/colleagues. Hopefully Volume 2 is an improvement

[Mike · Rating 2 out of 5]

An in-depth, detailed, fact-checked, vetted, cross-checked, re-examined, point by point look at Dylan which comes up with the wholly unremarkable conclusion that Dylan used to make shit up about himself and still does, which has to be a shocker in a book about a Jewish kid from Minnesota named Zimmerman who dreamed he was Woody Guthrie. Heylin begins the book with a side-eyed critique of every book ever written about (or in the case of Chronicles, by) Dylan, before strutting off to prove everything he has found in his research, which is extensive, and sadly, mostly boring. It augurs poorly when an author refers to his own book as a "doorstop" and the reader comes to realize that the doorstop doesn't hold any door open that lets in anything breezy or bright or warm or musical or worth knowing. There must have been some reason why Heylin wanted to write about Bob Dylan, but hell if I could figure out what it was. His prose is sturdy, though his footnotes should have been parenthetical instead of down at the bottom of the page. It's a distraction to have to dive to the bottom of the text to read a pair of smug footnotes on damn near every page. Maybe volume 2 will be better?

[Mark Booth · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is very much a book for Dylan specialists - it would be a difficult book for people who have not read a Dylan biography before. Much of the additional information gained from the Tulsa archive adds details to the story but doesn't really give anything that is majorly new. As a Dylan fan who has read many books on Dylan I enjoyed it.

[Brett buckner · Rating 4 out of 5]

Whew ... this book is A LOT, and it's not the place for the novice Dylan fan to start. For that, I'd suggest Heylin's best - and perhaps the best book on Dylan, period - Behind the Shades, and if you want to see the whacky side of Bob Dylan fandom, check out Dylanologists by David Kinney.

This book doesn't really cover any new ground, though Heylin culled most of his "new" research from the Dylan Archives in Tulsa which he got exclusive access to. What is does is provide an in-depth look into many of the facets of Dylan's early life, growing up in Minnesota, making a name for himself in New York, the recording of Highway 61, working with what would become The Band, and of course, going electric.

This is all relayed in excruciating detail, which is why I say it's not for the novice. Unless you've read several books about Dylan, this is apt to bore the hell out of you. Like all Dylan obsessives, Heylin seems to have a love/hate relationship with his subject, but that's actually a good thing as he searches for that ever-elusive "Real" Dylan, a concept that The Man himself is apt to have lost track of.

To his credit, Heylin pulls no punches in his pursuit, but this book ends with really the most mysterious aspect of a man whose whole aura is about mystery - the near-fatal motorcycle crash that put an abrupt in to a string a revelatory music releases and served as the impetus for a New Dylan.

That's the book I'm looking forward to, the book that i assume will be coming next, which will document Dylan's recovery, his work with The Band, heroine addiction (?), the "saved years" and his miserable records produced through the '80 and early '90s before a cultural resurgence.

[Cian · Rating 4 out of 5]

The kind of nuanced, multifaceted review of Dylan's early career that only a true obsessive would write. If you don't care about what hotels certain songs were written in, how many takes they took to record and the power dynamics and infighting of specific recording sessions, it's probably not for you. And you're probably the better for it.

I like the tedium - which builds serious momentum once you realise its the snowflakes making up an avalanche.

[Scott Pedersen · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first third of the book was interesting, presenting Dylan's youth and ascension to success in music, but the rest is strictly for readers desiring a detailed--and only marginally interesting--account of nearly everything Dylan did in the mid-1960s.

[Amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'd give this higher rating, since it is clearly well and thoroughly researched, if it weren't for the often snide and self-congratulatory tone of the author -- often at the expense of other Dylan scholars. Since Dylan himself is impenetrable to say the least and known for contradicting himself, it seems a bit harsh for the author to scoff so. Not to mention the fact, that during the time frame covered in this book, Dylan et. al. were generally stoned or drunk out of their minds -- so who can trust those kinds of recollections all these years later? Still -- it's interesting if you are a fan of "the man" as the author rather annoyingly refers to him.

[Debbie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you Netgalley for supplying me an ARC of this book.

As a rather weird 12 or 13 year old, I read Anthony Scaduto's biography of Bob Dylan. When I was that young, I was shocked and dismayed that Dylan, who I was a nonfanatical fan of, lifted records from his friends and told tall tales.

Now as a 58 year old, I'm not even the slightest bit horrified of the antics of the young Dylan, and Mr. Heylin has found more of them for me to be nonplussed about. This book adds much richer details to Scaduto's outline. There are also new discussions of the drugs and women that Dylan used.

Why don't I care about young Dylan's antics anymore? I'm old, Dylan was young. Young people do strange stuff. Young people who become famous will succumb to those extreme pressures and act out even more. All this stuff happened over 50 years ago.

This book is an extremely comprehensive outline of Dylan's early ventures into fame. This will be one of the top books that scholars will refer to in 100 years if scholars are still studying Dylan.

[Nigel Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Heylin returns for second bite of the cherry with a second major biography of Dylan following the seminal “Behind the Shades”

What draws him back to shake hands with the bard is the Dylan archive at Tulsa and this volume takes the story up until 1966 and the end of the legendary electric tour with another volume ( or more?) to come.

I’ve taken a star off for Heylin’s unnecessary disrespect of other biographers in the introductory sections which left a sour taste in the mouth. Not sure what he means either by calling Scorcese’s Rolling Thunder film a mockumentary. What is THAT shit?

However as usual Heylin proves himself to be a meticulous researcher into all things Bob and the book has extensive bibliographies, notes and indexes. I think he’s the first writer to get access to the archive but I wasn’t struck by anything particularly revelatory from the research.

Nevertheless indispensable to anyone interested in Dylan and a fresh look at his life and art

Recommended.

[Vincent Coole · Rating 5 out of 5]

While most reviews will take issue with Clinton's trashing of other Dylan writers, or his sometimes idiosyncratic writing style, there is no denying that Clinton has put in the hours to give us the most accurate account of Dylan's early years. Detailed yes, but dry it is not, and for this it gets 5 stars. It is a steady, but gripping step by step of Dylan's life up to the motor cycle accident. He decides to do a chronological jump-around (a'la Chronicals) with his pre New York years, which just about works, and gives pause to the speedy ascent towards global fame. This was actually the only thing missing for me - the recognition of the critical and commercial success of each release. I found you only got a sense of his growing status through incidentals or the size of the concert hall he was suddenly playing. Heylin's account of the 1966 tour is the best I have ever read, and I enjoyed finding out new information. Very much looking forward to the next installment in the series.

[Greg Viola · Rating 2 out of 5]

While it’s an undeniably compelling window into the early and most important years of Bob Dylan’s career, the author’s constant and unnecessary insertion of himself and his opinions is distracting at best (categorically declaring which Dylan songs are good and which are not) and disgusting at worst (frequent and unnecessary misogynistic language). If it weren’t for the fascinating and illuminating subject matter, I’d have put it down early on. But despite himself, Heylin has written an important artifact for any Dylan fan. I just wish he had left himself out of it.

[Graham Pryor · Rating 5 out of 5]

At last a biography that is not fawning. Dylan the genius but with all the ragged ends exposed. This book debunks without destroying.

[Daniel · Rating 3 out of 5]

25% self aggrandizement about how much more "correct" this author is. 5% helpful context. 50% actual Dylan bio. The rest useless padding.

[Barry Cross · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Double Life of Bob Dylan by author Clinton Heylin Volume 1, was a birthday present to me from my son Jamie.
Honestly I am finding it rather heavy going at the start of it, I’m hoping that it will get better as the author gets into his stride.
But I’m not holding my breath, and it’s a long book to have to plough through.
I can’t help feeling he should really have got, a good proof reader to take a butchers at it, before sending it to the publishers.
It also feels like all those notes that writers make, were not thrown away but recycled into the book.
Thinking of the author and his approach, to being Bob Dylan’s biographer, it occurs to me that he is someone endeavouring, to discover the real Dylan from his enduring enigma.
That if I were as good a writer, as my favourite author Ray Bradbury, I could write at least a short story, of his literary quest that would easily, be more interesting than his tome.
I would say of Clinton Heylin that he is a diligent, dogged and determined researcher, who is endeavouring to be the definitive source for Bob Dylan trivia, such that he will be the go to source of info for all things related to Dylan.
To such an extent that he has seemingly chased, every titbit of ephemera ever produced about Dylan, in so doing he has soaked up, the chit chat and back chat that swirls about his persona.
Bob Dylan is an enigma he has always been himself, what he wanted to be and not what others thought he was, or wanted him to be.
His actual name of Robert Zimmerman itself, speaks to me of a totally different life and world, than the one that Clinton Heylin decides, to commence his particular search.
To what extent does Heylin really want to discover the ‘Real Bob Dylan’?
Because when you start from the persona of Bob Dylan, that’s already a construct in itself, along with the attitude and attire, we have as much as anything an actor, stepping out onto the boards to ply his trade.
Surely a true biographer starts, with the artist’s background the origin, through his family and relatives, a key question surely has to be why the name change, and why that particular moniker.
This question’s answer could prove at least a clue, at his inception he has kept his cards close to his chest, careful to only reveal what he chooses to say and express of himself.
Instead Heylin chooses to trad a different path, appearing to this particular observer, as more of a fan wanting to follow in his hero’s footsteps, to try and see the world as he does.
Perhaps muses the fan if find the places my hero frequented, I can soak up the atmosphere, if I were to trace those people, who he met along the way, and I could follow their paths, and find where theirs coincided with his.
These observations of mine are simply my, initial thoughts and impressions, from just dipping my toes into this huge tome, I will now take a break from the review, to recommence my exploration of Heylin’s trip into Dylan land.
A Chapter in this preamble sees the author Heylin, finally mentioning in any detail Robert Zimmerman, Heylin also refers to the decision, to choose the name of Dylan, from the Wales poet laureate Dylan Thomas.
Personally I take enormous umbrage at Heylin’s arrogant dismissal of Thomas as a drunkard, and something especially offensive is the quote, that Heylin attributes to Robert Zimmerman, about his thoughts of being associated with a ‘drunkard’.
I will say this of the author and of his tome, its useful in introducing me to titbits, of its subject sadly its not accessible, enough to serve as a reference source.
Clinton Heylin effectively bemoans Zimmerman/Dylan for a lack of consistency, but to paraphrase a saying in even considering this work, he should have exercised at least a modicum of it. If the author had at least on timeline for his subject, I might at least be able to attempt this, without having to repeatedly set it aside for a break.
I am a folk fan this music was really some, of the very first that I came to listen to, enough for me to at least consider the notion, that will undoubtedly be considered as heretical.
That the search for pure unadulterated folk music is an illusion, something that even renowned folk music practitioners, still cling to somewhat religiously so.
A key example is Ewan MacColl a venerated musician, who not only performed ‘traditional’ folk songs but who actually, wrote his own songs in the ‘traditional’ idiom.
Partnered with the fellow folk luminary Peggy Seeger, they still reverberate within folk music to this day, she is still fond of repeating some of his particular diatoms, although she had a profound effect, upon him both musically and personally.
In The English folk music icon Martin Carthy, was famously pedantic with Paul Simon, over the release of the English, folk song Scarborough Fair, on the Simon and Garfunkel album, Parsley Sage Rosemary and Thyme. Carthy’s gripe being that the song was not attributed as Trad. ie a traditional song and not written by Paul Simon.
My point is that folk music was traditionally made up on the spot, by people who very likely could neither read nor write, at all let alone musical notation. This is not a derogatory consideration but simply a matter of fact, the songs were not penned by professional wordsmiths, but by itinerant characters, quite possibly farm labourers.
They would often be sung to popular tunes of differing origins, that is why there are many variations of songs, occurring in different villages across Britain and Ireland, this is a worldwide practice in different cultures, and not simply within these islands.
In the entire history of folk music no traditional singer, or musician could ever afford to be a real purist, as all cultures and societies inspired others worldwide.

[Mattschratz · Rating 3 out of 5]

This a good book to read if you want to know the following things:
1) Whether Bob probably slept with the lady who played Magenta in the Rocky Horror Picture Show while her boyfriend, Marlon Brando, was trying to sleep with Miles Davis's wife;
2) The number of different producers who yelled at Bob to stop moving his head around while recording various songs, and what they said about that;
3) A large number of things said by Scandinavian journalists to Bob that would be interesting if they were at least 50% more interesting;
4) What the post-Al-Capp record is for unwarranted mean things a writer can say about Joan Baez.

Comparison is invidious, but Heylin is constantly comparing his book to other Bob Dylan biographies and pointing out how dumb they are for not realizing what hotel stationery Bob would've had when, and thus getting the provenance wrong about scraps of paper with part of Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands on them. The other "magisterial" book about Bob that came out around this one is Folk Music by Greil Marcus, and a comparison of these could not redound more to Marcus's advantage. Marcus may do things that seem baffling (his chapter on, I think, "Blowin' in the Wind" winds up going on for tens of pages about Laurie Anderson and 9/11) but it's part of a project of expansion: seeing Bob's songs (and "folk" songs more generally) as accomplishing something in the world that's bigger than themselves, hard to grasp, admirable, u.s.w. Heylin's book is maybe as intensive as Marcus's is expansive, but, for this reader at least, that's bad, or boring, and leads to a kind of unintentional Charles-Kinbote-ism.

I am not really sure what Bob's "double life" is supposed to be, unless it's that his songs are good and he is kind of bratty or mean. (Heylin's thoughts on the songs might be in his other books which I haven't read; here they are either praised in a kind of byblow fashion, dismissed as dumb, or intensively examined to see who Bob stole them from). Hegel's claim that no man is a hero to his valet not because the hero is not a hero but because the valet is a valet is snobby and wrong about valets, I think, but there's something more metaphorically true about it that this book put me in mind of. Heylin knows too much about Bob to make him a hero, but all of those "warts and all" things are not really explained as having a connection to Bob's incredible music and habits of thought, and winds up making the whole project seem weirdly narrow-minded, for a book that's 458 pages long and is only Part One.

Having said all that I will almost certainly read Part Two, because I am a sicko and do want to see what more bafflingly rude things this guy is going to say about Joan Baez.

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher Little, Brown and Company for an advanced copy of this musical biography.

At the end of this musical encomium you will know more about the musician Bob Dylan up to the age of 25 than you will ever know about your family, crushes, exes and even your pets. Clinton Heylin, the Dylan scholar/obsessive has after ten or more books on the songwriter, has written in The Double Life of Bob Dylan: A Restless, Hungry Feeling, 1941-1966 the most complete and best biography yet on the man. Using new sources, mostly from the George Kaiser Foundation in Tulsa, who purchased Bob Dylan's personal archive, Mr. Heylin was given a chance to go through the collection to see what exactly was purchased. The author dug deep finding out more about the enigma that was once called Robert Zimmerman.

Bob Dylan is a constant fabulist about his life, his, past, his art, and his loves. He deflected when the truth was easier, and lied to make a good story better, and to make him look even better. He was a womanizer who stepped out constantly, and he seemed to have no problem with young girls, not woman on a few occasions. Dylan in this book comes across as very unpleasant man. Mr. Heylin tries to explain the charisma, but to me and the stories told by people who wer once close, and who found themselves cut out, I don't see the attraction. Dylan seemed a lot of a jerk.

Mr. Heylin can be rude, to other biographers, other musicians, basically anybody. However he is meticulous and the book though long, never seems to drag. Another great song is coming, another milestone in his life is around the corner. In such a small period of time, Dylan accomplished and hurt a lot of people. It is a sham that Dylan just doesn't seem to deserve all the work and time spent on him. The music yes, without a doubt. The man not so much. That said I eagerly await Volume 2 in this sprawling masterwork.

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm leaning into more "books that people want to read" this year, versus my standard smattering of academic-y books that I don't have the discipline/patience to finish in short periods of time. So that led me to this very thorough Dylan biography... which candidly, was probably a bit too much for my level of interest in the guy. Still, it's a product for a completist--so much interesting detail here about basically every song you can think of from his first decade of writing. Truthfully, the story I think I'd want to read most after this is a biography of Joan Baez, who got somewhat sucked into Dylan's vortex based on a fundamental (and yet understandable) misunderstanding of the man.

The ending is rather abrupt, but that is to be excused, given that it's a first volume of a longer product. I will probably read the second one.

Dylan is certainly the most talented English-language lyricist and writer that came out of this era (and any era since). His only close contenders are Leonard Cohen and Joni Mitchell, but Dylan's output is *so* prolific, and covers *so* much stylistic ground, that I think he deserves the crown here.

In terms of the rating: points docked for the tone, and the too-clever-by-half sprinkling of random Dylan lyrics throughout the narrative. We get it already. But this is worth it, if you find the subject interesting. It is worth noting that Dylan's most remarkable achievement--the five albums from Freewheelin' through Highway 61--all came before the Beatles had even released Rubber Soul.

[Lynn · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a very strange book to read. Technically it is nearly flawless--well researched and very well written. The author even manages to insert various Dylan lyrics in his writing from time to time. He does a wonderful job of unpacking many of the myths/lies about Dylan. For Dylan fans, this is probably as revelatory a biography as you will find. My only concern with the writing is that he says almost nothing about Dylan's first 12 years but that may be because there isn't much to say. Yet in spite of this, I found it to be a very slow, laborious read. The reason is simply: Bob Dylan is a jerk. He lies, cheats, steals, uses people and generally does anything he can to put himself up and put other people down. I knew this but assumed it was because of the pressures of being a rock star but it seems he was pretty much always that way. I grew up and really like Dylan's music and enjoyed the way the author contextualizes many of the songs. I will probably at least read Volume II whenever it comes out to see if he becomes any less jerky after his nearly-fatal motorcycle wreck. But I don't expect it to be a fun ride.

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

Heylin is not afraid to turn to his personal opinion or make fanciful semi-educated guesses to fill gaps in this entertaining look at Dylan's rise to prominence. Heylin's editorializing can be ridiculous, but it also makes for a fun read (reminding me of Herbert Asbury and his "journalistic liberties," which I'll excuse 9 times out of 10). It is also directly confrontational, both with other Dylan biographers and with Dylan himself. Over the course of the book you get the sense that Heylin is embodying Dylan's most polarizing characteristics (evasiveness, egomania, bellicosity) in building a portrait of him, maybe in the hopes that it might drive to a new, more essential truth about Dylan's psyche leading up to the 1966 motorcycle accident. Heylin's reverence for Dylan is obvious, but he doesn't excuse Dylan's behavior or treatment of those around him.

There are a number of surprising insights and an impressive array of primary sources, but the main takeaway is a new understanding of Dylan as a manipulator, liar, and a miserable grump. And the conclusion that his output would not have been what it was had he tried to be anything else.