Easily one of the most difficult tasks facing any
writer that wants to delve into the career, the music, the personal life or any
other conceivable facet of a renowned musical artist life is to either develop
a hook that no one else has tackled or to dig deeply enough to track down new
information of greater detail than has been revealed by other authors.
When you consider an artist that has had a career that
has spanned fifty years plus like Bob Dylan and has been written about in
literally dozens of books, hundreds of newspaper and magazine articles and
dissected from every imaginable angle; the task to break new ground is a
daunting one.
Veteran author/journalist/producer Dennis McDougal
faced that challenge head on; aspiring to tackle the subject of Bob Dylan by
sheer volume of information in the 540 page epic, Dylan: The Biography. At times, McDougal lets a bit of his
unabashed fan-boy shine through, comparing Dylan to the likes, not of legendary
musicians but legendary scribes like Mark Twain, William Shakespeare, and
Charles Dickens.
While Dylan-philes may be well familiar with much of
the material included in this block-like edition, those who have never tackled
the Dylan story in print would be advised to use this as winning starting
place. McDougal does a nice job of balancing opinion and journalism throughout
this epic journey.
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