A panoramic vision of Bob Dylan, his music, his shifting place in American culture, from multiple angles. In fact, reading Sean Wilentz's Bob Dylan in America is as thrilling and surprising as listening to a great Dylan song.
I am a Bob Dylan fan.
I stopped listening to Dylan with both ears after Highway 64 (sic) and Blonde on Blonde, and even then it was because George (Harrison) would sit me down and make me listen.
Hear this Robert Zimmerman, I wrote a song for you, about a strange young man called Dylan with a voice like sand and glue.
I was like, "Who the hell is Bob Dylan?" I was going to learn one song to appease my mom and alphabetically the first song in the book was "Absolutely Sweet Marie." When I heard it, it was like "Oh, there is something going on here. It's not like my parents' boring music that I don't care about. This is totally electrifying."
