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Library | Call Number | Status |
|---|---|---|
Searching... R.H. Stafford Library (Woodbury) | 921 DYLAN | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... Stillwater Public Library | 782.42164 GIL | Searching... Unknown |
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Summary
Summary
In 1974 Bob Dylan wrote, recorded, reconsidered, and then re-recorded Blood on the Tracks, and to this day, no one who hears it can avoid being blown away by its emotional power. Commonly referred to as "the greatest break-up album of all time," it was written as Dylan's own twelve-year marriage began to painfully unravel. Songs like "Tangled Up in Blue," "Idiot Wind," and "Shelter from the Storm" have become the template for multidimensional, adult songs of love, longing, and loss.Yet thefull story behind the creation of this album has never been told. The authors have drawn upon first-hand information and interviews with the musicians, producers, industry insiders, as well as Dylan's friends, associates, and relatives. A Simple Twist of Fate is an engaging chronicle of how one artist transformed his personal pain and confusion into great art.
Author Notes
Andy Gill is a leading critic for The Independent, and has edited or written for NME, Q, Mojo, Rolling Stone, GQ, and Maxim. He lives in London. Kevin Odegard was a brakeman on the Chicago and Northwestern Railroad when he was asked to play guitar on Blood on the Tracks. He has written for USA Today, Billboard, and other periodicals. He lives in Wayzata, Minnesota.
Reviews (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
This is a solid look at the background to the making of Blood on the Tracks, considered one of Bob Dylan's greatest recordings since its release 30 years ago. Gill is a skilled British music journalist, as is Odegard, who was one of the Minneapolis session musicians Dylan used to redo five songs recorded three months earlier in New York City. The authors look at the album they believe "set a new benchmark in confessional songwriting" by looking at it from every possible angle: Dylan's musical decision to return to folk after his electric and country periods; the disintegration of his marriage to his first wife, Sara, in the wake of Dylan's various affairs; his strained relationship with his younger brother, David, who helped remake the album in Minneapolis. While the authors do give a truly complete sense of the background that produced the album, much of this has been covered in far more detail in such books as Clinton Heylin's Bob Dylan: Behind the Shades Revisited (which the authors cite) and will be familiar to all Dylan fans. Fortunately, the authors shine throughout the rest of the book, which presents an enormous amount of previously unreported detail about the making of the album-down to the kind of microphones that were used. Their descriptions of the energy and enthusiasm of these musicians will make even the most hardcore Dylan fan hear Blood on the Tracks anew. (Mar.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Booklist Review
In 1974, Bob Dylan broke a streak of wan and uninspired recordings with Blood on the Tracks0 , 0 composed in the wake of the breakup of the singer-songwriter's 12-year marriage. The album was immediately hailed by fans and critics as one of his best. After cutting 0 Blood with a group of crack New York studio musicians, Dylan redid most of its songs in Minneapolis with a group of obscure local players, including coauthor Odegard, and the versions of "Shelter from the Storm" and "Idiot Wind" on the album are from the remake recordings. Exhaustive interviews with musicians from both sessions allow a detailed chronicle of the sessions and provide a harrowing portrayal of working with the mercurial, hard-to-please Dylan. Lengthy passages describing the early-'70s cultural and musical milieu and the sometimes-stormy relationship between Dylan and his brother, producer of the Minneapolis sessions, mostly just pad the text out to book length. Blood on the Tracks0 remains a high point of Dylan's career, and its many devotees will relish this thorough account of its making. --Gordon Flagg Copyright 2004 Booklist
Library Journal Review
Thirty years ago this year, Bob Dylan emerged from a period of self-imposed exile to record what many rock critics argue is his greatest album, Blood on the Tracks. Relying on interviews with session musicians and Dylan's friends, Gill (music critic, the Independent) and Odegard (a guitarist involved peripherally in the recording sessions for the album) chronicle in rather workmanlike fashion the confluence of life events that shaped the record. Most of the songs-from "Tangled Up in Blue" to "Idiot Wind"-narrate the breakup of Dylan's ten-year marriage to Sara Lownds. The authors also provide glimpses of Dylan's intensity and his ego; according to session musicians like Buddy Cage and Eric Weissberg, Dylan expected from his band the same concentration and musical perfection that he did of himself. He decided to rerecord Blood using other musicians because of his dissatisfaction with the first recording. Marred with repetitive writing-the authors tell several stories more than once-the book also contains some of the most pretentious rock journalism ever published: "As cocaine inflated the self-esteem of semiliterate stars, the most ridiculous and half-baked of notions were indulged in sprawling, quasi-philosophical concept albums." Consequently, the haunting beauty of Dylan's album goes untapped. Not recommended.-Henry L. Carrigan Jr., Lancaster, PA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
