a person who has traveled to see Dylan, many parts of this book rang true, The lost souls who always seem to be around are still there, The feeling of being disconnected, always a new town, travel, lack of sleep, but lots of the same faces.
This book put me back on the road and while it had many flaws, it touched me in a way other books don't.
It was real to me and I recommend it to any Dylan fan and especially those "lost souls" goin to one more show.
in its gonzo way, this along with BD's own Chronicle might be the most insightful book I've read on Uncle Bob, and maybe not incidentally on what rocknroll means or meant or stood for once or could maybe represent again someday as a popular experiencebased ART FORM, not just as a popular commodity or everybody's weird hobby.
all the angles are covered, even if you don't realize it til you look back at what you just read and think it over a bit.
so I guess in a way this is also a book about how to write a book about this.
true multidimensionality in rocknroll literature,
"The war amp peace of rocknroll" BD I got this for Christmas and read it over a few nights right after that not bad, the author comes across as kind of pathetic for long stretches of it, but I'd really like to see those movies sometime.
On the Rolling Thunder tour, the musicians and hangers on were constantly filming notwellthoughtout scenes for a never to be released movie.
Good for them. This book is also worth it just for the extended interview towards the end with the guitar player who was on the Highwayalbum.
TERRIBLE. Briefly enjoyed the mention of local places I recognized at the start, It soon becomes clear that this is not "the ultimate behind the scenes look" at the RTR, Is Sloman even friends with Dylan Why is he always using "scream" in the middle of a conversation Most of the time Dylan answers him with one word responses.
I think most of this book is probably made up but can't imagine why, if it was fiction, it wouldn't be more exciting.
And why he would portray himself as someone being ignored and made fun of, Is it supposed to be humorous but falls miserably flat I skimmed the second half and only because someone kindly loaned it to me, because of my interest in Dylan and I wanted to be able to say I read it.
"I said, 'I'll never find the rainbow at the end of the highway,' and Dylan said, 'It's all within, man.
”'
Larry Ratso Sloman gets inside the Rolling Thunder Revue,
He goes into Leonard Cohen's shabby house,
He enters the mind of Bob Dylan's mom,
If you're interested in Bob Dylan's's music this is a feast,
There are terrible parts, yes, Ratso leaves everything in it's tedious at times BUT makes you feel like you're finding out what actually happened in real time.
Something crazy really happened and this puts you there in the midst of it,
A great book as a reporter from Rolling Stone follows Bob Dylan and the Rolling Thunder Revue tour.
Picked on AND embraced by the musicians, it's a compelling tale of being sitelinkon the road with a traveling music revue.
I can't say much beyond what the other one star reviews have said, except that I regret spending money on this.
Hard to believe a journalist could write so poorly, an interesting account of life on the road with the Rolling Thunder Revue, from the perspective of the ultimate insider/outsider.
i happen to be a big fan of Rolling Thunder era Dylan, so i kinda dug this artifact.
to others i can see how it might be kind of tedious amp lacking in the "Hammer of the Gods" type sensationalism.
for Dylan fanatics/completists it is, of course, indispensable, The tour must have been fun, but it is not very interesting to read about, The author wrote for Rolling Stone and expanded his articles into the rather massive paperback reissued in, It's difficult to read straight through, as there are many gonzo detours into the author's search for significant people amp events of which there were few outside the concert hall.
One of those books that undermines my positive sentiment amp affection for the subject matter amp makes me wish I'd picked up Middlemarch instead, like I've always been meaning to do someday.
The most valuable portions for me were conversations with the relatively underappreciated women on the tour, all of whom come off well Ronee Blakely, Joni Mitchell, Joan Baez amp Bob's wife Sara.
Joni Mitchell's rant about being pigeonholed as a "Female Songwriter" with a "Woman's Perspective" is almost worth the rest of the book.
Several celebrities of dubious merit were along for the ride, including Allen Ginsberg who always has something to say.
If you can borrow this book I recommend it, This account by a rock journalist was annoying because he often drifted into the third person and was obviously way too much of a fan of Dylan to be objective funny for me to say.
He came off like an overeager teen, but maybe he wanted to, It was interesting to get the behind the scenes on the tour and his dialogues with other musicians like Joni Mitchell and Leonard Cohen are great, as well as his discussions with Rubin Carter.
His observations on the whole situation of "the Hurricane" are entertaining, particularly his comments on media hype and manipulation.
Not great, but not bad either, Picked up an old copy of this book in a bookstore in Nashville, That should help explain where this book is coming from, All about Dylan's tour in 'it has major players Baez, McGuinn and not so major players in the Dylan canon.
Worth a read if you're a Dylan fan, BTW kick ass tour. La premessa è d'obbligo anche se non va spiegata: trattasi di un grande libro per Dylaniani , non per Dylanologi.
Parte a razzo Sloman trasportandoci sin dalle prime righe al centro dell'azione, in quella New York del 'che saluta il ritorno in città dell'Illustre Scomparso per tutte quelle persone normali che non ritengono la vita di Dylan una tappa obbligatoria della propria formazione culturale va detto che negli anni precedenti agli accadimenti del libro Dylan si era ritirato dal mondo giocando a fare il signorotto di campagna, lo sfornafigli seriale, la parodia di Johnny Cash e l'autore di un paio dei dischi più brutti della discografia universale Planet Waves e Self Portrait.
Con indovinata sintesi potremmo usare le parole che un suo epigono minore italiano, in una delle sue poche riuscite canzoni, dedicò al periodo bucolico del Vate senza più lalloro "Lui adesso vive in California, daanni sotto una veranda ad aspettare le nuvole,è diventato un grosso suonatore di chitarre e stravede per una donna chiamata Lisa" alle prese con le alcoliche registrazioni del controverso Desire il
suo disco di maggior successo commerciale ma, stranamente, il meno costeggiato dai cartografi del verbo Dylaniano sarà, è una mia tesi da Dylaniano e non da Dylanologo, per la "scandalosa" doppia paternità dei testi, condivisa con lo psicologo clinico Jacques Levy, fraterno sodale del Nostro in quegli anni e le primepagine sono una deliziosa falsa pista disseminata di scorribande ubriache in macchina per la città, feste di bentornato e preparativi per il più bizzarro e improbabile dei tour : un giro nella provincia dimenticata in compagnia di decine di musicisti, poeti, registi, giocolieri e non si sa cosa a intrattenere con un raffinato gioco meta musicale un pubblico di personaggi di Sherwood Anderson in teatri fatiscenti e palestre di college.
Il famigerato Rolling Thunder Revue, E dove inizia il vero racconto Dylan scompare e vanno in scena le picaresche avventure di Larry “Ratso” Sloman, figlioccio di Hunter Thompson e del suo giornalismo gonzo e lo sfiatato inseguimento alla carovana delle star.
Sempre tenuto ai margini del circo itinerante, tra sberleffi, prese in giro, doposbronze, eccessi farmacologici, macchine scassate e materassi bitorzoluti di hotel di infima fama.
Il suo momento di massima gloria arriverà quando gli assegneranno il compito di dogsitter del beagle di Dylan.
Ma nel mezzo di questo frustrante peregrinare riesce a infilare alcune perle di altissimo giornalismo gonzo: improbabili interviste al cognato!! di Jack Kerouac, alla mamma di Dylan, a teppistelli anfetaminici dei sobborghi dei sobborghi damerica, commenti in presa diretta di Allen Ginsberg durante le esibizioni di Dylan, chiacchierate con la groupie Lisa costretta a ogni tappa a ripassarsi tutto lentourage solo per far arrivare bigliettini demenziali allinvisibile star, schermaglie intellettuali con Joan Beaz ecc ecc.
Inevitabile il paragone con laltro grande libro su questo tour, quei Diari del Rolling Thunder del futuro premio Pulitzer Sam Shepard, anche lì Dylan è solo unentità, un dio capriccioso e onnipotente che appare e scompare in uno scenario narrativo fatto essenzialmente da un paesaggio americano.
Solo che Sloman lo riscalda con il fuoco dellesuberanza, del sopra le righe, Shepard lo raffredda in unalgida sintesi concettuale alla Hopper.
Catartico il racconto del loro incontro nel libro di Sloman, i due scrittori a notte fonda nella hall di un albergo a sfogare le loro frustrazioni e il loro amore masochistico per il genio più scorbutico del mondo.
Dylan in absentia plasma comunque ogni loro percezione della realtà, E un libro prezioso e divertente, sconsigliato ai Dylanologi e ai cultori della scrittura cesellata, qui si viaggia a cento allora con tutta la grandezza e i limiti di un certo giornalismo sfasato.
Da gustarsi insieme alla visione del traballante Renaldo amp Clara, film monstre di quel tour e allascolto del quinto volume delle bootleg series, imperdibile documento sonoro di quei concerti, forse, e qui i Dylanologi di cui sopra mi sbraneranno, ultima fiera zampata di quel leone prima di essere ingabbiato nelle innocue categorie della modernità.
Un grazie alla Minimum Fax che tra un imperdibile e dimenticabile nuovissimo genio delle lettere americane e l'altro traduce e pubblica certe perle dimenticate.
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Larry Sloman