Bob Dylan: Behind the Shades Revisited » (Reprint)

Clinton Heylin is recognized as the world's leading Bob Dylan scholar, as well as an authority on folk music and popular music in general. He is also known for his acclaimed studies of American punk (From the Velvets to the Voidoids); rock bootlegging (Bootleg!)—Record Collector's book of the year in 1994; and Dylan's studio recordings (Dylan: The Recording Sessions), nominated for the Ralph J. Gleason Award in 1996. He edited The Penguin Book of Rock and Roll Writing and is the general editor of Schirmer's Classic Rock Albums series. A native of Manchester, he now makes his home in Somerset, England.

Written by Bob Dylan's most prolific chronicler, this magisterial biography illuminates what drives, inspires, influences, and shapes the man behind the music.

Beginning with Dylan's fiercely individualistic childhood in Minnesota, Clinton Heylin explores Dylan's arrival in New York in 1960, his subsequent rise as heir-apparent to Woody Guthrie, his emergence as the unwitting leader of the highly political fold revival of early '60's Greenwich Village, and his sudden and shocking metamorphosis into rock's poetic guiding force.

Heylin also details the rest of this influential artist's mercurial career, including the lost years of the '80s, Dylan's struggles with addiction, and his re-emergence as a triumphant and revered '90s troubadour—winner of three 1997 Grammys, including Album of the Year—who spends most of his life on the road.Bob Dylan is an endlessly fascinating yet obsessively private person; this is the first time his fans will truly get to know the man behind the shades.