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Down the Highway: The life of Bob Dylan
Howard Sounes
Doubleday, 2001, 527pp, £17.99
Review first published on fish.co.uk, August 2001.
The casual observer might be forgiven for thinking Bob
Dylan had died - not because he hasn't been heard of in
ages, but quite the opposite. The saturation media coverage
and outpouring of re-packaged old faves is the kind of
'tribute' reserved for stars who have just passed over to a
realm beyond the reach of the royalties.
If he had died in that legendary 1966 motorcycle crash (where in fact, according to Sounes, he was barely bruised) he would have eclipsed Morrison, Joplin, and even Hendrix, as the archetypal 60s youth icon killed by rock'n'roll. The wild genius who died before he got old.
Instead at 60 he is the elder statesman of rock. What does he have to show for these bonus 35 years? 36, soon to be 37, more albums, infinite reinvention, an unquenched brilliance and a trail of women willing to play kiss & tell with Sounes.
If you've read other Dylanographies (there's no shortage), you'll find little new here, though there are interesting titbits. Did you know that 'Romance in Durango' (from Desire) was inspired by a postcard depicting 'Chilli Peppers in the Sun'? Thought not.
If you haven't, there's little reason to choose this over earlier ones like No Direction Home or Behind the Shades, apart from the obvious, that's it's bang up to date - for the time being.
Two things stay with me particularly from the book. One is the intensely sad portrait it paints of His Bobness, a lonely man whose lifetime of superstardom has alienated his friends and family and destroyed his ability to trust people.
The other is the investigative-journalism approach Sounes takes. He uncovers 'previously unseen documents', interviews lovers who have 'never spoken before' and even blows the cover on a marriage Dylan managed to keep secret for 15 years. All in the public interest, of course.
It's doing what an earlier and scarier Dylanologist did literally - stealing his trash. It reveals no crimes or horrors, and if, by Sounes's own reckoning, he is a man broken by the unwelcome attention of strangers, it is spectacularly inappropriate.
It leaves a bad taste in the mouth.
it's doing what an earlier and scarier Dylanologist did literally - stealing his trash