Bob Dylan: Don't Look Back

Category: Books,Arts & Photography,Music

Bob Dylan: Don't Look Back Details

A very good softcover copy. Light shelf wear. Tight binding. Clean, unmarked pages. NOT ex-library. Shipped Weight: Under 1 kilogram. Category: Music; ISBN: 0767091574. ISBN/EAN: 9780767091572. Inventory No: 019843. Read more

Reviews

One hates to look back, especially given the title of the book, as well as the DVD that accompanies (or really, the other way around) of this title, Don't Look Back, filmed by D.A. Pennebaker with sound by Howard Alk.Don't Look Back is a documentary of Dylan's UK tour of 1965 and opens with the famous video of Dylan performing the black and white video for Subterranean Homesick Blues (in the background there, in case you don't know, is Allen Ginsberg and Bob Neuwirth - Ginsberg looks like a Rabbi here, despite the fact that we all know he's a poet, but it's an interesting little fact to know for those who may have not known who it was in the not-so distant background talking.)The book is useful, especially for those who have actually seen the documentary Don't Look Back (and i recommend you do, otherwise the book really cannot mean as much as it would otherwise), for it gives us the detail that we may be missing otherwise - names for instance (Alan Price of the Animals who makes an appearance is one) and the interview with a 'Science Student' who comes as a sort-of journalist to interview Dylan.Dylan, known for not particularly liking interviews and often being cantankerous or sometimes overly shy (extremes) here is alone with the science student/journalist. It's an interesting exchange and a fast one and Dylan keeps egging him on, picking on the young man. To quote, Dylan says, "Just give me a reason why I should want to know you."To which the science student replies :Um... I might be worth knowing."Dylan: "Why..."This may have been a mistake on Dylan's part, and as for the science student who seemed so reticent, he did hold his own, even with Dylan who kept at him. The science student, for the record, went on to form, I believe the label was or is, Chrysalis Records (I may be wrong about the label, but i'm pretty sure that was it.)No, Pennebaker's script will not have this sort of information in it, but with a backward glance, if you know enough about what became of the 'science student' in the later years, you see what a mistake Dylan made by reading Pennebaker's careful script and how well he captures the real Dylan on film and in text. When he says "Why should I want to know you... What good is it going to do me...?" Dylan may have made a career changing mistake.I don't know. We'll never know. And as for the science student, Dylan offered him a harmonica which he never took saying he did not know how to play it (another mistake on his part for by today's standards it would be a much coveted item - one that surely a true Dylanologist may not sell, but surely treasure.)What we see through this book then, and through Don't Look Back the documentary (and what the book allows us is a closer look - which is why i would recommend buying it, because we miss a lot by simply watching a film - little things slip by), we see the things that perhaps changed the lives of those in the scene at the time and that is what makes Pennebaker so incredibly talented (for not only does he make himself 'invisible', thereby making his subjects fully at ease and able to be themselves, but he captures a real "verite" of the moment - what the tour was really like and this is the information that is invaluable and that would be lost to history.Buy the DVD Don't Look Back; buy this book at the same time and see and read together. You won't miss a thing, and yes, it is with a backward glance, but we do it with no regrets.Thanks for listening,Sadi Ranson-Polizzotti

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