The Dylan Tapes

The raw material and interviews behind Anthony Scadutos iconic biography of Bob Dylan draw an intimate and multifaceted portrait of the singer-songwriter who defined his era When Anthony Scadutos Bob Dylan: An Intimate Biography was first published in 1971, the Nobel Prizewinning songwriter, at thirty, had already released some of the most iconic albums of the 1960s, including Highway 61 Revisited and Blonde on Blonde. Scadutos book was one of the first to take an investigative journalists approach to its subject and set the standard for rock music biography. The Dylan Tapes, compiled from thirty-six hours of interviews, is a behind-the-scenes look at the making of Scadutos landmark bookand a close-up encounter with pivotal figures in Dylans life. These reel-to-reel tapes, found in a box in Scadutos basement, are a never-bootlegged trove of archival material about Dylan, drawn from conversations with those closest to him during the early years of his career. In the era of ten-second takes, these interviews offer uncommon depth and immediacy as we listen to friends and lovers recall the Dylan they knew as he created his professional persona and perfected his craftfrom folk music, protest songs, and electric rock through the traumatic impact of a motorcycle crash to his later, more self-reflecting songwriting. Echo Helstrom, Dylans Girl from the North Country, is here, as are Suze Rotolo, who graced the cover of the Freewheelin album, and Joan Baez, remembering her relationship to Bobby. We hear from Mike Porco, who gave Dylan his first gig in New York City; Sid and Bob Gleason, who introduced him to his hero Woody Guthrie; folk artists from Greenwich Village, like Phil Ochs and Ramblin Jack Eliot; John Hammond Sr., who gave him his first record contract; plus a host of musicians, activists, folk historians, and archivistsand, of course, Dylan himself. From these reflections and frank conversations, many published here for the first time, a complex, finely observed picture emerges of one of the best known yet most enigmatic musicians of our time.