Arts & Culture
Book recommendation of the week: Gray’s Bob Dylan Encyclopedia
UW -SP Collection Development Librarian
You’ve probably all heard of the never-ending tour, but how many of you know who the real Sergei Petrov is? How about Big Bill Broonzy? Just who was Blind Willie McTell? What’s the real story behind the “Brownsville Girl?”
Well, as only Bob Dylan could say, “It’s all been written in the book.” Indeed, it’s all here, and much more, in the 800-plus page Bob Dylan Encyclopedia with CD-ROM (2006, 3rd edition), a culmination of over thirty years of research by Michael Gray.
Gray, a recognized authority on the history of rock ’n’ roll and the blues, earned his own cadence as a student journalist during the 1960s by being one of the first in England to interview Jimi Hendrix. Gray went on to pen a pioneering study of “Bob Dylan: Song and Dance Man” in the 70s, “Mother: The Frank Zappa Story,” in the 80s, “The Elvis Atlas,” in the 90s, and “Hand Me My Travelin’ Shoes: In the Footsteps of Blind Willie” McTell, in 2007.
Gray’s “Bob Dylan Encyclopedia” is immense in scope, covering most of Dylan’s songs, albums, film work and the countless personalities intertwined with Dylan’s aptitude to say more with less.
Gray doesn’t shy away from offering opinions, suggesting it was the Grateful Dead in 1988 who re-awakened Dylan’s interest in playing live - a persuasion by example of “the virtues of sticking at it, year in year out” - of adopting a never-ending tour state of mind. Entries even include Wisconsin Rapids’ very own Dave Engel, author of “Just Like Bob Zimmerman’s Blues: Dylan in Minnesota” and co-author, with Portage county’s Justin Isherwood of “Ring Them Bells: a Mid-State Poetry Towers Collection.”
Guess we’ll have to wait to see if Bob’s recent expressions of “Hope” or WWSP FM 90’s “Dylan weekend” are included, should Gray do a fourth edition. In the meantime, take Bob’s advice as he once crooned to Rita, “I’m gonna have to go to college, ‘cause you are the book of knowledge, Rita May.”
Check out this book or any of the 22 “Bobland” titles located in the university library’s stacks and IMC! Who knows; you might even find Rita or Sergei in the library!
You can find this book on the fourth floor of the university library, call number ML420.D98 G68 2006.
To view video book recommendations by faculty and students, go to BookPointers, located at the bottom of the library homepage: http://library.uwsp.edu.
