A Bob Dylan museum in book form
The Swedish Academy called him a "cultural icon" when awarding the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2016. Now there is a new work about the 82-year-old Bob Dylan. "Mixing Up The Medicine" is more than just a book, it is also a museum and a journey through the history of the music that Dylan makes and influences.
The title - a line from "Subterranean Homesick Blues" - reveals what is hidden in the more than 600 pages. It is a mixture of the medicine that Dylan's music and personality is for millions and generations, divided into creative phases. There are paintings of Dylan, pictures from his childhood to the present day, anecdotes, memories, illustrations of lyrics, typed on a typewriter and accompanied by handwritten notes.
Dylan's playlist
There are telegrams, letters from Andy Warhol's assistant or from TV presenter Ed Sullivan and thousands of fans. Plus what we now call playlists, written down long before Spotify and iTunes existed, in an unassuming notebook from 1964 - with songs from the Beach Boys and Dusty Springfield to the Isley Bros. You can see the leather jacket that Dylan wore when he first played "electric".
There are pictures by photographers such as Richard Avedon and Annie Leibovitz, essays by companions, authors and artists who were allowed to choose things from the huge collection at the Bob Dylan Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma, to write about. Plus interview excerpts and countless backgrounds to songs - famous ones like "Mr. Tambourine Man", but also the lesser-known, no less moving ones.
Martin Luther King and Johnny Cash
The fact that Bob Dylan first had a pen pal relationship with Johnny Cash and then remained in close contact with him for 50 years is documented, as are Dylan's memories of the March on Washington on August 28, 1963. Music was an important part of the civil rights movement at the time.
Together with Joan Baez, he sang "When The Ship Comes In" and "Only a Pawn in Their Game". And he sensed how historic the day was: he was up close and personal when Martin Luther King Jr. gave his famous "I have a dream" speech, which still touches Dylan deeply today.
The new book includes stories about John Lennon and the Beatles, John Hammond, Patti Smith, Eric Clapton, Allen Ginsberg and Tom Petty. David Bowie and Jimi Hendrix also feature, as do the Black Panther Party, Live Aid and several US presidents: Hundreds of prominent names are lined up on six index pages at the back of the book.
"Mixing Up The Medicine" is also something for people who are not die-hard Dylan fans but love music - because: He influenced everyone. The winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature is the godfather of the great songwriters, the musical lyricists, from Mark Knopfler to Bono, from Van Morrison to Françoise Hardy, from Bruce Springsteen to Stevie Wonder, and countless others.
If there were books on prescription, this one would be mandatory.
Bob Dylan: Mixing Up The Medicine. Edited by Mark Davidson, Parker Fishel. Droemer, hardcover, 608 pages, 98.00 euros, ISBN: 978-3-426-27915-1
Source: www.dpa.com
