Chronicles: Volume One

Recently being on a biography kick, I started listening to Bob Dylan's Chronicles on audiobook. It would have been nice if Dylan had read it himself, but Nick Landrum still gives it a folksy charm.

And it is utterly charming. Bob (or Robert Allen, as I learned is his true name in the book, and Robert Allen Zimmerman, I just learned through Wikipedia) is the small town boy who goes to the big city and makes it to the big time through hard work, lucky connections, and sheer willpower. The name-dropping is staggering, but not always the names you would expect, as Bob talks about Gorgeous George, Tiny Tim, and Harry Belafonte. His early years in New York were hard, with Dylan leading an impoverished, hand-to-mouth existence, yet he seems to be having a good time with everyone around him, amused by each other's eccentricities, with not a trace of drug-induced debauchery in sight (at least as far as I've gotten, but I haven't listened as far as Woodstock yet).

Bob seems to have never forgot a face or name, as well as remembering every book he's ever read, and comes across as quite the intellectual. He can turn a phrase. In fact, as Wikipedia tells me, perhaps he can turn other people's phrases as well, as he was accused extensively of plagiarism in this work. It's a shame if it's true, particularly if the criticism led him to never finishing Volume Two. I suspect there's still more Bob Dylan than Mark Twain in this book, and I really would like to hear what comes next.

[Update: Interesting, how I expected more wildness from just living in Woodstock, because of the reputation of its most famous concert. It's interesting learning from Dylan about his influences, how he works on songs, and how he collaborates with others. I found it comical how, as a 20-year old drifter musician, he just couldn't understand why this one mother didn't like how he was dating her 17-year old daughter and taking her back to his apartment all the time. Not even a "in hindsight, I can see how I'd feel the same now that I'm a parent." A lot is glossed over, but the most frustrating omission, for me, is the one-sentence casual mention of his time working in the Traveling Wilburys. C'mon, Bob...I'd never even heard of your Oh Mercy album you spend one-third the memoir talking about, and that's all we get on the landmark album we got just a year earlier?]