Customer Reviews

Bob Dylan: The Recording Sessions, 1960-1994

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is a must have for Dylan fans and collectors, but there are some drawbacks which potential buyers should be aware of.

First, the title is deceptive. Heylin and his publisher obviously chose it to dupe unsuspecting readers into thinking they are getting a detailed, day-by-day account of Dylan's work in the studio, along the lines of Mark Lewisohn's extraordinary BEATLES RECORDING SESSIONS (Hamlyn, 1988). This is not such a chronicle, as Heylin points out - at length - in his introduction (an introduction that web buyers cannot read; hence, this review). Heylin's self-serving swipes at Lewisohn in the introduction are also unfortunate, and is "Bob-made-better-records-in-six-days-than-the-Beatles-did-in-six-months" rant is simply misguided. Methinks Clinton is jealous because Lewisohn had unprecedented access to the EMI archive, while Sony's gatekeeper - Jeff Rosen - allowed a rival Dylanologist to document the bard's work. Heylin's childish un-dedication to Rosen is surely a first in the history of publishing, and tarnishes an otherwise exemplary book.

If you can get past the petty dedication and bitchy introduction, you will find RECORDING SESSIONS to be a mostly informative, highly opinionated look at Dylan's career in the studio. You will need Michael Krogsgaard's authorised (sorry Clinton!) accounts in fanzines THE TELEGRAPH and THE BRIDGE for the most accurate session information (e.g. musicians and take numbers), but you don't read Clinton Heylin for these dry facts anyway. You read him because he has many insightful, provocative things to say about Bob Dylan, especially with regard to the songs and takes which were left behind, and have only appeared since on bootlegs, or Sony's pseudo-bootlegs. Here, Heylin simply shines.

You may not agree with what he has to say, but you will be entertained by the way he says it. This work deserves a place in your collection, next to Paul Williams's PERFORMING ARTIST I & II.

Well, I am intrigued by the review that posits Heylin as a charlatan posing as a pundit- a turn of phrase associated with The Marquess of Queensbury... I only wish the reviewer would provide some details.

Heylin from the outset makes it clear that he is not going to produce a Dylan equivilant to Mark Lewisohn's indispensible "The Beatles Recording Sessions"-(trashing that work is part of Heylin's explanation...). What Heylin does offer is some analysis (good)and a LOT of opinion (er, not so good...).

Heylin provides some good insight into Dylan's disdain for the recording process- but rather over extends this, creating a false opposition against those who spent time in the studio and were interested in the possibilities of production hence the Beatles (and nearly all of Dylan's peers) are summarily dismissed in the preface...

Overall though, it is entertaining. Some of his rants and his rather conversational style don't necessarily help his cause- b! ut it is thorough and has good information on what remains unreleased.

That said, one needs to procure the outtake material (on which he offers an excellent guide)to really get an understanding of what Heylin is trying to convey: that Dylan has frequently damaged his own output- parcelling out substandard tosh or damaged goods while locking away his best material in the vaults- witness nearly all of his 1980's output and his eleventh hour revision of "Blood on the Tracks".

Without anything else out there to rival it- it remains a must buy for a serious fan.

Clinton Heylin, one of the leading writers on Bob Dylan (and author of, perhaps, the best biography on the man, Behind The Shades), deserves kudos for the exhausting amount of research he put into this book and the information he has presented. It is essential for obsessive Bob Dylan fans - is there any other kind? - who must have every little tidbit of information about the man and what he did in the studio. It is particulary interesting for collectors as it goes into detail about the many, many songs Dylan has recorded throughout the years and not released. It is a chronicle of absolutely everything that Dylan put to tape between the 1960 recordings made in the apartments of friends when he was still in college up to his Good As I Been To You album, as well as soundtracks and appearance on the albums of others, where relevant. Heylin includes not only a list of every song, but also the different takes, and shows what songs are circulating among collectors and which ones still have not seen the light of day. He also includes other relevant information such as what musicians played on the sessions, as well as several appendices such as a list of Dylan compositions, covers he has recorded, and even the session charts from the Desire sessions. The only thing that brings the book down is Heylin's own constant interjected commentary. It is unfortunate that seemingly every commentator on Dylan seems to see it as their duty to critize certain aspects of the man's work and say what he should have done differently - as if they had any right to question the genius of the greatest songwriter of the 20th century. Certainly, Heylin is entitled to his opinion, and never does he make the claim that this book is entirely objective, but, at times, it happens so often as to get in the way. Still, for the true Dylan fan, this book is still a must-have for the priceless information it gives. Casual fans need not bother.

OK, so it's not the comprehensive account of all of Bob's studio work that Lewisohn's Beatles book is, and maybe Heylin should have called it BOB DYLAN: THE OUT-TAKES 1960-1994, but this is a bible of information about Bob's album sessions. Would BLOOD ON THE TRACKS or INFIDELS have been better LPs if Dylan hadn't such an appetite for re-editing and revisionism? How and why did THE BASEMENT TAPES and THE BOOTLEG SERIES VOLS 1-3 fail to live up to their potential? It's questions like these that Heylin tackles with great insight and authority. He also provides a good bootleg discography, although this is by now somewhat out of date. Time for a new edition, Clinton!

I must give it to Mr Heylin. He appears to have a wealth of knowledge concerning Bob Dylan. In this book he lays out that knowledge in a straight-forward, understandable way. Had he stopped there this would be a great book filled with insight. As it is, the book is worthy of 3 stars only because the topic is good.

I found it tiresome to have to slough through Mr Heylin's personal comments (often in parenthesis) that gave no value to the book. In fact, I found these comments so regular to be distracting to the subject. I found myself frustrated by Mr Heylin's constant interjection of himself into the book. Often, they transformed a behind the scenes look at the recording life of Bob Dylan into a discussion of what Bob Dylan should have done to create a better work.

Certainly, Mr Heylin's opinion can be well thought out. Certainly, he has a right to his opinion. I was just disappointed that he constantly hid his opinion among good discussions relating to the recording life and style of one of music's most influence songwriters.

(Not to mention, Mr Heylin's constant use of bazaar names for "Mr. D".)

Thr Recording Sessions is a great piece of work, very detailed & with some real insight. Dylan's many states of mind are captured along with the anti-methodology he employs in the studio. Dylan is easily America's most important artist of the 2nd half of the 20th century & this is one of the best 3 or 4 books on him...

Heylin's study of Dylan's recording sessions starts in 1960 with the period immediately preceding his signing with Columbia and ends in 1993 with World Gone Wrong (clearly an update is needed). Each chapter, starting with a sessionography, is dedicated to one of Dylan's official studio releases. Four chapters cover sessions that did not lead to official releases and one chapter is dedicated to soundtrack and tribute recordings Dylan contributed to. An appendix listing bootlegs that might have been available at the time of the book's release closes the book.

Heylin is wonderfully opinionated and uses each chapter to highlight the merits and flaws of the released and unreleased content of each album. To his credit, and unlike many who write about Dylan, Heylin is not afraid to separate the dross from the gold. He clearly has a problem with the way Dylan's art has been made available to his fans (the book is amusingly "NOT dedicated to Jeff Rosen," the man responsible for overseeing Columbia's vast archives of Dylan's work). Reading the book both provides a glimpse into what Dylan's official oeuvre might have been and serves as a guide for collectors of unofficial recordings in determining what is worth seeking out.

You might not agree with all of Heylin's opinions, but if you're a Dylan fan, this is essential reading.

If, like me, you want to know as much as you can about Dylan's recordings, you have to get a copy of this. But that means reading endless badly-written diatribes against Dylan and whomever else Heylin dislikes. Apparently, it's okay for Heylin to prefer the original "Blood on the Tracks" recordings, but for Greil Marcus to prefer the acoustic "Blind Willie McTell" is, to quote Heylin, "wrong."

Dylan fans love to read about the recording sessions; especially the songs left off the original albums, and this book gives the relevant and fascinating information wanted...a well written book by an unashamed fan.

The recording sessions is undoubtedly an interesting book, but it doesn't really reach its potential. The high water mark for this type of book is "the Beatles Recording Sessions" which came out in the late eighties, I believe. And it's incredibly thourough, informative and filled with never-before-seen photos of the Fab Four doing their thing. The Dylan book seems lazy by comparison; it only has photos from one recording session in his entire career and doesn't go into enough detail about the sessions, especially when you consider his vast amount of unreleased material. Had Dylan been given the treatment that the Beatles received, we'd have quite a book here. Still, what's there is interesting, so if you're a Dylan fan I'd say pick it up if you can find it at a good price.