Forever Young: Photographs of Bob Dylan [Paperback]

Douglas R. Gilbert (Author), Dave Marsh (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 24, 2006

In August 1964, twenty-one-year-old photographer Douglas R. Gilbert, on assignment for Look magazine, photographed an up-and-coming folk singer named Bob Dylan. Just twenty-three years old, Dylan had already composed a striking body of work, including "Blowin' in the Wind," yet he himself was still relatively unknown. All that was about to change. For more than a week, Gilbert photographed a surprisingly open Bob Dylan, smiling and relaxed among friends like musician John Sebastian and poet Allen Ginsberg. To Gilbert's dismay, Look deemed Dylan's appearance "too scruffy" for a family magazine, and the images remained unpublished and unseen, until now. Featuring veteran music journalist Dave Marsh's insightful text, Forever Young unforgettably captures a pivotal time in Bob Dylan's extraordinary career--the time when he began transforming not just folk but all of popular music.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Gilbert's pictures...capture Dylan in his raw, pure, unmasked form...[A] stunning series of snaps." -- Electric Review, November/December 2006

"Poignant." -- Glorious Noise, 11/16/2006

"Presents a trove of scarcely seen black-and-white photos taken of the 22-year-old Dylan in 1963...Utterly charming." -- Boston Herald, 11/10/2006

About the Author

Douglas R. Gilbert's work has appeared in numerous national and international publications and has been exhibited in museums and galleries since the 1970s, including the permanent collections of the Art Institute of Chicago and the High Museum of Art in Atlanta. He lives with his wife in Amesbury, Massachusetts. Dave Marsh, co-founder of Creem and writer and editor at Rolling Stone since 1975, has published record reviews in over 200 newspapers, and written for the New York Times, Playboy, the Village Voice, The Nation, and TV Guide. He lives in Connecticut.

Product Details

• Paperback: 160 pages
• Publisher: Da Capo Press (October 24, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0306815168
• ISBN-13: 978-0306815164
• Product Dimensions: 9.8 x 9.5 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,767,249 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Intimate Pictures; Irritating Text, December 11, 2005

By 

Lightman (New York) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Forever Young: Photographs of Bob Dylan (Hardcover)

Forever Young is a collection of pictures of Dylan taken by Douglas Gilbert in the summer of 1964. These were to have been published in a Look magazine feature article which was killed when the editors determined that the appearance of Dylan was "too scruffy for a family magazine". Released forty one years later, the images provide an intimate portrait of the artist as a young man.

Dylan is seen pecking away at a portable typewriter, hanging out with Allen Ginsburg and John Sebastian, and riding around Woodstock on his Triumph motorcycle. There's a great shot of him sitting in a driveway with a little kid in a Davey Crockett jacket, and another in which he tilts back in a rocking chair, watching Dean Martin on a TV incongruously placed in a window. In another one he peers interestedly over a cup of coffee at his future wife Sara Lowdnes, who is working on a needlepoint at the Café Espresso.

Unfortunately, the accompanying text by Dave Marsh is rambling, pretentious, and often irrelevant. Here is an example:

"The idea that art deserves respect only if it reaches the most sublime status results mainly in hype, as we try to explain why we love things that aren't quite that fine".

There's no need to explain why we don't love this kind of writing which mars the natural and easygoing flow of what is otherwise an enjoyable book.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not As Good As The Gallery, December 30, 2005

By 

dylanfanandy (California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Forever Young: Photographs of Bob Dylan (Hardcover)

I attended the Los Angeles exhibit at The Perfect Exposure Gallery in March 2005 and seeing these Photographs in person was breathtaking. The pictures in the book don't have the clarity that I witnessed at the exhibit but still capture Dylan when he was emerging as the icon he would become. The book comes sealed in cellophane and inside is the real jewel: Four original prints of Dylan from Gilbert's collection.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great photos, edition doesn't do justice to them, February 27, 2006

By 

Franc (Montevideo, Montevideo Uruguay) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Forever Young: Photographs of Bob Dylan (Hardcover)

These photos of Douglas R. Gilbert, which depict Bob Dylan in a very different mood from the ones found for example in 'Early Dylan' have unfortunately not received the quality edition they deserve by Da Capo. It is a shame, since they are certainly worth the price of the book, but one wishes more care had been taken when preparing the book for publication. When compared with the four accompanying prints which really show the value of Gilbert's images, one gets rather disappointed with the reproductions printed in the book.