"Bob Dylan: Intimate Insights From Friends and Fellow Musiciansis the book I would want to read about a great musician; recollections from people who knew him and worked with him. This is a book not only about Bob, but about the historical moment in which he developed, arrived, and transformed his musical and social surroundings. This time doesn't exist anymore, but what does exist are generations of songwriters and musicians, like me, who would have had no template to begin to be ourselves without the truth of him. He may carry our massive projections-- of greatness and coolness--but he carries them because he first embodied them."
Ben Fong Torres, former senior editor, Rolling Stone:
"When an artist is reticent to reveal much of himself, a biographer must often turn to others: associates, friends, family. In her book on Bob Dylan, Kathleen Mackay has trained her sights on friends. And when they turn out to include the Beatles, the Band, Bono, Bruce Springsteen and many others, the results are more than revelatory. They add many colors to the continually emerging portrait of one of the greatest artists of all time."
"This is a remarkable book, but it is not really about Bob Dylan. Journalist MacKay assembles profiles of famous musicians Dylan has encountered during his long career. Liam Clancy and Maria Muldaur reminisce about Dylan's-and their own-early days in New York City's Greenwich Village. Pete Seeger explains what really happened when Dylan plugged in at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival. Kris Kristofferson speaks of working with Dylan on the film Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid("I have no idea what's going on in his head. He's a very nervous guy"). Ronnie Hawkins digresses about the Band and their 1974 tour with Dylan, and Tom Petty admires Dylan's professionalism and directness during their 1986 tour. The most unexpected contributors are early rockers Bobby Vee and Johnny Rivers. MacKay conducted interviews with most of the participants, though for some (e.g., Joan Baez, Bruce Springsteen, Bono, and the Beatles) she relies on existing books and articles. She also uses Dylan's memoir, Chronicles: Volume One, and Martin Scorsese's 2005 documentary, No Direction Home. An essential purchase for all Dylan fans and for libraries with large popular culture collections." -Thomas A. Karel, Franklin & Marshall Coll. Lib., Lancaster, PA
Doug Marlette, Pulitzer prize-winning columnist and author of MagicTime (Picador, 2007):
Just finished the book and loved it. I've read and seen everything throughout the years on Dylan and this is my favorite book by far. And Hajdu's was pretty damned good. Not to mention Chronicles. But this was just a total joy and pleasure. Maybe because it was artists on an artist. But I savored it all the way through and hated when it was over. Everyone was so generous and insightful. Or told me things I hadn't heard before. But most of all, I was so impressed with what you coaxed from these great talents, your own sensibility, the grace that suffused the whole book, your instincts, knowing the questions to ask each musician, the ones you chose to interrview, the right quotes to lift from No Direction Home, staying off stage as much as possible, and then your lovely evocation of your girlhood in South America at the end. Perfect pitch.
I've already recommended this to friends.
Never written fan mail before but thanks so much from a cartoonist/writer of your generation who has always found inspiration and solace in Dylan's timeless genius. And still does.
-Doug Marlette
Reading Kathleen Mackay's thrilling "Bob Dylan: Intimate Insights From Friends and Fellow Musicians" is like listening in on lively conversations that conjure not only the musical legend but also an America that doesn't exist anymore.
Does she shatter the Dylan mystique? Hardly, but at least we're in the room. Mackay wisely taps the realm that Dylan most respects: his musician touchstones.
Is she merely nostalgic? Nope.
This must-have effort moves the public record forward using new interviews and, thankfully, isn't prone to psychobabble. It's human, filling gaps in the story of the elusive icon that celebrated his 66th birthday last month.
And it feels real.
Told through the words of Noel "Paul" Stookey, Liam Clancy, Pete Seeger, Joan Baez, Bobby Vee, Maria Muldaur, Johnny Rivers, Kris Kristofferson, Ronnie Hawkins, Rosanne Cash, Bono and the Beatles, the book aims to flesh out Dylan's 2004 book "Chronicles: Volume One."
They were there at the beginning. Some, like Clancy, Dylan revered. All contribute to Mackay's complex Dylan hologram.
Dylan didn't participate in the project, which may have been a godsend.
"I met him in 1976 at 'The Last Waltz,' the Band's farewell concert in San Francisco," Mackay said in a recent interview, recalling sitting at a table with Eric Clapton, Hawkins and Dylan, who seemed at his happiest surrounded by musicians. "My idea for the book came because I thought 'Chronicles' was a little bit vague as an autobiography. I felt there was something missing."
Mackay hammers the notion that one on one, the articulate and pioneering songwriter - and arguably the greatest rock'n'roller - is rather shy and a terrible communicator. Beyond simply private.
Indeed, Peter, Paul & Mary singer Stookey (and longtime Dylan friend) described him as often bordering "on autism" in close confines.
Mackay tempers the mythology of, say, D.A. Pennebaker's film "Dont Look Back," which she sees as "a performance piece." The manic singer "was putting us on quite a bit."
Her interviews instead capture the wonderment that Dylan must have felt when he first came to New York in 1961, "going into a small club and seeing the power of the Clancy Brothers in harmony singing these wonderful, joyful songs and lullabies that would make you weep."
"Dylan was just captivated," Mackay said.
Likewise, Kristofferson (working as a janitor at a Nashville studio in 1965) was awestruck watching the genius of "Blonde on Blonde" unfold.
Mackay also fleshes out the fabled relationship between Dylan and Johnny Cash: "They were like brothers, and Johnny Cash defended Dylan at a time when Dylan was taking some heat from the folk music establishment," she said. "Johnny Cash came to his defense without even knowing him."
Almost hilariously, "Intimate Insights" juxtaposes contradictions among friends and musicians about those legendary boos (did they happen, or not?) at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965. Mackay giddily wonders if they were at the same concert.
"Yes, everybody has a different story. It will never be resolved," she said. "But it just has such symbolic significance because there you are in the folk era and then suddenly Dylan goes electric, so it's bound to be a moment that's remembered for a long time in music history."
And as Mackay's book illustrates, the Dylan story delivers countless moments.
