Chimes of Freedom: The Politics of Bob Dylan's Art - Hardcover

Marqusee, Mike

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 156584825X ISBN 13: 9781565848252

Publisher: New Pr, 2003

Synopsis

Looks at the early works of Bob Dylan, which were used as protest songs, and how he moved away from politics in his music with his later works.

About this title

About the Author:

Mike Marqusee is the author of a number of groundbreaking books on politics and popular culture, including Anyone But England; War Minus the Shooting; and Redemption Song. An American, he has lived in London for 30 years.

From Publishers Weekly:

This intelligent analysis examines the enigmatic rock icon's musical development within the context of the political turbulence of the 1960s. Marqusee, who turned 14 in 1967, knows the territory: he used the same historical format to re-examine another American hero in Redemption Song: Muhammad Ali and the Spirit of the Sixties. He charts Dylan's rapid transformations-from reluctant protest singer to Newport Folk Festival "dandy," then introverted pragmatist behind The Basement Tapes-alongside the decade's defining events: the civil rights movement, the Vietnam War, Woodstock. "Few ages of social change have been as well served artistically as the American sixties were by Dylan," he writes. Marqusee enlivens his sometimes dry analysis with song lyrics, references to liner notes and previously published interviews with Phil Ochs, Pete Seeger and other notable figures of the decade. He briefly explores the impact of artists like Woody Guthrie, Allen Ginsberg and Curtis Mayfield on Dylan, and explores well-documented examples of Dylan's longtime use of literature, folklore, newspaper articles, fragments of dialogue, the Bible and pieces of history in his songs. "He was a magpie," Marqusee writes. "Even a casual acquaintance with Eliot, cummings, the French symbolists, and the surrealists left traces in his work." While the book never lapses into obsequiousness and does not require an intimate familiarity with Dylan's work to make sense, its academic tone might make it a challenge to expand its readership much beyond Dylan's core fan base and to differentiate it from the sea of other Dylan-inspired tomes on the shelves.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: New Pr
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 156584825X
• ISBN 13: 9781565848252
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 327