21st-Century Dylan: Late and Timely

Description

Bob Dylan has constantly reinvented the persona known as “Bob Dylan,” renewing the performance possibilities inherent in his songs, from acoustic folk, to electric rock and a late, hybrid style which even hints at so-called world music and Latin American tones. Then in 2016, his achievements outside of performance – as a songwriter – were acknowledged when he was awarded the Nobel Literature Prize. Dylan has never ceased to broaden the range of his creative identity, taking in painting, film, acting and prose writing, as well as advertising and even own-brand commercial production. The book highlights how Dylan has brought his persona(e) to different art forms and cultural arenas, and how they in turn have also created these personae. This volume consists of multidisciplinary essays written by cultural historians, musicologists, literary academics and film experts, including contributions by critics Christopher Ricks and Nina Goss. Together, the essays reveal Dylan’s continuing artistic development and self-fashioning, as well as the making of a certain legitimized Dylan through critical and public recognition in the new millennium. This volume seeks to reflect the range of Bob Dylan’s multiple activities, the ‘late style’ of his creativity and his personae in all their later variety, from the Time Out of Mind album (1997) up to the release in March 2020 of ‘Murder Most Foul’. Bob Dylan (born 1941) is perhaps best-known as a singer and songwriter whose major impact occurred several decades ago. His achievements as a songwriter and master of language were – provocatively? – acknowledged when he was awarded the 2016 Nobel Literature Prize. However, Dylan has never ceased to broaden the range of his creative identity, especially through intermediality, taking in painting, film, acting, radio-presenting and prose writing, as well as advertising and even own-brand commercial production, either reinforcing or calling into question his perceived authenticity. The book highlights how Dylan has brought his persona(e) to different art forms and cultural arenas, and how they in turn have also created these personae. Chronicles, Volume One, his autobiography, charts his beginnings as a folk singer and the later recording of the Oh Mercy album. In terms of his identity as a visual artist, while Dylan’s Revisionist Art exhibition focused on his reworkings of magazine covers, the Brazil Series paintings show him extending his visual creativity to cultural spaces beyond the United States. Dylan has constantly reinvented the persona known as ‘Bob Dylan’. Cover page Halftitle page Title page Copyright page Contents Figures Tables Editors Contributors Acknowledgements Introduction: Some Variations on Late Dylan Adrian Grafe 1. Praise 2. Predecession 3. Profundity 4. Persona References Part One Honest with Me: Late Dylan’s Performing Personae 1 ‘I Made It So Easy for You to Follow Me’: Making a Case for Dylan’s Revisionist Art (2012)Nina Goss References 2 Masked, Anonymized and Chronicled: Dylan’s Fatal Auto-Mythos for the New Millennium Jim Salvucci References 3 Performativity, Subversion and Mask-ulinity: Dylan on Screen, Dylan as Screen Sara Martínez 1. Masculinity as performance 2. ‘He Not Busy Being Born is Busy Dying’ (‘It’s Alright, Ma’, Dylan 1965) 3. Bob Dylan ‘as’ screen 4. Bob Dylan ‘on’ screen 5. Bob Dylan’s performativity in Larry Charles’ Masked and Anonymous 6. Bob Dylan’s non- performativity in Todd Haynes’ I’m Not There 7. Conclusion References 4 No Direction Home : When Dylan Does Look Back Charles Bonnot 1. Dont Look Back : a ‘paradigmatic film’ of the 1960s 2. Channelling Dont Look Back in No Direction Home 3. No Direction Home: a paradigmatic rock portrait References 5 Dylan Does Adverts. Surely Not? Surely? Andrew McKeown References 6 Bringing the Margin to the Centre: Dylan’s Visible Republic Erin C. Callahan References 7 Creation and Re-Creation in Dylan’s Performances of ‘Blowin’ in the Wind’ (1963–2016) Julie Mansion-Vaquié 1. From disc to stage: methods and concepts 2. ‘Blowin’ in the Wind’: the original and its versions 3. Musical analyses of the different versions 4. Conclusion References 8 ‘Behind Every Beautiful Thing There’s Been Some Kind of Pain’: Melancholia in Dylan’s Songs and Paintings Anne-Marie Mai 1. Melancholia – an oxymoronic condition 2. Not dark yet 3. A melancholic stranger 4. A melancholic microcosmos 5. Still moving 6. Conclusion References Part Two Roll on Bob: Late Dylan in Text and Tribute 9 ‘A-Journeying over the Shadows and the Rain’: Dylan’s Late Style(s) Jean Du Verger 1. Time Out of Mind : examining ‘the lost forgotten years’ (‘Dignity’, Dylan 1989) 2. Seeking the ghosts of the past: Dylan’s musical journey through the South 3. Dylan’s interpretations of the Great American Songbook 4. Conclusion References 10 ‘The Last Outback at the World’s End’: Dylan’s Sense of an Album’s Ending M. Cooper Harriss 1. What is an album? 2. What is a Dylan album? 3. The sense of an ending 4. A twenty-first-century case study: ‘Ain’t Talkin” 5. Older than that now References 11 ‘No Success Like Failure’? Dylan’s Awards, from Princeton to the Nobel Denis Feignier 1. Don’t ask for honours: ‘I let the songs fly, and people respond’ ( Gundersen 1997: 52) 2. Don’t refuse them: ‘Well, it’s always been my nature to take chances’ (‘Angelina’, Dylan 1991) 3. Don’t show off your medals: ‘Humble and proud. That’s all.’ 4. ‘I have dined with kings ... And I’ve never been too impressed’ (‘Is Your Love in Vain?’, Dylan 1978 ) References 12 ‘How Could It Be Any Other Way?’ Dylan’s Editorial Decisions in The Lyrics: 1961–2012 Simon McAslan 1. ‘What our Dutch ears thought they heard’: unauthorized diligence 2. ‘Fooled-around-with lyrics’: authorized inaccuracy 3. ‘The sound of the words and sounds’: writing the oral 4. ‘Which one is correct?’: the ‘problem’ of variant lyrics 5. ‘Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum’ revisited: recreating the self 6. Indefinitively Dylan References 13 Dylan’s Resources Christopher Ricks References 14 Dylan Nobelized? Dylan Ricksified? Adrian Grafe 1. Strategically placed? 2. Category and quality – too much confusion? 3. Ricks’s regrettable decision? 4. Not ‘Is Dylan a poet?’ but ‘What kind of poet is Dylan?’ 5. Conclusion: No Ricksification, no Nobelization References Coda: Late and Timely, Rough and Ready: A Review of Rough and Rowdy Ways Adrian Grafe and Andrew McKeown Index