2 comments about Bob Dylan: The 6 Chord Songbook, Easy Guitar Edition (Bob Dylan).

1. I am not very familiar with Dylan's works but I bought this book anyway because I thought the 6 chords used would be simple. This turned out to be true. The chords are simple and if you forget some, there is a chart of all chords used at the beginning of the song. Since I have never heard of some these songs, I had to improvise on how it is played. Compared to other guitar related books, this one is fairly simple. There are no tablatures or written notes, just the lyrics with the corresponding chords. If there was a CD as a reference, this book would be good for a beginning guitar player.



2. Advanced players stay away, but this is as good a beginning guitar book to learn to play and strum that there is. The chords are simple, so spending time with this book will really teach you to comfortably play G and C chord songs.
   
   Many of the songs are "dumbed down" or have had the key moved. Purists will be unhappy, as the songs lose a lot of that Bob Dylan funk, but, nonetheless, virtually every song in the book sounds good when played and is recognizable. Plus, for beginners, almost every song can be played with either a Carter-Style strum or a simple 1 2 3+ 4+ strum pattern.
   
   Within weeks, you'll be able to play Dylan songs recognizably and, if you have even been playing for 6 months, you'll be able to play many of these songs on the first run-through.

5 comments about Dylan's Visions of Sin.

1. Do not get this book if you want to read about Bob Dylan the musician.
   
   DO get this book if you love ananlyzing literature and want to read literary criticism by one of the best, Christopher Ricks. His analysis of Dylan's lyrics is witty and insightful. It really is very funny at times but is definately grounded in his expertise of analyzing poetry.
   
   It is amazing to see how varied Dylan's influences are (from the Bible and the book of virtues to nursery rhymes and wallace stevens...) I enjoyed it tremendously but admit it's not for everyone.



2. i have read a number of dylan books. i found this one the most difficult to get into and appreciate. i tried to read it a couple of times but gave up. it seemed too complex and high-falluten [?sp]. maybe it's me. anyway, for what it's worth i truly loved CHIMES OF FREEDOM, DYLAN AND PHILOSOPHY AND CHRONICLES 1. GOD BLESS.



3. ****1/2*
   
   This book forms a kind of other bookend for Greil Marcus's matchless "Invisible Republic". That deeply perceptive study placed Dylan's work in the myth and paradox laden context of American folk and country and blues, especially its most obscure corners. This one looks at its literary context, noting echoes of Blake and Keats and the rest. And most of those echoes are really there.
   
   Better yet, it examines Dylan's entire body of work as poetry. And it does that out of the most worthwhile tradition of poetic criticism, the "close reading" of Helen Vendler and others. What close readings do is to take each poem entirely on its own internal terms, without getting bogged down in biography and gossip and the psychosocial picking-apart of presumed ideologies which constitutes the Higher Gossip of much of academe. It looks at the poem line by line, word by word, asks how the words and images connect to other words and images within the same work, why the poet made the choices (s)he made, and by what technical means the poem acheives its effects on the reader.
   
   That may sound dry, but it's the liveliest way of approaching a poem, because it assumes the poem is alive in its own right, and doesn't need extraneous issues dragged into it to bring it to life. In this spirit, Ricks examines songs from every stage of Dylan's career, always assuming the songwriter, consciously or by instinct, knew what he was doing.
   
   Ricks has a habit of free-associating on particular snippets from the songs, in pyrotechnic wordplay aimed at divining what Dylan's own associations may have or must have been. It's annoying, but it also seems to be inseparable from his method of taking a loose step back from the lyrics in order to find tight connections that really do lie in their heart.
   
   The results are worth that cost. The method foreordains that he will find genius in every piece he looks at, so that he seems to give the same weight to minor works like "If Not For You" and the whole Slow Train Coming period as he gives to the masterpieces. That's okay; much of the minor work deserved some of that rehabilitation. When it comes to the big stuff, his insights are deep and dead on. You'll never listen to "Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll" again without being aware of how Bob used feminine half-rhymes to create its sense of sober understatement, nor fail to hear in "Lay Down Your Weary Tune" its yearning for humility as a refuge.
   
   After the songs themselves, Marcus, Chronicles Volume I, and Scorsese's "No Direction Home" are the core necessities for the Zimmerman collection. Ricks is a good bet for the next acquisition after those.



4. "Dylan's Visions of Sin" by Christopher Ricks is a thick tome of 500 words. OK so "Sin" on the title page was attractive. So was the author's pedigree: he was the editor of the "Oxford Book of English Verse" a book I have owned since university and a professor at Oxford University. People steal my OBEV and I buy another. He has also written on some of my fave poets like T S Elliot, Keats, Tennyson, and A E Houseman. Why is he writing about Bob Dylan?
   
   Let's get past the canard that you like his songs but he can't sing, or you like his singing but his looks stink, or he isn't a poet, etc. ad nauseum. Bob Dylan is the single most influential singer/songwriter to hit this planet ever. He copied everyone before him and added to it his own genius. What kind of a genius steals from the Bible, Shakespeare, Milton and TS Elliot with impunity?
   
   Without Dylan there would be no Bruce Springsteen (a pale imitation), John Prine, Neil Young, no anybody who is doing what music is about today - relevant songs that the singer wrote himself. When I listen to his progeny it's painfully clear they think Dylan authorized guitar accompanied introspection. Most of their lyrics are mundane, prosaic, and forgettable.
   
   He has written 500 plus songs over 5 decades many of which define how we have felt along the way. If you want to see an artist in the middle of self-recreation, check out one of his concerts. It's like Picasso re-painting his paintings over and over.
   
   OK so what about the book? Ricks is a proponent of the "close reading" of poetry. How close? Very close - you will go on wonderful trips where he compares "Not Dark Yet" from "Time Out of Mind" to Keats' "Ode to a Nightingale" line for line. After you digest that he points out how Keats was inspired by Shakespeare's "Sonnet 73." I would love to have his grasp of poetry and literature for he also brings in Becket and others. Word for word, line by line he draws out the beauty and significance of Dylan's work.
   
   The popular press and pundits are constantly judging Dylan: such is the lot of an artist. It reminds me of the people who critiqued Van Gogh (too much yellow and blue) or Gauguin (who are those naked natives). You can tell Ricks is impressed by Dylan during every period of his artistic career.
   
   Ricks makes you appreciate Dylan, even in his missteps, as the great artist he is.
   
   This book is not an easy read. I guarantee if you like poetry, are a poet, or songwriter it will make interest you. My songwriting has improved from a single read. I've got to read it, no study it song by song, instead of trying read to get to the end.
   
   There are other scholarly books on Bob Dylan: this one is my favourite for its emphasis of poetry and song structure independent of the music. Next: "Song and Dance Man" by Michael Gray.



5. Dylan is a serious literary genius. Ricks views Dylan's lyrics (and songs...Ricks makes the point that songs differ from poetry in that songs are poetry, music AND performance, a factor that often plays in Ricks analysis) through the lens of the seven deadly sings, four cardinal virtues and three heavenly graces.
   
   Ricks is a serious literary critic and approaches Dylan as such. Ricks also loves Dylan's wordplay and plays with words in his analysis much as Dylan does. Pay attention--Ricks' vocabulary and grammar reflects and refracts fragments of Dylan's at almost every turn.

1 comments about Positively Main Street: Bob Dylan's Minnesota.

1. Toby Thompson is truly an Odd Fellow: admitting in this updated, refurbished University of Minnesota Press edition that he first went to Hibbing, MN as a desperate means of "breaking through" in the journalistic market.
   
   I would say that takes a lot of nerve but no doubt he admits so because he, like the rest of us before him, has seen that his work far transcends such a naughty, simple conspiracy and the fact that he was able to sit down and interview Bob Dylan's mother in Hibbing at a time when the Zimmerman family still had a viable presence on the Range is nothing short of dreamy, not to mention the quality of the relationship he forged with Echo Helstrom.
   
   The book's new preface as well as the recent, upbeat, revealing interview with this great author make this purchase a MUST for fans of Dylan, even those who cherish the first edition from the Stoned Age.
   
   Three Cheers for Mr. Thompson.

5 comments about The Old, Weird America: The World of Bob Dylan's Basement Tapes.

1. I like Greil's approach, which worked so much better in the recent "Like A Rolling Stone: Bob Dylan At The Crossroads", of honing in on small detail to produce something profound. Maybe this book can be considered practice for the latter, because it simply didn't work here. I welcome experimental writing, but in this case the wash of minute detail combined with nonlinearity produced confusion rather than clarity. I'm afraid for me the insights are Greil's alone rather than universal. To his credit though, in the same way I'd rather see an ambitious indie movie that fails than a Hollywood blockbuster, reading this is worth a shot. I may try again some time.



2. (this is the updated verion of Marcus' "Invisible Republic")
   
   In 1965, Bob Dylan played Newport with an electric band. Playing songs from the groundbreaking "Highway 61 Revisited", Dylan-- in one of the finest performances of his career-- was roundly booed by the audience and condemned by critics.
   
   Why?
   
   Greil Marcus' fascinating book starts with this question: why were audiences so hostile to Dylan's new material and style? Marcus' thesis is that Dylan on Highway 61 rediscovered the folk music that America had forgotten, a folk music which had been co-opted by the '30s (and subsequent) Left, a music which was much older and much, much weirder than the work of Woody Guthrie and other late '50s exemplars of the folk tradition. Audiences were in for a shock when Dylan's surreal imagery and often apolitical but weirdly resonant lyrics replaced his plainer earlier folk tunes and protest songs.
   
   The book's former title is an allusion to Ralph Ellison's novel "The Invisible Man," whose protagonist is invisible to his fellow Americans because they choose not to see him. In the same way, the very, very weird music of Dock Boggs, Mississippi John Hurt and many others, documented with loving care by Harry Smith, the compiler of the seminal "The Anthology of American Folk Music," was invisible to mainstream audiences during the 1950s and '60s, just as the history they documented was invisible to the majority of its time. It is a countercultural history in song of the U.S., including everything from slave narratives, love ballads, ancient blues, mythical re-tellings of political events, etc. This music is much richer and more complex than the mid-twentieth century folk music familiar to Dylan fans.
   
   Marcus illuminates the connections between Dylan's mid-60s work and the "The Anthology of American Folk Music" and shows how Dylan's leap forward-- into surrealism, wild juxtaposition, historical allusion, electric instrumentation and only elliptical allusions to politics-- was also a leap backward into the Anthology's traditions.
   
   This is one of those books whose ideas make the head spin. Marcus writes clearly but manages to keep the imagination running on overdrive. Like Pynchon, Levi-Strauss, Murakami and Dylan himself, the work is as much a set of ideas as an invitation to connect the many dots. As well as a fascianting tour through the work of Dylan, the Band and the Anthology, this is partly an alternative history of the U.S. and a pretty incisive reminder that folk music, as Dylan once said "is pure mystery."



3. Taking Bob Dylan's Basement Tapes as a starting point this book wanders through the foundations of American music investigating some shadowy folk byways.
   
   While the metaphor (actual towns populated by the characters in the songs) is a little overwrought the overall effect of the book is powerful.
   
   I found it particularly exciting to see links to other musicians I like such as Nick Cave and Kirstin Hersh.



4. Greil Marcus Should Marry Bob Dylan...he's already written a long love-letter. True there are a lot of interesting musical relationships brought out in the author's discussion, but the details of the Basement Tapes are just not there. Marcus' approach is that of an ethno-musicologist, and one who is too close to his subject. Personally, the bias from the start of the book and the torturous prose were very hard to stomach. I can not recommend this book to anyone, and it will keep me away from anything else by Greil Marcus again. I only wish I could have been warned before I bought it.



5. Greil Marcus has somehow parlayed his college degree in the obsolete "myth-symbol" school of American Studies into a career as a philosopher of American music. In the process, he has conjured up some of the worst books ever published on rock and roll. Marcus confuses "myth" with the LSD-fuelled '60s fan dreams of musicians as shamans, elves and hobbits. Imagine Jim Morrison, Marc Bolan & Robert Plant attempting to be critics while still on the Kool Aid that produced "Prophets Seers and Sages, The Angels of the Ages", "Stairway to Heaven" and Morrison's ideas about rock concerts as Dionysian rites. Marcus fashioned "Mystery Train", his first sycophantic journey into over-stimulated ego-crazed fan-boy fantasy. Then, after spending too many nights rolling joints on the sleeves of John Wesley Harding and trying to figure out which one was Quinn The Eskimo, Marcus encountered Harry Smith's Anthology of American Folk Music and completely lost his mind. In this horrible re-issue of "Invisible Republic" Marcus treats early American folk artists like Dock Boggs and Robert Johnson as if they were mythical beings rather than men. He then tries to turn Dylan's Basement Tapes into a natural successor to the "mystery school" of these artists. Mere words cannot express the mediocrity of Marcus's meditations. Please, if you have any soul, avoid this book. But dont let Marcus's mind-rot put you off Dock Boggs and Harry Smith's Anthology and Dylan's Basement Tapes -- Marcus does have good taste in music, he just doesn't have anything worth saying to say about it.

3 comments about Bob Dylan's Highway 61 Revisited (33 1/3).

1. Good read. This was the type of book I expected when I bought "A Season in Hell: THe making of 'Exile on Main Street'". "Highway 61 ..." is really about the making of the album. Though the album does not compare, in my opinion with "Free Wheelin" and "The Times..", some of the songs are among my Favorite Dylan compositions". The book seems to answer the question as to which Fourth Street (Minneapolis or NYC) is referred to in "Positively ...". And I enjoyed the Al Kooper opinion that Desolation Row was the pre Guiliani 8th Avenue. Also didn't know that a Hanging of African Americans took place in Duluth, MN. Can't get too much further North than Duluth.
   If you are a Dylan Fan,Read this Book.



2. This is the best of the 331/3 series - I'm a dylan freak who's read all the books, yet this has new information (from interviews with Bob Johnston, Al Kooper and others) and insights galore into what was going on in dylan's private and public life and how that found it's way into the lyrics and music of Highway 61. I was sorry to reach the end and wish Mark would write a similar volume on Blonde on Blonde.



3. This is the best book ever written about Bob Dylan, and one of the best books I've ever read. Polizzotti writes beautifully; he also knows more and understands more than any other Dylanologist I know.
   
   Charles Kaiser

5 comments about Legendary Sessions: Bob Dylan: Highway 61 Revisited (Legendary Sessions).

1. This book is a straightforward story of the recording of Highway 61 Revisited in 1965. That is what it promises and that is what it delivers. The good: no pompous highbrow attempts to interpret the songs, no speculative forays. The bad: not much in here is new. But it compiles what is out there in one book, puts it in coherent choronological fashion, talks a little about the context in Dylan's life and other works and doesn't muddy that with anything else. It's like a chapter of Dylan's biography about the album, supersized. Reads quickly.



2. THIS IS THE 1ST DYLAN BOOK I'VE PURCHASED IN SEVERAL YEARS. WHAT CAN ANYONE TELL ME I DON'T ALREADY KNOW. WELL, SOMEONE HAS. IRWINS' INSIGHTS INTO THE POSSIBLE SOURCE OF DYLANS' LYRICS ARE INCREDIBLE. A WELL WRITTEN INFORMATIVE PIECE OF WORK. I RECOMMEND TO ANYONE INTERESTED IN DYLAN, OR FOR THAT MATTER, THE HISTORY OF PROGRESSIVE ROCK TO READ THIS BOOK.



3. This book is a must buy for dedicated Dylan fans written by a veteran writer and editor. It is an account of the sessions that produced "Highway 61 Revisted" plus a VERY good weave of related happenings, people and other vital information that all fits in very very well. This book was a page turner, and I couldn't set it down. The book is very well written and will not disappoint even the intellectuals out there. There are very good choice descriptive words and good vocabulary all in all. There are only a sprinkling of photos, among them a stunning Dan Kramer light & shade photo of Bob that highlights the top gentle curvature of his nose and high cheekbone. This photograph makes Bob look like a ancient Roman statue except for the comical part--the cigarette stuck on the side of the harmonica.
   
   To make this book complete, I recommend the DVD "The Other Side of the Mirror" and the Bootleg Series #7 in which are some of versions of the songs described in this book, along with, of course, the CD "Highway 61 Revisited."
   
   Just a couple of editing misses, but Great Writing and Very Well Done!!



4. This book has some interesting information that was new to me, but mostly details. The author pushes a kind of British left-leaning political line, and like most British Rock critics is gushing in his praise of the subject matter. As usual, trips to England become career-shaking. The US gets pretty rough treatment. Etc. Not worth the price to me.



5. This book covers the making of Dylan's greatest album, and sheds an interesting light on the highly unorthodox way it was made. Comments from band members are included. Unfortunately, the writing doesn't measure up the content, and some of it is a slog to get through. Still interesting for the Dylan fan.

5 comments about Lyrics: 1962-2001.

1. to conclude that Dylan is deserving of all of the accolades he recieves.
   A note regarding a previous reviewer:
   IF this is the real A.J. Weberman, the same fool that harrassed Dylan's family in a craven attempt to achieve fame by invading and insinuating himself into Dylan's life, I suggest you move on with your own pathetic life and give it up already. Nobody cares what you think.



2. This book on the complete lyrics of Bob Dylan is far worth every penny you will pay for it. It is so beautifully bound, and so easy to read these fantastic lyrics that Dylan has written through his life. However, all of Bob Dylan's songs with the Traveling Wilburys are not included here, but just take a look at what is here, and you will probably forget what is missing.



3. A wonderfully organized book documenting the lyrics of Bob Dylan over the first 40 years of his career. I can't wait for the sequal. A priceless collection.



4. Wow, it's hard to believe that Weberman guy is still around, and still has nothing better to do than harrass Dylan (even when he's not looking). I imagine some old, burnt out hippie in a dark cellar shouting out obscenities and such like... burning Dylan records in the fireplace...
   
   Anyway, as to the book, I admire it for what it is, a collection of musical poetry. It's as good as it gets... I find that its nice at time to take a look at an artist for his art. This is a lot like the recent "Complete Calvin and Hobbes" or other similar compendiums... you get to take a look at the art, the way it was produced and released to the public in its final form. No frills, just the workmanship. Whatever's left, you've got to put in yourself.
   
   If one's looking for the life behind the art, Chronicles, Volume One is the most well-regarded, easy and interesting way to start (as it is the approved version of Bob Dylan's life, written by himself, in the way he wanted to tell it). Another interesting book is Dylan on Dylan, a set of essential Dylan interviews. This one's a little more difficult to stay with, but it has a good selection of Dylan interviews spanning the important periods of his career.



5. I became a Dylan fan in the early 60's. While In Junior College and working for the student newspaper, I was assigned the task of interviewing him - without an appointment - when he came to perform in the town where that JC was. I grabbed a tape recorder, sat with some friends to create a short list of questions we thought would be fun for him to respond to - and on the assigned evening, I set out to interview him.
   
   I made it to the security gate where I was summarily turned away. Thinking myself clever, I argued, joked and tried to talk my way in - and failed. So, I sat outside (I had no ticket to the show itself) until it was over - then, some three hours after I first arrived, I recognized Dylan, surrounded by a small army of devotees and sycophants, coming out of the stage door. Bravely, I approached him - tape recorder turned on and microphone in hand - trying to remember just one of the many clever questions my friends and I had concocted. All I could get to come out was, "Hi! I'm from the local J.C. Would you please say something about yourself?" He actually stopped, looked at me (I think) through VERY dark glasses and said, clear as a bell, "I'm a poet - not a singer." I believe this volume demonstrates that rather nicely.
   
   On first hearing me play a Dylan album, my dad, who had never - so far as I know - spent one day on a farm, said "That sounds like a lamb with his gonads caught in a barbed wire fence." Maybe he was right. The beauty of this volume is that it is unfettered with music - either written or sung. Just as the title says, it is "Lyrics".... words .... poems..... stories told in certain rhythm and meter. As such, they read purely - without the attempt to convey them as 'song' or himself as a 'singer.' I read the book from cover to cover and actually use it as a lyric book to create my own versions of the lyrical tales he told that are recorded here.
   
   Some are simple: some complex: some perhaps deliberately confusing, inconsistent and mind-twisting. Others are basic - a few even 'sweet' and naively young. Some angry, some narrative, more than a few visionary. But whatever else they are or are not, they are poems - each and every one of them - and, as such, I believe they stand on their own ... without the music he gave them - mostly, as I understand it, after the fact.
   
   Read this way, as a poetic autobiography, I think those interested - or even enamored- with Bob Dylan and his work, will find this volume to be a real treasure trove of pure expressiveness. It has already achieved a special place - in my library, in front of me while I have a guitar in hand - or simply in my lap, as I read and try to appreciate the purist Dylan we have to remember the times, and perhaps ourselves, with.

5 comments about The Bob Dylan Encyclopedia.

1. A little surprised to be given this for my birthday a few weeks ago (I'm not the world's most devoted Dylan fan, although I do find him fascinating), it took me several days before I even opened the book. Fully expecting it to be a dry compendium of facts and short biographies. It turns out this is, instead, a great mix of opinion, information, and critical judgment - not all of it polite, but always nicely written. The author, Michael Gray, takes on all-comers, and is often amusingly "politically incorrect" in his views on figures like Bono, Pete Seeger, Eric Clapton, and Dave Stewart. Gray is also generous in his praise for many, many others including Elvis, Joni Mitchell, Jimi Hendrix, and dozens of old blues singers - so the book ends up painting a vivid picture of decades of American music and culture in general. My only complaint (so far) would be that the entries on Dylan songs and albums are uneven - but if you can cope with that, and with an author who has strong opinions, you'll find a great deal to love (and probably something to hate!) in this genuinely unusual and thoughtful book.



2. This can hardly be called an "encyclopedia"...it's just an unorganzied compilation of the author's opinions, which, many times, are so far off from reality that it invalidates the entire book! Pass on this one...there are decent Dylan books worth buying...or just watch the PBS documentary for facts!



3. So many books have been written about Bob Dylan that one would wonder at the need for another - but this isn't a reference book alone; it provides a fun ,readable text which packs in over eight hundred entries, over twenty pages of illustration, and everything there is to known about Dylan, including a searchable cd-rom to boot. Critic Michael Gray has written about Dylan before, but this is his most definitive work and represents the culminating achievement of a world authority on the topic: if there's only one Dylan reference your public library holding can afford, it should be this definitive guide.
   
   Diane C. Donovan
   California Bookwatch



4. If you stumble upon any negative reviews of this book... ignore them. This book is amazing; it is obvious that Michael Gray has devoted a large part of his life to the passion which is Dylan. This book is great to skim through, deeply examine, and is a great reference while reading any other books on Dylan. If you have a library of your own... this should be on the shelf.



5. After all the hype and expectations, this tome was an utter disappointment. The entries are leftovers from Michael Gray's research for other Dylan books, namely "Song And Dance Man" (which I also own but have never waded through), and he doesn't seem to have edited it or put forth any additional effort. Many of the passages have incorrect information or mere guesses. I was in a book store in Berkeley returning from a recent Dylan tour, and they were selling it for $15. They had stacks of them. This was really a disappointment since I paid full price when it was first released. Anybody who gushes over this book in a review here simply does not know his/her Dylan history.

5 comments about Million Dollar Bash: Bob Dylan, The Band, and the Basement Tapes.

1. A lot of words have been written about the legendary and mysterious Basement Tapes, but none have been written with quite the same accessibility and musicianly insight as Griffin's Million Dollar Bash. You truly get a sense of the quiet revolution that Dylan and his Band-mates were creating in various music rooms in Woodstock during 1967. If it wasn't for a sloppy edit and a totally inappropriate cover image -- isn't that 1965 or 66 vintage Dylan? -- Million Dollar Bash would rate the full five stars.



2. Great info on the legendary Basement Tapes from a music scholar - I found myself listening along to "A Tree With Roots" as I read the book - A VERY different book than "Old Weird America" - An excellent companion piece to Marcus' book



3. 
   
   Finally, someone got around to compiling all the information I needed to know about The Basement Tapes. Obviously, we're never going to know the full story, but Griffin fills the gaps with cheerful conjecture.
   
   Griffin's writing really captures the spirit of these recordings.
   
   Dylan should have commented, darn him! But he's too busy doing Cadillac commercials I guess.
   
   Recommended reading for tired Dylan Freaks tired of the same ol' same ol'.



4. I prefer Girffin's book over Marcus' book. Sid Griffin focuses on the songs themselves, the time in Dylan's life in which they were recorded, the recording process, and the impact the Basement Tapes had as they trickled out. Greil Marcus' book was yet another exercise in establishing how erudite and cultured he is as compared to the rest of us. While some may find that interesting, and Greil Marcus does occasionally make some interesting points, I think the guy is a pedantic jackass. I'd much rather discuss the Basement Tapes with Sid Griffin than with Greil Marcus.



5. Plus it's expensively packaged, running counter to the elegant simplicity of the subject. the sessions were off the cuff, born to be bootlegged. The paper, the printing: it's all overdone. Not enough substance, strictly for the uninitiated and tourists.

5 comments about The Definitive Bob Dylan Songbook (Bob Dylan) (Bob Dylan).

1. I purchased this book for my 25 year old son for Christmas. He was really excited to receive it and actually began reading sections immediately. From his initial reaction, I'd say it was a hit!



2. When I buy a songbook, it's because I want the convenience of having music and lyrics before me that I can simply read, instead of figuring tunes out by ear. THIS BOOK IS FULL OF WRONG CHORDS, LYRICS, AND KEYS! It therefore defeats the entire purpose. Amsco Publications: Please go into a different business, you failed at this one. Don't buy this book.



3. The review by Kyle is right on. Based on trying out "Blowin' In the Wind," the chords are just wrong. And its not a matter of transposing the chords (or of a missing transition chord) -- the chords are incorrect in whatever key you play it. The whole point of buying a guitar songbook is to be able to read and play; but I had to pick up the right chords from listening to the song, with a little help from an internet search!



4. pretty hyped on the number of songs in the book and just about all the lyrics, but alot of the chords are off. that sucks. but if you really dont care about that the book will atleast make your pad look a little cooler.



5. My son has recently become a Dylan fan and I bought him this book so that he can learn some of his favourite songs (guitar and lyrics). Not bad for a plain Jane book that contains tons of songs. He thinks in a few of the songs, some of the chord progressions are not right, but I think it may just be a Bob Dylan thing. I was worried that with a book this size, I would have to take it apart and hole punch the pages into a binder, but so far it has held up well and the book stays open nicely at whatever page you are viewing.