by Elizabeth Winder

Four women are mentioned in the subtitle of this book — Marianne Faithfull, Anita Pallenberg, Marsha Hunt, & Bianca Jagger.

But it’s mostly Marianna & Anita. And I knew most of the stuff about them already. A lot of this was covered in Keith’s memoir.

I was looking forward to learning about Marsha Hunt, whose name was not familiar to me. She was a girlfriend of Mick’s during this era and had his first child. And was treated abominably by him.

And I was looking forward to learning about Bianca, whose name I certainly knew. There’s very little about her here. But it seems she is a fighter for righteous causes, heavily feminist, and worth saluting.

Marianne had a good revival and left us only recently. Bianca and Marsha still walk the earth. Anita lived long (to 2017) but did not defeat her drug problems and did not end well.

by Daryl Sanders

A really in-depth look at BLONDE ON BLONDE. BoB and H61 were my first two Dylan albums; and BoB in particular really drew me in. Who was this guy? Was he being funny, sneering, pretentious, all of the above? And that’s an awful lot of harmonica there.

But enough about me. The Band is awesome, and the Band with Bob are awesome; but Bob says in this book that he left them behind (well, except for Robertson) and fled to Nashville because they just weren’t right, not for the sound he was aiming for – he could tell they weren’t right, but he didn’t want to admit it. The Band and Bob were kind of tumbled together by accident, and maybe they weren’t really meant to be a Thing.

I love the description of the Nashville cats recording “Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands” at 3 or 4 am and just not being able to believe how damn long the thing was. They kept thinking every chorus was going to be the last, and building up for a big finish… and then there’d be another verse. And they were all praying they wouldn’t mess up because they didn’t want to do it again.

But enough funny bits. As a read, it’s pretty good. Not high literature, but engaging. I agree with the other comments I’ve seen – he seems off-base when it comes to explaining lyrics (but who can really be totally on-base with Dylan lyrics?)… and this book would be an excellent accompaniment to THE CUTTING EDGE ‘Bootleg’ series.

(re-read)

Xopher and I read this together (me for the first time) when we were dating. We used to read books aloud, trading parts. I thought the time was ripe for a re-read.

The funniest to me is when they do lists. And the funniest was the climax. “Forth from the gate burst a hundred thousand rabid narcs swinging bicycle chains and tire irons, followed by drooling divisions of pop-eyed changelings, deranged zombies, and distempered werewolves. At their shoulders marched eight score heavily armored griffins, three thousand goose-stepping mummies, and a column of abominable snowmen on motorized bobsleds; at their flanks tramped six companies of slavering ghouls, eighty parched vampires in white tie, and the Phantom of the Opera. Above them the sky was blackened by the dark shapes of vicious pelicans, houseflies the size of two-car garages, and Rodan the Flying Monster. Through the portals streamed more foes of various forms and descriptions, including a six-legged diplodocus, the Loch Ness Monster, King Kong, Godzilla, the Creature from the Black Lagoon, the Beast with 1,000,000 Eyes, the Brain from Planet Arous, three different subphyla of giant insects, the Thing, It, She, Them, and the Blob. The great tumult of their charge could have waked the dead, were they not already bringing up the rear.”

by Mitchell Zuckoff

A pretty good story with a LOT of padding.

by J. R. R. Tolkien

(re-read)

I’ve said before that Sam is the hero here, not Frodo. He carries Frodo to the edge of Mt. Doom, for Pete’s sake. His perspective is given more than anybody else’s. And he gets the last line of the book.

I noticed on this re-reading that Pippin is maybe the second most major character. He’s given a lot of plot points, and a lot is told from his perspective.

In comparison, Frodo’s perspective is rarely given. I wonder why we think of him as the “hero”?

In re-reading, I also think that Gandalf’s effective rise from the dead is the plot’s weakest Deus Ex Machina. Moreso than the eagles.

by Greil Marcus

This is a book about the iconic single, “Like a Rolling Stone”.

Greil Marcus can be kind of … dense. But this book was worth it for the epilogue! He describes every failed take – and brings it all back home how lucky we are to have that famous, miraculous, successful take that became the single. He finally clears up a mystery for me. I have the CUTTING EDGE deluxe edition, which contains all those failed takes where the tape was continuously rolling. You can hear someone at length describing all the chord changes, seemingly playing them on piano, for somebody’s benefit – but who is speaking? And to whom? The otherwise exquisite liner notes don’t say. If Marcus can be trusted – it’s Mike Bloomfield, speaking to the band at large; and it’s Bob on the piano. When I get enough time to myself, I’m going to sit down with the disk and the book together, now that I can place who is who and where… and feel like I am in the room where it happened.

by Doug Teschner

A long way to go for a simple message that of course I already believe in. Inspiring in a self-help way. Joining Braver Angels is on top of my to-do list when I retire and get some time.