The Double Life of Bob Dylan

A Restless, Hungry Feeling, 1941-1966

By: Clinton Heylin

Narrated by: Kevin Stillwell

Length: 19 hrs and 14 mins

Publisher's summary

From the world's leading authority on Bob Dylan comes the definitive biography that promises to transform our understanding of the man and musician—thanks to early access to Dylan's never-before-studied archives.

In 2016, Bob Dylan sold his personal archive to the George Kaiser Foundation in Tulsa, Oklahoma, reportedly for $22 million. As the boxes started to arrive, the Foundation asked Clinton Heylin—author of the acclaimed Bob Dylan: Behind the Shades and 'perhaps the world's authority on all things Dylan' (Rolling Stone)—to assess the material they had been given. What he found in Tulsa—as well as what he gleaned from other papers he had recently been given access to by Sony and the Dylan office—so changed his understanding of the artist, especially of his creative process, that he became convinced that a whole new biography was needed. It turns out that much of what previous biographers—Dylan himself included—have said is wrong.

With fresh and revealing information on every page A Restless, Hungry Feeling tells the story of Dylan's meteoric rise to fame: his arrival in early 1961 in New York, where he is embraced by the folk scene; his elevation to spokesman of a generation whose protest songs provide the soundtrack for the burgeoning Civil Rights movement; his alleged betrayal when he 'goes electric' at Newport in 1965; his subsequent controversial world tour with a rock 'n' roll band; and the recording of his three undisputed electric masterpieces: Bringing it All Back Home, Highway 61 Revisited and Blonde on Blonde. At the peak of his fame in July 1966 he reportedly crashes his motorbike in Woodstock, upstate New York, and disappears from public view. When he re-emerges, he looks different, his voice sounds different, his songs are different.

Clinton Heylin's meticulously researched, all-encompassing and consistently revelatory account of these fascinating early years is the closest we will ever get to a definitive life of an artist who has been the lodestar of popular culture for six decades.

©2021 Clinton Heylin (P)2021 Little, Brown & Company

Great modern day recap

Heylin revisits and essentially re-edits his (and other) bios. A great starting point, and a great retelling aided with a lot more modern era research.

Expansive and well researched.

This was a delight. It's a lot of content, but a wild ride. A nice departure from the speculative and rumor-based alternatives that flood the market. Neither hostile not gushing, it feels like a fairly objective examination of the anomaly and dichotomy that was the early formation of Dylan. Best collective 19 hours of commuting I've spent in recent memory.

No Direction Home: the audiobook

Guy has a lot of nerve talking smack about fellow biographers. This book literally follows the film No Direction Home to the T and adds extra details to it. it's solid, don't get me wrong, but this clown is so full of himself that it's hard to enjoy the book.

So disappointing

Author so full of himself and how he knows more than anyone about Bob Dylan. So arrogant and annoying. No chronological story- skipped all over. A total disaster.

What a waste

I had just returned a book so I’m stuck with this. This book is a rehash. Don’t waste your credit.