Once Upon a Time

July 29, 2013
Biographer Bell (Dreams of Exile) meanders tediously through Dylan’s life, from his early days in Hibbing, Minn., up through the early 1970s. Bell piles details about one well-known episode after another—the infamous electric set at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965; the reception of his 1969 “country” album, Nashville Skyline; his experiences in Greenwich Village in the early ’60s—in this bloated and repetitive retelling of the ways that Dylan continued to reinvent himself and his music over the years. Bell asks the obvious question: “What is so special about Dylan?” and answers that “he is a moral artist and a rowdy artist, a spiritual writer and a sexual writer... an improviser and a craftsman.... Dylan is a public artist who keeps himself to himself.” Nevertheless, Bell does helpfully point out that Dylan’s early music owes as much to Robert Johnson and the blues as it does to Woody Guthrie. Yet, scores of other more eloquently written Dylan biographies lead us fruitfully through the singer’s back pages