Despite solid reviews and great sales for his 1973 album Planet Waves, he was aware that he was treading water as a writer, or even worse - sinking fast. This book tells of a better time, even though the players in question were screwed over.ġ974 was a watershed period for Dylan. In our current age of techno-hell - an era when the live music barroom is inching toward extinction - the hardworking musician may not be knocked out cold, but he’s surely on the ropes. And yet, if you harbor an interest in the musician as everyman - that venerable breed of honest artisan who often made a living but never a killing - the details and anecdotal tales are often captivating. As a book, though, Blood In The Tracks comes off a padded affair, even at 200 pages. As a lengthy magazine article, the material here would make for a spellbinding read. Despite the overlap, this volume delivers a minor miracle: a host of fresh looks at the most (over)written about musician of our age. In fact, that 2004 book’s co-writer was guitarist Kevin Odegard, one of the key figures in the new volume. The overall storyline of the recording of Blood On the Tracks - both its New York City and Minneapolis sessions - has already been told in book-form some 19 years ago in A Simple Twist of Fate, published by Da Capo Press. But Dylan completists need not fear: there’s enough about eccentric Bob here to satisfy their encyclopedic curiosities. Thankfully, the subtitle is reassuringly straightforward: The Minnesota Musicians Behind Dylan’s Masterpiece indicates that the book’s focus rests not so much on Dylan as on his “mystery musicians.” The narrative carefully follows the lives of these musical journeymen from the 1960s to the present. Perhaps it is a reference to the musician’s bloodlines or a nod to Dylanesque ambiguity. That said, the prepositional switch of the book’s title, Blood In The Tracks, seems opaque for such a no-nonsense book. Co-writers Paul Metsa and Rick Shefchik zero in on the lives of the unheralded Minneapolis musicians themselves, both before and after the most fluky few days of their professional lives. How did it come to pass that a handful of obscure Minnesota musicians won the plum-job of recording one-half of Blood On The Tracks, Bob Dylan’s career-topping 1975 album? More surprising: why did these Minnesotans remain anonymous and uncredited even after the album became one of the most celebrated discs in pop music history? This book retells the story of what has been known for a while from a fresh perspective. University of Minnesota Press, 200 pages. Blood In the Tracks delivers a minor miracle: a host of fresh looks at the most (over)written about musician of our age.īlood In The Tracks: The Minnesota Musicians Behind Dylan’s Masterpiece by Paul Metsa and Rick Shefchik.
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