Dylan & Me: 50 Years of Adventures

In this intimate and entertaining debut, Kemp takes readers into his 50-year relationship with Bob Dylan, whom Kemp first met in 1953 at a Jewish summer camp in Wisconsin. When Dylan was 12, he was a “prankster who liked to stir things up” and told everybody he was going to be a star. Kemp believed him, and after Kemp went off to run his father’s Lake Superior fish business and Dylan moved to New York City, the two kept in touch. Kemp joined Dylan on his epic 1974 reunion tour with the Band, and, after the tour, the two then spent time together in Mexico, where Dylan starred in Sam Peckinpah’s Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid. The following year, Kemp organized and managed Dylan’s Rolling Thunder Revue tour. Kemp is a fluid writer who exuberantly shares stories about calming a drunken Stephen Stills in a hotel room while Dylan was playing songs from the yet-unreleased Blood on the Tracks (Stills mistakenly thought “Idiot Wind” was about him), having a playful food fight with Joan Baez, and sharing a Passover seder with Dylan and Marlon Brando. This loving account of a long friendship will thrill Dylan fans. (Self-published)

This review has been updated for clarity. A previous version of this review also incorrectly stated Bob Dylan filmed Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid.