Chimes of Freedom

This intelligent analysis examines the enigmatic rock icon's musical development within the context of the political turbulence of the 1960s. Marqusee, who turned 14 in 1967, knows the territory: he used the same historical format to re-examine another American hero in Redemption Song: Muhammad Ali and the Spirit of the Sixties. He charts Dylan's rapid transformations--from reluctant protest singer to Newport Folk Festival""dandy,"" then introverted pragmatist behind The Basement Tapes--alongside the decade's defining events: the civil rights movement, the Vietnam War, Woodstock.""Few ages of social change have been as well served artistically as the American sixties were by Dylan,"" he writes. Marqusee enlivens his sometimes dry analysis with song lyrics, references to liner notes and previously published interviews with Phil Ochs, Pete Seeger and other notable figures of the decade. He briefly explores the impact of artists like Woody Guthrie, Allen Ginsberg and Curtis Mayfield on Dylan, and explores well-documented examples of Dylan's longtime use of literature, folklore, newspaper articles, fragments of dialogue, the Bible and pieces of history in his songs.""He was a magpie,"" Marqusee writes.""Even a casual acquaintance with Eliot, cummings, the French symbolists, and the surrealists left traces in his work."" While the book never lapses into obsequiousness and does not require an intimate familiarity with Dylan's work to make sense, its academic tone might make it a challenge to expand its readership much beyond Dylan's core fan base and to differentiate it from the sea of other Dylan-inspired tomes on the shelves.