A fascinating insight into Bob Dylan's musical and spiritual development during the 1960s. Bob
Dylan arrived in New York one winter morning in 1961 his protest songs and freewheelin' spirit
would go on to capture the heart and minds of the countercultural movement. But like thousands
of sensitive teenage Jewish boys before him Dylan was concealing his origins. In
Chronicles the first and only published volume of Bob Dylan's autobiography you learn that he
came from a small town. You might deduce that his real surname was Zimmerman. However you
would not know that he was Jewish. To many of Dylan's biographers his early denial of his
Jewish roots is hard to understand but for Harry Freedman it is the key to grasping how this
complete unknown burst onto the scene and reinvented not only himself but popular music. It is
this instinct for escape and reinvention that has defined Dylan's long career - and it all
began in 1961 when he got on a bus and left his family in Minnesota and headed for the bright
lights of New York City. Harry Freedman traces the heady creativity of the 1960s and the folk
revival movement spearheaded by Bob Dylan right up until the moment in 1966 when Dylan stepped
out onto the stage and went electric - exploring how his musical decisions and genius for
reinvention were inevitably intertwined with his Jewishness.
