Of the making of many books about Bob Dylan there is no end. Casual fans likely own a few of them; ardent fans have shelves groaning under the weight of tomes such as Michael Gray’s The Bob Dylan Encyclopedia. Sean Wilentz’s new book, Bob Dylan: Through the Open Window (1956-1963) will appeal to both groups. Wilentz’s lavishly illustrated narrative testifies to the truth for Dylan of his lyric from “It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)”: “That he not busy being born is busy dying.” The book offers a quite illuminating glimpse into, as Wilentz puts it, “an artist becoming himself—or in Dylan’s case, his first of many artistic selves.”
In this book, Wilentz expands substantially on his liner notes for The Bootleg Series Vol. 18: Through the Open Window, providing a treasure trove of photographs—many never before published—posters, newspaper clippings, and other ephemera that bring to life these early years of Dylan’s evolution as a musician. Such illustrations appear side-by-side with Wilentz’s cinematic storytelling, placing readers momentarily in the same world that the young Bob Zimmerman would have inhabited in Hibbing, Minnesota, or in the exhilarating atmosphere of the clubs in Greenwich Village, or standing around the fountain in Washington Square Park.
