Behind the Shades

In virtually all areas of Dylan's life - his immigrant antecedents, his business dealings, his various addictions and his romantic attachments - Heylin is able to provide a fascinating picture of a man who changed the whole course of popular music in the sixties and, over thirty years later, won three Grammys. Heylin has given full weight to Dylan's own words and those of his closest associates, with over 250 people quoted in the book, helping to provide a portrait of a complex figure. Including 60,000 words of brand new material - dealing with Dylan's four twenty-first century albums; his archival audio-visual projects; his third film; his series of paintings and exhibitions; his autobiography, Chronicles; and his ongoing romantic liaisons and 'missing' marriages - this fully updated story of Dylan provides a monumental overview of the Man and his Music.

Clinton Heylin is recognized all over the world as a leading authority on Bob Dylan. He was co-founder of Wanted Man, the British magazine dedicated to studying Dylan's life and work, and for a number of years edited the news section of its quarterly magazine, the Telegraph. He published the highly praised biography, Dylan: Behind the Shades, in 1991 and followed it up in 1996 with an equally well-received account of Dylan's recording career, Dylan: Behind Closed Doors, which was nominated in the USA for the prestigious Ralph J. Gleason Award for music books. His other books include Day By Day: A Life in Stolen Moments, From the Velvets to the Voidoids (a history of American punk), The Great White Wonders (an in-depth history of bootlegging), No More Sad Refrains (a biography of Sandy Denny), Despite the System: Orson Welles versus the Hollywood Studios and So Long As Men Can Breathe (on the publishing history of Shakespeare's Sonnets). Brought up in Manchester and educated at Manchester Grammar School and London and Sussex Universities, he now lives in Somerset.