Light Come Shining: The Transformations of Bob Dylan

Abstract

that record albums were conceived with attention to the sequencing of tracks and with the breaks between two, sometimes four, sides of music in mind. The “potentially rich subject” of sequencing, Starr avers, “might seem a distant anachronism” (89) in the age of Spotify and YouTube. There’s little doubt, however, that everyone interested in Dylan will appreciate the “integrated, patterned listening experiences” (92) found in well-sequenced vinyl. Starr excels on this topic, extending Dylan’s skill at arrangement into compact discs as well, using “Murder Most Foul,” the finale of Rough and Rowdy Ways, to discuss Dylan’s reason for including it on a separate disc despite available space on the first disc. The book’s penultimate chapter offers thoughts on the startling changes between the studio and the multiple live versions of five Dylan songs. Starr weaves earlier themes into these readings (Dylan’s form, vocal style, instrumentation, and accompaniment, and the author’s own incompleteness of analysis), relishing the “delight, surprise, confusion, head-shaking, and disbelief” (110) Dylan has evoked on stage for more than half a century. Concluding evidence in the last chapter of Dylan’s “exceptional, and remarkably unified, creations” (111) is mined in “Visions of Johanna,” “Dear Landlord,” “Life Is Hard,” and “This Dream of You.” Listening to Bob Dylan, as soothing in tone as it is learned in detail, teaches us that Bob Dylan’s artistry is much more a matter of synchrony than we, quick to credit lyrics as Dylan’s forte, may realize. Vocal and instrumental performance, structure, arrangement – these items, and the way Dylan combines them, are explicated in a user-friendly manner that will appeal to a wide audience. For those not much past the Greatest Hits and/or more likely to download their Dylan than to mess with an LP or CD, there is much to gain from Starr’s lessons on music, sound, and delivery. For those deep into the scholarship from Shelton to Heylin and the oeuvre from Bob Dylan to the Bootleg Series, there is more than enough content to contemplate. And for those in-between, there awaits a surfeit of pleasure in learning about Bob Dylan’s supreme songwriting, performing, and composing gifts as illuminated by Larry Starr in Listening to Bob Dylan.