from Inside A Prune

Hello everyone and welcome to issue 17, the second of 2006. For many of us, though, the year is only really beginning now that Dylan is off on tour again. The anticipation and curiosity about how this year’s live shows shape up is one thing, but the ever-increasing yearning for the new album is something else again. It promises to be an exciting year for Dylan fans yet again as he just keeps on giving; such stamina in someone about to reach the grand old age of 65.

In expectation of a well-deserved, glorious celebration of the 40th anniversary of the release of Blonde on Blonde amongst both fan and mainstream media, I asked for contributions toward making this issue a celebration of the thirtieth anniversary of Desire so that it would not be forgotten in the Blonde on Blonde tribute deluge.

So, you now hold in your hands a Desire themed issue and we thank Nick Hawthorne A. J. Iriarte, Lucas Stensland, Jonathan Shimkin and Peter Vincent very much for their responses to my request for such reflections.

Anniversaries are all the rage in this editorial and issue. There is a five-year-later look back from myself on the Never Ending Tour in 2001. It seems extraordinary to me that this is already five years ago; can you remember when five years felt like a long time? When, for example, it could encompass everything from Bob Dylan to Blonde on Blonde. Back when a five-year gap between albums was simply unimaginable. Not that it seems like nearly five years ago that “Love And Theft” came out to me, despite the date being unforgettable due to the atrocities committed that desperate day.

‘Five years stuck on my mind, five years, what a surprise’ as David Bowie once sang and it seems indeed such a surprise to me but perhaps that is just your old editor showing his age. Whatever, I present you here with the 2001 chapter from the ongoing update to Razor’s Edge, my book on the Never Ending Tour. That update has been delayed due to the publisher’s varying demands and situation; I suspect we’ll now be looking at it coming out timed for yet another anniversary – the 20th one of the beginning of the Never Ending Tour. Keith persuaded me that you would be interested in reading portions before then, so here is the next full chapter from where the first edition ended.

Away from anniversaries, we are indebted to Robert Forryan, Pádraig Hanratty and Stephen Scobie for contributing articles on, respectively, The Everly Brothers, ‘A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall’, Pat Garret & Billy The Kid. Pádraig’s article is dedicated to his mother, Mary Hanratty who passed away in October, 2005.

Thanks to all who sent in letters and e-mails, yes even those marked ‘not for publication’. Please keep them coming, especially those for publication, if that does not seem too churlish.

We have many delights lined up for you later in the year; interviews with Mike Marqusee and Larry ‘Ratso’ Sloman; and another fascinating interview centring around the Cardiff 1966 show; D. A. Carpenter makes a welcome return to our pages with an insightful and thoughtful article in issue 18. As well as that there will be the usual reviews of Dylan-associated books, DVDs and so forth. One of those will be released before issue 18 hits the streets, if it arrives on schedule. That is Michael Gray’s The Bob Dylan Encyclopedia, due to be published on June 15. The pre-release blurb tells us that:

‘In order to resist the forces of infinity pushing this book beyond all bounds, it was decided to exclude some categories of entrant. There are, inevitably, exceptions, but in principle the following have been omitted: background business people like concert promoters, accountants, lawyers, managers, music publishers, booking agents, film producers and so on; the majority of photographers, album-cover designers and magazine editors; and people whose only connection with Dylan is that they have made cover versions of his songs.

The many different kinds of entry that are in the book include: Biographies of singers, musicians, songwriters and composers who have influenced Dylan and/or worked with him; Critical assessments and factual details (including place and date of recording, date of release and original catalogue numbers) for all Dylan’s albums and for a large number of individual songs from all through Dylan’s decades of work; Dylan’s key career and biographical moments; Biographies of writers, poets and other key cultural figures who have impacted on Dylan’s work and/or who are mentioned within it, from William Blake to William Carlos Williams and from Lenny Bruce to Franz Kafka, in each case delineating the often surprising ways in which they connect to Dylan’s work; Short biographies of music critics and authors of books and major websites on Dylan; Critical assessments & facts on Dylan’s own books and films; Discursive subjects, from Dylan Interpreters to Cowboy Heroes, and from The Use of Hollywood Dialogue in Dylan’s Lyrics, to “frying an egg on stage”.’

Obviously the book will include much of Michael’s material from Song & Dance Man III but large portions of The Bob Dylan Encyclopedia consist of fresh, original writing.

Some 850 pages with over three quarter of a million words, and suitably illustrated, the hardback will sell for $40 in the US, £25 in the UK.

Due to the foresight of a clever advisor it will also include ‘a CD-Rom with hyperlinks from entry to entry – e.g. if the entry on Johnny Cash mentions Tony Glover (who has an entry of his own), you can click on Tony Glover and it’ll send you straight to that entry.’

So, that is more reading for you to look forward to. Meanwhile I hope you find much to enjoy in this issue which comes with special thanks to Peter Vincent.

I hope you all enjoy your Bobbing about. See you next time.

Andrew Muir