Greetings and blessings to all as we near another weekend. Just a quick update about my upcoming book, Lifelong Companion: My Journey Through 100 Dylan Songs, which blends personal memoir, in-depth critical scrutiny of the music of Bob Dylan, and a survey of the salient events of the past 65 years of American history. My hope is that this book will appeal not only to the myriad fans of Bob Dylan who never tire of digging ever deeper into his oeuvre, but also to those who will resonate with the universal elements of my own twisting on the road journey of never-ending personal and spiritual discovery. Everything is on hold, at the moment, as I am waiting to obtain permission to include Mr. Dylan’s lyrics in my text. Hopefully I will get that permission soon so that I can move toward publication, once again through BookBaby who helped me publish my first book, Music Titans: 250 Greatest Recording Artists of the Past 100 Years, which remains available on most online book selling sites. Thanks.
Category: 21st Century
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It was 1963 and I was finishing seventh grade when I heard my first Bob Dylan song, “Blowin’ in the Wind”, released as a Peter, Paul and Mary cover. Their version shot to #2 on The Billboard Hot 100. Two summers later I heard, for the first time, that inimitable Dylan voice on “like a Rolling Stone”, the single that has been called by numerous publications and commentators the most ground breaking and important recorded song in history. 60 years later and I haven’t looked back as Dylan has gone on to have one of the most storied careers in music history, even winning the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2016. I’ve recently completed my second book, Lifelong Companion: My Journey through 100 Dylan Songs, which looks at how Dylan’s seminal work intersected with both the nation’s history and culture and with my own twisting on the road journey of never-ending personal and spiritual growth and discovery. Not sure when the new book will be published (I’m working on that now), but I’m hoping that you will read it when it is available and will enjoy it even half as much as I did in writing it. My first book, Music Titans: 250 Greatest Recording Artists of the Past 100 Years, continues to sell (mostly on Amazon) and I am grateful to all of you for your support. Thank you.
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Greetings and Blessings! In my last post I mentioned that I have finished my newest book, Lifelong Companion: My Journey through 100 Dylan Songs, and am beginning the search for an agent and a publisher. Lifelong Companionmay be characterized as a hybrid memoir, mixing music history and criticism with memoir and an overlay of recent U.S. history.
To whet your appetite, here are just a few Dylan and book-related facts. Bob Dylan hails from Minnesota and is 84 years old; he continues to record and play live. His big break occurred when he was 20 and received a glowing NY Times review, leading to a Columbia recording contract. His first album of mostly covers flopped, but he became a folk sensation with “Blowin’ in the Wind”, a big hit for Peter, Paul & Mary, and the release of his second LP. I’ve been following him closely since 1965 and have seen him in concert a dozen times, meeting him in Santa Monica in 1979. It is estimated that Dylan has sold over 125 million records. His most celebrated LPs are The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan (1963), Bringing It All Back Home (1965), Highway 61 Revisited (1965), Blonde on Blonde (1966), and Blood on the Tracks (1975). Though not known for his singles, 1965’s “Like a Rolling Stone” is widely considered one of the most ground breaking, influential singles of all-time. One of the most covered songwriters in history, some of his best loved songs include— “A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall”, “The Times they Are a-Changin”, “Chimes of Freedom”, “It Ain’t Me, Babe”, “Mr. Tambourine Man”, “Desolation Row”, “Visions of Johanna”, “Just Like a Woman”, “All Along the Watchtower”, “Lay Lady Lay”, “ I Shall Be Released”, “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door”, “Forever Young”, “Tangled Up in Blue”, “Every Grain of Sand”, “Blind Willie McTell”, “Mississippi”, and countless more.
Dylan has won Grammys, an Oscar, a Golden Globe. He is in the Rock and Roll and Songwriters halls of fame. He has been honored by the governments of France, Spain, Sweden, and the U.S. His work is taught in universities, from Harvard to Texas to British Columbia. He’s even been awarded a Pulitzer and a Nobel Prize in Literature. I’m thrilled to tell the story of how my life has intersected with Dylan’s music these past 60+ years. I’m hopeful my book will be available soon. Thanks for reading.
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Greetings. I am in that uncomfortable, in-between, interminable waiting time, as various agents look over my query letter or my book proposal to see if I’ll have any luck finding a traditional big-time publisher for my new book, LIFELONG COMPANION: MY JOURNEY THROUGH 100 DYLAN SONGS, a hybrid memoir that blends critical analysis of 62 years of Bob Dylan’s work with elements of my own personal wanderings and recent American history. In the meantime, I am gratified to see that my first book, MUSIC TITANS: 250 GREATEST RECORDING ARTISTS OF THE PAST 100 YEARS, continues to sell at a modest but steady rate. I am more grateful than I can say for any and all of you who have been friends or been supportive along the way. Thank you and stay well!
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A year and a half ago, I released my first book, MUSIC TITANS – 250 GREATEST RECORDING ARTISTS OF THE PAST 100 YEARS. Many of you have read it and have been hugely supportive in my efforts to forge a new career as an author, and I am extremely grateful. I have just completed my second book, and I have begun the process of searching for a publisher (that’s the harder task). The working title for my newest effort is LIFELONG COMPANION – A PERSONAL JOURNEY THROUGH 100 DYLAN SONGS. Below is a brief excerpt from the Introduction—
There have been thousands of books written about the music, life, and impact of Bob Dylan, literally thousands. Why would you want to read another? As a historian, an educator, a musician, and a writer, I decided to take a novel approach to Dylan, arguably the greatest artist of our time. Bob Dylan has been a deeply intimate part of my life for over 60 years. John Kennedy was still president when I heard my first Dylan song. I’ve spent countless hours listening to his records; I’ve attended numerous concerts, at both ends of the country; and I’ve sung his songs on the beaches, parks, and street corners of Southern California, in assorted wine bars, clubs, private homes, and at youth gatherings in both the United States and Mexico; in church, and with students in the classroom.
In this book, we’ll look at 100 carefully chosen Bob Dylan songs through three distinct lenses— through the lens of music criticism; through the lens of personal memoir; and through the lens of recent American history. Above all, this book is a heartfelt labor of love, a way for me to express both my understanding of and deep appreciation for the art of Bob Dylan and how it has moved and shaped me for over six decades. Bob Dylan’s profound creations have been intimately interwoven with the various strands of my personal life and with the life of the wider world we’ve all shared these past decades. My hope is that I have succeeded in capturing something of the timeless, ineffable, beating heart reality hinted at in the songs of Bob Dylan, by looking at 100 of them anew through these three lovingly polished, personal lenses.
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MUSIC TITANS celebrates 250 of the greatest recording artists that were/are active over the past 100 years. Musicians from every genre and era are included, ranked (based on an algorithm that looks at various measures of popularity, influence, and honors collected), and profiled with both biographical and musical information included. Here are just a few of the artists portrayed and the decade they were at their artistic or commercial peak —
1920s – George Gershwin, Al Jolson, Bessie Smith
1930s – Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman,
1940s – Billie Holiday, Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Charlie Parker
1950s – Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, Miles Davis, Little Richard, Hank Williams
1960s – Beatles, Bob Dylan, Rolling Stones, Aretha Franklin, James Brown
1970s – Led Zeppelin, Stevie Wonder, David Bowie, Joni Mitchell, Elton John
1980s – Michael Jackson, Madonna, Bruce Springsteen, Prince, U2
1990s – Garth Brooks, Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey, Nirvana
2000s – Eminem, Coldplay, Radiohead, Kanye West
2010s thru Today – Taylor Swift, Drake, Beyonce, Kendrick Lamar
It has to be said that some of today’s biggest stars are not in the book, but, no doubt, would be included if I ever do an updated edition. These include — The Weeknd, Billie Eilish, Miley Cyrus, and more. MUSIC TITANS – 250 GREATEST RECORDING ARTISTS OF THE PAST 100 YEARS is available online through Amazon, BookBaby, B&N, Apple, and many more sites. Thanks.
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I continue to be gratified that my book, MUSIC TITANS – 250 GREATEST RECORDING ARTISTS OF THE PAST 100 YEARS, continues to attract new readers. Below, you’ll find the opening passage of the book, which sets out how I came to write it —
There are not a lot of universals in this fractured world. Certainly we are divided by politics, religion, class, and, all too often still, by race. One universal bonding element, however, is music. Music is found in all cultures, and even the most hardened or stoic individual can be moved by a song, a melody, a chord, a lyric, a beat.
Not that we all love the same songs or the same styles of music. As a child, all too often, I heard my father hollering to “turn that noise down,” while I often looked to flee the room to avoid having to hear his melancholy tunes. Still, I think it is safe to say that virtually all human beings can be stirred, at times, by some form of music.
This book is an attempt to honor that universal grace that we call music. I am not a professor of music and I don’t purport to know much about Indian or Chinese or Middle Eastern music. I may speak a little Spanish, but I am not qualified to write about Mexican ranchera or mariachi styles. What I have been doing, ever since I was a little boy in the mid-’50s, is listening to music—religiously, fanatically, constantly. In countless ways, music has colored, even defined and given meaning to my life. I bought my first 45s at age seven, made weekly lists of my favorite songs when I was 11 or 12, sang in choirs and choruses and informal doo-wop gatherings with friends as I grew into adolescence. As I said, I didn’t listen to mariachi or Indian music because it wasn’t readily available, but I consumed everything within my grasp. When I bought my first $8 guitar from Woolworth’s, I learned to play (badly) and in no time I was singing and strumming in a teenage band, then later in parks, on beaches, and street corners, caring not for the coins or occasional bills that came my way but only for the love of singing and sharing song. Never parlaying the occasional coffee house, recording session, or church gig into a career, I grew instead into a teacher but never left the world of music behind.
This book, then, is a labor of love. Whenever I watch or read about the latest Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductees, or check out Rolling Stone’slists of the greatest this or that, or listen to a trendy artist picking up a handful of Grammys, I am always intrigued and sometimes ready to differ. That’s what this book is about—it seeks to answer the question, just who are the greatest recording artists of the past century?
MUSIC TITANS remains available at Amazon or wherever books are sold online. Thank you!
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I haven’t posted for a little while, but I am grateful that my book, MUSIC TITANS – 250 GREATEST RECORDING ARTISTS OF THE PAST 100 YEARS, continues to find new readers. I just recently took an extended 13 state road trip; so, to mark the occasion, here is a list of car or travel related songs from artists featured in my book. Enjoy — “On the Road Again” – Willie Nelson; “I’ve Been Everywhere” – Johnny Cash; “Thunder Road” – Bruce Springsteen; “Route 66“ – Nat King Cole; “Little Red Corvette” – Prince; “Ol’ ‘55” – Tom Waits; “Take Me Home, Country Roads” – John Denver; “Take the ‘A’ Train – Duke Ellington; “Maybellene” – Chuck Berry; “Take It Easy” – Eagles; “Truckin’” – Grateful Dead; “Autobahn” – Kraftwerk; “Car on the Hill” – Joni Mitchell; “Ramblin’ Man” – the Allman Brothers Band; “From a Buick 6” – Bob Dylan; “America” – Simon & Garfunkel; “The Long and Winding Road” – Beatles. MUSIC TITANS remains available on Amazon and countless other online sites. Thank you.
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We are living through a very politically contentious time. The country is deeply divided Some of the most prominent recording artists of all-time were unafraid to express themselves on the political and social issues of their day. My book, MUSIC TITANS – 250 GREATEST RECORDING ARTISTS OF THE PAST 100 YEARS, features many of these artists including the Band, Joan Baez, the Beatles, David Bowie, James Brown, Jackson Browne, CSN&Y, Johnny Cash, the Clash, Sam Cooke, Elvis Costello, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Dire Straits, Bob Dylan, Duke Ellington, Marvin Gaye, Woody Guthrie, Merle Haggard, Jimi Hendrix, Billie Holiday, Iron Maiden, Alicia Keys, B.B. King, Kendrick Lamar, John Lennon, Loretta Lynn, Bob Marley, Curtis Mayfield, Metallica, N.W.A, Nas, Randy Newman, Pink, Pink Floyd, Prince, John Prine, Public Enemy, Radiohead, Otis Redding, Jimmie Rodgers, the Rolling Stones, Pete Seeger, the Sex Pistols, Tupac Shakur, Paul Simon, Nina Simone, Sly and the Family Stone, Patti Smith, Bruce Springsteen, Talking Heads, U2, the Velvet Underground, the Who, Stevie Wonder, and Neil Young. I hope you enjoy their music and my book which is widely available on Amazon, BookBaby, and other online sites. Thanks.
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Greetings, friends. I am working on a new book that explores personal history, American History (going back 60+ years), and weaves all that into a tapestry that interacts with my reflections on 100 great Bob Dylan songs. I am very excited about this newest project. In the meantime, I continue to promote my first book, MUSIC TITANS – 250 GREATEST RECORDING ARTISTS OF THE PAST 100 YEARS. Thank you for your kind support. Stay well. -Steve
