Author: Freedman, Harry

Music reviews & criticism

Published on 22 May 2025 by Bloomsbury Publishing PLC (Bloomsbury Continuum) in the United Kingdom.

Hardback | 256 pages, 8 pages of black and white images
161 x 242 x 28 | 462g

From the day that Bobby Zimmerman first turned on the radio in his parents’ home in Hibbing, he’d had a pretty good idea that big things were happening.

When Bob Dylan arrived in New York one winter morning in 1961 he was a complete unknown. His music and spirit would go on to capture the hearts and minds of a generation, but what no one knew then was that, like so many before him, Dylan was concealing his Jewish origins. Covering the same turbulent years as the hit film starring Timothée Chalamet, this entertaining biography offers new insights into Bob Dylan's early career. For Harry Freedman, Dylan’s roots are the key to grasping how this young musician burst onto the scene and reinvented not only himself, but popular music. The instinct for escape and reinvention has defined Dylan’s long career. Freedman traces the heady atmosphere of the 1960s and the folk-rock revolution spearheaded by Dylan. Right up until the moment in 1966 when Dylan stepped out onto the stage and went electric – exploring how his musical decisions, genius for reinvention and his Jewishness go inescapably hand in hand.