Suzanne Vega on the impact this biography had on her:
I was 11 years old when this book came out. I had just started playing guitar, pressing my fingers to the fretboard, working on my callouses and cutting my fingernails. I didn’t write my first song for another three years, but I loved songwriters, particularly Dylan and The Beatles. This was Dylan’s first bio and I ate it up. I learned about Gerdes Folk City, where Dylan got started and where, nine years later, I got my own first break when I was booked for a Sunday afternoon matinee show. And I never looked back!
"I liked your book. That's the weird thing about it."
—Bob Dylan
"Pioneers are often written out of history but never let it be forgotten that Scaduto was the man. It's scandalous that this book has been out of print for so many years. Its return (Kindle) should be greeted with dancing in the street."
—Jimmy Rogan, composer
He was born Robert Allen Zimmerman in Duluth, Minnesota.
He surfaced in Greenwich Village nearly twenty years later with a new name and a reinvented personality. He went on to become the most influential-and elusive-culture hero of our time. This is the first full story of Bob Dylan. It ‘s based on interviews with people like Joan Baez, Phil Ochs, Dave Van Ronk. Lovers and haters. Apostles and apostates. Plus reminiscences from Dylan himself. It's all here. The good. The bad. And the gritty.
Written at the dawn of the seventies by reporter Anthony Scaduto this book was the first serious study of Dylan's life and work. By applying the rigorous standards of research and analysis it elevated popular music journalism to a respected discipline.
In addition to a Bob biographer's wish-list of interviews, Scaduto pulled the remarkable coup of getting Dylan's full co-operation without conceding an editorial veto. Dylan has read this book cover to cover and discusses its uncomfortable contents with the author at length!
Includes an exclusive interview between Anthony Scaduto and Bob Dylan and a Postscript written by Scaduto in 2008.
..."In the beginning was Scaduto," wrote Clinton Heylin at the start of own Dylan bioography. We'll never know the whole story of Minnesota's most noted mouth organist but Anthony Scaduto's 1971 book was the pioneering protrait of this legendarily elusive artist. Now, in a welcome reprint it's a real treat to read the still-classic Bobography, methodical and lean, Scaduto's style reflected his background as a New York crime reporter, with a "just the facts, ma'am" technique that built the right tension...
---New Musical Express
