I finished this nearly a week ago, and I’ve onlt just worked out what I think about it.
This book, by Greil Marcus, concerns ‘The Basement Tapes’ by Dylan and The Band, and how they tapped into the true folk traditions and songs of old-timey music.
Marcus brings in all kinds of sources from all kinds of areas, and sort of throws it all together in a way that almost seems random on first reading. Unfortunately, it also seems a bit random on the second reading too.
At the core of the book is a very good investiagation of how music that is in some cases 300 or so years old is still alive in the musical sub-conciousness. It’s just a shame his editor didn’t make him re-write it to make sense to everybody else.
What? Why Bother? 