Britain played a key role in Bob Dylan's career in the 1960s. He visited Britain on several occasions and performed across the country both as an acoustic folk singer and as an electric-rock musician. His tours of Britain in the mid-1960s feature heavily in documentary films such as D.A. Pennebaker's Don't Look Back and Martin Scorsese's No Direction Home and the concerts contain some of his most acclaimed ever live performances. Dylan influenced British rock musicians such as The Beatles, The Animals, and many others; they, in turn, influenced him.
Yet this key period in Dylan's artistic development is still under-represented in the extensive literature on Dylan. Tudor Jones rectifies that glaring gap with this deeply researched, yet highly readable, account of Dylan and the British Sixties. He explores the profound impact of Dylan on British popular musicians as well as his intense, and at times fraught, relationship with his UK fan base. He also provides much interesting historical context – cultural, social, and political – to give the reader a far greater understanding of a defining period of Dylan's hugely varied career. This is essential reading for all Dylan fans, as well as for readers interested in the tumultuous social and cultural history of the 1960s.
1. First Time in London: Winter 1962-63
2. Transatlantic influences: Folk, beat music and R’n’B
3. Second time in London: May 1964
4. The 1965 British Tour
5. Going Electric: Folk-Rock and The Beatles
6. 1965-66 Revisited
7. "Judas": The 1966 British Tour
8. Back to the Country: 1967-68
9. From Woodstock to the Isle of Wight 1968-69
10. Conclusion
Biography
Dr Tudor Jones is a political historian and is Hon. Research Fellow in History of Political Thought at Coventry University, UK. He is the author of The Revival of British Liberalism: From Grimond to Clegg (2011), Modern Political Thinkers and Ideas (Routledge, 2002) and Remaking the Labour Party: From Gaitskell to Blair (Routledge, 1996). He is also a lifelong admirer of Bob Dylan.
'I was taken all the way back to the early sixties and The Railway Hotel in my hometown of Harrow, north-west London, where aged 15 I heard the blues played live for the first time. Those days, deeply influenced by Bob Dylan, are captured here magnificently by Tudor Jones.' - Tony O'Malley, Co-founder of British soul pioneers Kokomo and a member of 10cc in the seventies. He also played on Dylan's 'Desire' album.
'Tudor Jones has brought into focus the importance of 1960s Britain to the formation and consolidation of the emblematic and enigmatic Bob Dylan, from his early appearance in the BBC play "Madhouse on Castle Street" when he was still absorbing all the musical genres he could, including the melodies and rhythms of English Folk Music from Martin Carthy, to the fully formed icon, the "Great White Wonder" of the Isle of Wight Festival in 1969. This is a fascinating book for all those interested in the politics and culture of 1960s Britain as well as for Dylan aficionados.' - David Boucher, Cardiff University and University of Johannesburg.
'In this well-written book Tudor explores Dylan's relationship with the Britain of the 1960s. The upshot is that we find out a lot more about Dylan and 1960s music in Britain. It's a great read.' - Gary Browning, author of The Political Art of Bob Dylan.
'...political historian Dr Tudor Jones in a thoroughly researched and solid survey of the seven-year cross-fertilisation from Dylan's first UK touchdown in the bitter winter of 1962 to his flight home after the bill-topping Isle of Wight show in the long, hot summer of '69.' - Mat Snow, MOJO Magazinem
