If you are going to read about Bob Dylan, this is really the only place to start. Every other biography is and must be based on Shelton, who came closer by far to Dylan and his crowd than any other biographer. This edition is also complemented by a complete discography that lists every song on every album and by a time line that goes beyond the book's ending point in the late 70s, bring it up to 2011. This book is extremely well researched and extremely well-written by a writer with great empathy for Dylan's artistic and humanistic spirit. There are other good analyses of Dylan and his myriad of influences and his influence, but you need to read this first to have a basis for understanding him and his achievements.I've been listening to Dylan on and off and runnin' hot and cold since the mid-Sixties. Sometimes I've heard the music and it has touched me so that I wept. At other times, Dylan's words have rung true for my generation, at least the more radical and compassionate among us. Then again, there have been years, nay decades, when I struggled to find one song on three or four albums that spoke to me or made my feet wander across the floor.Robert Shelton's biography of Dylan was much more than I had imagined it to be, revealing intimate details, illuminating dark corners, unveiling rough edges, all while honoring Dylan's extraordinary spirit and enigmatic personality. At times when Dylan shucked and jived every reporter and writer and human being who approached him, there were moments when he allowed Shelton to come closer. This includes allowing Shelton to interview the Zimmermans, the only journalist ever given such access. Shelton also became a regular, if on again and off again, friend and companion to the rapidly evolving Dylan over the course of more than a dozen years. Shelton was not merely a writer looking in, but he hung out with Dylan, his friends, his girlfriends and his bands.One senses that Shelton's own artistry and personal struggles--he was caught up in the Red Scares of the late 50s and early 60s--helped him to understand Dylan, perhaps America's greatest musical artist. The image of Dylan which emerges is complex, nuanced. We see Dylan evolving so rapidly in his song-smithing and artist persona that even his closest friends and family barely recognized him after not seeing him for a mere six months. We see Dylan struggle with fame and glorification, simultaneously relishing and violently rejecting the pedestal he is placed on by his fans and critics. Shelton reveals the boiling intensity with which Dylan dealt with everyone in his life, an intensity borne of creative integrity, overweening ambition, surrealistic ideology, and flailing neuroses, that leaves the hero alone and lonely repeatedly. And we see Dylan grasping at the words and visions that come from his unconsciousness, sometimes at his behest, but often unbidden. Shelton is sometimes right there with him, trying to unravel the meaning of Dylan's rhythmic thought dreams.By the time I finished this Biblical length and depth of a book, while I knew Dylan better, he was still a mystery to me. Beyond his incredible creativity, I also saw what a human, all too human individual he was and is. So: Great Man, Great Book about him--Read it!