ANOTHER MUST-HAVE DYLAN BOOK FROM TULSA, OK

Alongside the must-have World of Bob Dylan (2021) from the TU Institute for Bob Dylan Studies, Tulsa’s other centre of Dylan excellence, the Bob Dylan Center, has produced an invaluable guide to the riches of its collections:

Mark Davidson and Parker Fishel (eds), Bob Dylan: Mixing Up The Medicine, Callaway, 2023, hbk, 608pp.

It’s magnificent, a triumph of intelligent curation - it easily makes my 10 Best Bob Dylan books. And Mixing Up The Medicine is a visual feast - the most attractive book in my collection of over 400 Dylan books.

The large format catalogue of Dylaniana offers unique, up-to-date insights into the life and work. It includes draft lyrics, notebooks, ephemera, posters, a multiplicity of photos and a dozen essays, notably the Introduction by Sean Wilentz and Douglas Brinkley’s Epilogue.

Dylan is, of course, a global, not merely a US, phenomenon. Millions of fans live more than 24 hours from Tulsa and are unlikely to ever visit Oklahoma. So, many of us are hoping that the Center will include us in its audience, addressing us digitally. And that it will develop an authoritative publications programme. Mixing Up The Medicine is a formidable start… .