Book Review: Mixing Up the Medicine

Mrs P

Nov 9

Mark Davidson ~ Bob Dylan: Mixing Up the Medicine

Synopsis

Edited by Mark Davidson and Parker Fishel, BOB MIXING UP THE MEDICINE focuses a close look at the full scope of Dylan's working life, particularly from the dynamic perspective of his ongoing and shifting creative processes—his earliest home recordings in the mid-1950s right up through Rough and Rowdy Ways (2020), his most recent studio recording, and into the present day.

The centrepiece is a carefully curated selection of over 600 images including never-before-circulated draft lyrics, writings, photographs, drawings and other ephemera from the Dylan archive.

With an introductory essay by Sean Wilentz and epilogue by Douglas Brinkley, the book features a surprising range of distinguished writers, artists and musicians, including Joy Harjo, Greil Marcus, Michael Ondaatje, Gregory Pardlo, Amanda Petrusich, Tom Piazza, Lee Ranaldo, Alex Ross, Ed Ruscha, Lucy Sante, Greg Tate and many others. After experiencing the collection first-hand in Tulsa, each of the authors was asked to select a single item that beguiled or inspired them. The resulting essays, written specifically for this volume, shed new light on not only Dylan's creative process, but also their own.

Review

This book is about an archive as much as it is about Bob Dylan himself. The Bob Dylan Archive in
Tulsa Oklahoma – a vast monument to the quintessential American folk hero – provides the
backbone to this in-depth social history of a musician, song writer and poet.

Interwoven are extracts, quotes, hand-written notes, lyric sheets, sleeve art, and photos throughout
the life of Dylan. There is so much, that I found myself dipping in and out rather than reading
chronologically.

Mixing Up the Medicine is a wondrous mix of the factual from the archive, and the anecdotal from
friends, collaborators, and contemporaries. Learning how albums came together, how the songs
were written, and where his inspirations and influences came from, gave me a new insight into
Dylan's creativity that was missed over the years.

I cannot recommend this book highly enough both to those who only know covers of his songs, and
those diehards who have followed Dylan from the early folk years. Even if you only know him
through collaborations such as The Travelling Wilburys, there is a wealth of facts and stories to
discover.

Fishel and Davidson have written a sumptuous book revealing nuances of the enigmatic Dylan not
hitherto revealed, in an open easy-going style, full of explanation.

Rating: 5 out of 5.