Bob Dylan

Word surfaced a few years ago that roughly 6,000 original Bob Dylan manuscripts had come to light and were bound for Tulsa, Oklahoma. Handwritten lyric drafts, notebooks, and assorted paper materials make up one of the most significant cultural archives of the modern era. The holdings also include countless photographs and films, along with thousands of hours of studio and concert recordings. All of it is housed at The Bob Dylan Center, a short walk from the archive of Woody Guthrie, the artist Dylan admired early on. Nearly everything there is unique, had never been available to the public, and in many cases was not previously known to exist. As the Center's official publication, Bob Mixing Up the Medicine offers the first broad survey of this archive. It is meant for devoted fans of the Nobel laureate as well as general readers in the United States and abroad. Edited by Mark Davidson and Parker Fishel, the book follows the full arc of Dylan's working life, with particular attention to how his creative methods shifted over time. It starts with home recordings from the mid-1950s and moves through Rough and Rowdy Ways (2020), his then most recent studio recording, up to the present day. The heart of the book is a carefully chosen group of more than 600 images, including draft lyrics, writings, photographs, drawings, and other ephemera that have never circulated before. An introductory essay by Sean Wilentz opens the volume, and Douglas Brinkley contributes an epilogue. The contributors include 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 from the worlds of writing, art, and music. After seeing the collection in person in Tulsa, each one chose a single item that had captured their interest. Their essays, written for this volume, explore Dylan's process as well as their own.