Analysis based on a near-lifetime study of Dylan

On first sighting, the cynic in me thought: "great, another book about Bob Dylan; just what the world needs". But the music junkie in me won the day as I've read and then reread many of the 390 pages of meticulous research by this well-published American history professor with fortuitous links to the early days of Robert Zimmerman. 

Wilentz's family owned a popular bookshop in Greenwich Village, in the midst of various cafes and bars, where the folk music "explosion", spearheaded by a youthful Dylan, occurred in the early 1960s.

In October 1964, the then 13-year-old Wilentz went to his first Dylan concert, in New York's Philharmonic Hall. Dylan was 10 years older than the young fan, who admits to not really understanding some of what he heard but, nearly 40 years later, their lives would reconnect in a more definitive way.

Wilentz by 2001 had become a professor and a well-respected writer, so much so that he was asked to write about Dylan's Love and Theft album for www.bobdylan.com and then, two years later, agreed to pen the liner notes for The Bootleg Series, Volume 6, for which he received a Grammy nomination.

Thus, Wilentz has thoroughly earned his stripes as an authoritative commentator and observer on Dylan's unparalleled career. It is this depth of knowledge, combined with an ability to analyse the singer-songwriter's epic catalogue of work with an academic's mind but a music fan's common, engaging touch, that makes this a book I've gone back to many, many times.

And, equally as importantly, it's seen me dusting off old Dylan vinyl for an overdue listen and, a little more expensively, making several trips to music outlets to purchase many of the rereleased Dylan CDs, of which I can heartily recommend the spellbinding Blood On the Tracks.

But, back to the book. Of particular interest are the chapters on Dylan's writing and recording of Blind Willie McTell, a classic song which Dylan, rather typically and obtusely, left off his 1983 album Infidels, and an in-depth look at Dylan's much under-rated acoustic album World Gone Wrong, spread, in fact, over two chapters.

• Dave Cannan is a Dunedin writer.