Photograph by Sam Jones
It’s a land of Walt Whitman and Chuck Berry, of border towns and murder ballads — and America’s greatest songwriter may be the last man living there. For the new issue of Rolling Stone on newsstands today, historian and professor Douglas Brinkley followed Bob Dylan from Paris to Amsterdam as the Midwest’s most famous son held court on American icons like Elvis Presley, Walt Whitman, Chuck Berry and Carl Sandburg.
Dylan also opened up about his partnership with Grateful Dead lyricist Robert Hunter, who contributed to Dylan’s new Together Through Life and mused on playing with the guitarist Mike Bloomfield.
In outtakes from Brinkley’s interview only available on RollingStone.com, Dylan talks about building the perfect sound, the problem with pop music and his take on globalism, as well as his songwriting. “Records take a lot of time, and ya know, you don’t just make them to make them. But you make them because you want people to hear the songs you need to play,” Dylan tells RS. “There’s just so many songs I have. Ya know, it’s always hard now, trying to find places for them in concert, ensuring the older ones get played.”
Rolling Stone also takes a look back at the magazine’s long history with Dylan in a gallery of his RS covers (he appeared on his first in 1968), and explores the singer’s non-musical work in a gallery of his paintings, which have been displayed in galleries worldwide. Plus, read David Fricke’s review of Together Through Life.
Also in this issue:
• Sasha Grey: The Dirtiest Girl in the World
• Mike Tyson Reveals the Only Thing That Truly Scares Him
• Meet the Chess Masters Behind Obama’s National Security
• Review: Green Day Go Bigger on 21st Century Breakdown