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BOB DYLAN & THE POETRY OF THE BLUES
An Evening With Writer Michael GrayMichael Gray, the author of The Bob Dylan Encyclopedia and Song & Dance Man III: The Art Of Bob Dylan - definitive studies of Dylan’s 48-year body of work - will talk deliver a talk, “Bob Dylan and the Poetry of the Blues” at Daemen College, 7:30 p.m., Tuesday, March 31, in Wick Center on the Daemen campus, 4380 Main Street, Amherst. Gray’s talk is free and open to the public.
Through his use of great records and rare footage Gray reveals how hugely Dylan has been inspired by the blues and how much of its poetry has been smuggled inside his own, highly influential writing.
The Bob Dylan Encyclopedia, published in 2006, has earned comparisons to David Thomson's classic Biographical Dictionary of Cinema (in the Village Voice and the London Evening Standard). What's On In London stated: ‘Its breadth of scope is extraordinary... Strikingly intelligent, poetic, subtly humorous and buzzing with an awareness of the richness of life, [Gray is] the perfect match for his subject.' The Guardian: 'probably the most comprehensive work on the subject, and also one of the most entertaining.' The Dylan Daily website declared it 'destined to be the most important Bob Dylan book, bar none.'
In 2008 The Bob Dylan Encyclopedia won the C.B. Oldman Prize awarded annually by the International Association of Music Libraries for an outstanding work of reference and research, and a newly-updated paperback edition was published.
UK Poet Laureate Andrew Motion named Gray’s earlier magnum opus Song & Dance Man III as one of the best three books of 2000. Called magnificent (Record Collector), overwhelming (The Times), endlessly illuminating (Rolling Stone) and essential (Folk Roots), it gained 5-star reviews in Q and Uncut. Greil Marcus admired Gray’s reach, tone, and acuity, and called the book’s research amazing.
Over 100 of its 900 pages made up a tour de force chapter on Dylan's extraordinary, resourceful use of blues lyric poetry, particularly from the 1920s and 1930s. Michael Gray has been a sell-out on American college campuses and in the UK & Ireland; at arts theatres; arts centres; and festivals - including Bath Literature Festival; Belfast's Between The Lines Festival; Hebden Bridge Arts Festival; Perth Book Festival; and many others.
In late 2006 Gray performed at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio; to a packed house at the New School in NYC; and on the campus of the University of Texas at Austin. In 2007 he was the closing speaker at the three-day Dylan Symposium at the University of Minnesota which also included Greil Marcus and Christopher Ricks.
Michael Gray’s events are lively & spontaneous, witty and acute, using unpredictable slices of loud music to offer a thoroughly entertaining, fresh account of Dylan's achievement and a thrilling exposition of a form of poetry that remains much ignored and under-rated.