This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2011, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
New York Times music critic Robert Shelton met Bob Dylan when the young singer first arrived in New York in 1961. His review of the 20-year-old Dylan's appearance at Gerde's Folk City that September launched his career. Shelton became Dylan's friend and champion and, later, his biographer with the release of No Direction Home, hailed as the definitive unauthorized biography of Dylan. Most of what I know about Dylan today I learned from No Direction Home. My copy (above) is dog-eared and falling apart. Unbeknown to me, the book was also heavily edited prior to publication. Out of print for more than 10 years, the new edition of No Direction Home, edited by Elizabeth Thomson and Patrick Humphries and to be published in May by Backbeat Books to coincide with Dylan's 70th birthday, will restore some 20,000 words of Shelton's original manuscript. Shelton was on the staff of the New York Times from 1951-63 and wrote regularly for the paper until 1969, when he moved to Europe. Best known as the man who "discovered" Bob Dylan, he was the principal chronicler of the 1960s U.S. folk revival. He died in 1995. I am eagerly anticipating this new edition. And may it become dog-eared, too.