Older than That Now: Bob Dylan at Campanelli Stadium

With his gaunt face, pencil mustache, and long black coat, Bob Dylan these days looks more like Vincent Price than the punk laureate of yore... (more>>>)

Dark Passage: Nick Drake's Rough Magic

Until fairly recently, few people had heard of Nick Drake at all, or knew him mainly for his apparent suicide 30 years ago... (more>>>)

Memento Maurice

Although I spent relatively little time in the company of the French novelist Maurice Roche (1925-1997) – an aggregate of months over a period of a dozen years or so – our friendship was among the most decisive in my life... (more>>>)

Everyone and Mr. Johnson

Since his canonization ca. 1990, Robert Johnson has become a veritable industry... (more>>>)

In Search of André Breton: A Biographer’s Confession

In a way, I’d been looking for André Breton most of my adult life... (more>>>)

Lives behind Lives: Biography as Autobiography

Like Hollywood’s fabled "fourth wall," a first-person intrusion in the illusion of omniscient history remains a source of discomfort, a reminder that we are being led not by the absolute, reconstructed truth, but by someone’s very particular point of view... (more>>>)