Postively Main Street Bob Dylan

Thompson, Toby

Warner Books> C/o Little Br

Saloon: A guide to America's great bars, saloons, taverns, drinking places, and watering holes

Travel

Food, Lodging & Transportation

Grossman Publishers

Positively Main Street. An Unorthodox View of Bob Dylan. 1971. Cloth with dustjacket.

Biographies & Memoirs

Memoirs

Coward, McCann

“That boy . . . this fellow, Toby . . . has got some lessons to learn.” —Bob Dylan, Rolling Stone, November 29, 1969 "Toby Thompson was there first." —Greil Marcus “A first-rate novelistic account of Thompson’s own psyche as he uncovers the Dylan few people know . . . A new look at young Dylan done with kindness, enthusiasm and superb language.” —William Kennedy, Look Magazine “Essential reading. Thompson, unprecedentedly, managed to interview not only Echo Helstrom, almost certainly the ‘Girl of the North Country,’ but Dylan’s mother and brother, his uncle, his friends.” —Michael Gray, Bob Dylan Encyclopedia “Dylan fans will not want to miss this book.” —Sioux City Journal “Enough to satisfy any Dylan fan with all the gossip he’ll ever need.” —Huntsville Times “Well worth the attention of anyone who has fallen under the spell of the boy from the North Country.” —Los Angeles Times “It’s a must.” —Ft. Worth Press "Thompson tracked down anybody who knew 'Die-lan' (as the Hibbingites called him), including the guy at the local music store, the guy at the motorcycle shop, his English and music teachers, his uncles, his brother David and even his reluctant but ultimately charmingly chatty mother. Of course, Thompson traveled into a few dead ends. But the stuff with Dylan's mom and his high school girlfriend, Echo Helstrom, is priceless. Positively Main Street is a free-wheelin', fun and quick read that is surprisingly informative." —Minneapolis Star Tribune "Hundreds of books have been written about Minnesota's most famous songwriter; Bob Dylan's life and music has been analyzed by fans, scholars, and even himself. So, why do we need Toby Thompson's Positively Main Street: Bob Dylan's Minnesota? Because it's a forgotten milestone. Published in 1971, it was the first biography on Dylan. Although it's been out of print since 1977, the book is, with the exception of Dylan's autobiography, perhaps the most readable and necessary volume on the folk icon." —City Pages "The new Positively Main Street is a lovely little book, even better than the original, a cherished addition to the Dylan bookshelf. Thompson and the University of Minnesota Press have enhanced what was already a classic and made it available to a whole new audience. Dylan fans owe them a debt of gratitude." —The Dylan Daily "[Thompson] ends up not only interviewing 'the Girl from the North Country,' Echo Haelstrom, and 'Bob’s' mother and brother and teachers etc., but also filling in for Dylan among his old friends and acquaintances, playing Dylan’s songs on the guitar and harmonica and singing them, in a way that may have seemed stratingly revolutionary at the time for a journalist to do, he actually recreates a bit of Dylan’s existence as his own." —Michael Lally, Lally's Alley

Positively Main Street: Bob Dylan’s Minnesota

Arts & Photography

Music

Univ. of Minnesota Press

The '60s report

Rawson, Wade Publishers

THE '60s REPORT is an oral history of the most confusing and exciting of recent decades. The '60s was a period dominated by loud rock, free sex, politicial activism, and drugs, and it seemed to have an energy and style all its own. Ten years later, it continues to fascinate and puzzle us. What happened to the generation that came of age in the '60s? What were their lives like? How are they living today? Toby Thompson, who grew up in the '60s, spent two years tracking down and talking to various other "children" of the '60s. Their stories, and his owm reminiscences and analysis, illuminate the decade and recreate a sense of the excitement of that time. THE '60s REPORT is the first in-depth attempt to make sense of the '60s. It is also an intensely personal and moving memoir of a very special period in our history.

Sixties Report

Rawson, Wade Pub

The third in a trilogy of collected pieces of reportorial nonfiction, personal essays, and profiles from Toby Thompson, Fired On joins Thompson's Riding the Rough String and Metroliner in charting one of the most respected careers in American letters. For more than forty years, Thompson has been preoccupied with western art and those who create it. From early works by Carl Bodmer, Paul Kane, Charles M. Russell and Fredrick Remington to modern masters like Russell Chatham and T.C. Cannon, in Fired On Thompson considers three centuries' worth of art across western America. In the process and in aggregate, he finally paints a larger portrait of the place and its inhabitants. This anthology includes pieces previously published as well as essays written specifically for this collection.

Fired On: Targeting Western American Art

History & Criticism

Bangtail Press

Profiles, meditations, essays, and explorations...For more than forty years, Toby Thompson has been considering what it means to live and work in the American West. And now, with Riding the Rough String, a lifetime's worth of accomplishment is roped together under one cover. His wide-ranging curiosity considers not only our most luminous literary figures (Gary Snyder to Gretel Ehrlich, Thomas McGuane to Hunter Thompson) but the region's history and culture as well. Saloons and art, pickups and A River Runs Through It, Thompson shows us the West through a new lens: unique, clear-eyed, essential. "The mountains and rivers, the high plains and the good Montana people (and the funny and the not so good or funny)—the dead-on info, the stories, that's the main thing, the stories)—Toby Thompson has it right. Riding the Rough String is a fine sport and an all-day pleasure." William Kittredge author of Hole in the Sky "Toby Thompson knows Montana's bars, books, bridges, and backcountry. I'll read anything he writes." Tim Cahill author of Hold the Enlightenment Like the rest of the gang, Toby Thompson played it smart and went west. His sharp eye and interviewer's ear caught every nuance. Riding the Rough String sets it all down with verve and assurance." William Hjortsberg author of Jubilee Hitchhiker "Toby Thompson is a writer and journalist of the old school, a standup guy who knows music and literature and walks the walk and understands the human heart. I'm honored to be included in his work." James Lee Burke author of Creole Belle

Riding the Rough String: Reflections on the American West

Historical

An essential companion to Riding the Rough String, his previous collection of reportage, personal essays, and profiles, Metroliner explores the two poles of Toby Thompson's life on the East Coast. For more than forty years, he has ridden the rails between Washington, DC and New York, capturing not only the sensibilities of these two cities but the tenor of his time as well. From the Smithsonian to the secret fishing spots of Manhattan, from profiles of Norman Mailer and Jackie Gleason to the White House press corps, Metroliner represents a career's worth of reportage from one of America's most accomplished writers. 
 “An intrepid tripper in the Merry Prankster sense, and an urban Thoreau,” — Tom Wolfe “A first-rate collection, impressively diverse and vastly enjoyable.” — Carl Hiaasen “…graceful and entertaining, to say nothing of [the] energetic reporting…” — Tom Brokaw

Metroliner

Literature & Fiction

Essays & Correspondence

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