FOLK MUSIC

Splendid biographical essays on that most elusive of subjects, the shape-shifter once known as Bobby Zimmerman.

On Jan. 24, 1961, Bob Dylan, “now the archivist of what he once called ‘historical-traditional music,’ then a highwayman whispering about leaving bodies on the road,” arrived as if by magic carpet in New York City and took the booming folk music scene by storm. “Blowing in the Wind,” released 15 months later, became the best-known modern folk song of the day. Having conquered folk, Dylan refused to sit still, plugged in, dropped out for a while, and has taken to multiyear tours that transport him to every continent. He has also shaped himself as an enigma over the last seven decades, remarking, “I write songs, I play on stage, and I make records. That’s it. The rest is not anybody’s business.” It’s a fair statement, but Marcus looks at the rest even as he’s limning the musical periods in the artist’s life, from the heyday of the 1960s to the nadir of the ’80s (“For Bob Dylan the entire decade would be a continuing series of bad hair-dos and bad albums”) and on to his rebirth as an elder statesman of popular music who ushered in his profoundly productive late period, beginning 30 years ago, with a revisitation of folk standards from centuries past. Marcus is both shrewd and appreciative, and he delivers rousing apothegms, as when he writes of “The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll,” written in the summer of 1963, “We heard the ambition to write a history that will last as long as Antigone.” Casual Dylan fans will know at least a couple of the author’s seven chosen songs (of course, he mentions many more), but his explorations of lesser-known tunes such as “Ain’t Talkin’ ” and the extraordinary epic “Murder Most Foul,” with all their allusions to the lost history of America, should inspire them to dive deeper into the discography.

Marcus delivers yet another essential work of music journalism.