Meet the Author: Daniel Wolff, and at a post-presentation discussion, music critic and historian Dave Marsh. Read their biographies at the bottom of this page.
What’s Bob Dylan got to do with Gene Autry movies? Did James Dean come from the Big Rock Candy Mountain? What can Woody Guthrie teach us about political resistance? Join local author Daniel Wolff as he uses film and music to explore his new book, Grown-Up Anger: The Connected Mysteries of Bob Dylan, Woody Guthrie, and the Calumet Massacre of 1913 (pub. date: June 13). Questions (and maybe) answers will follow.
Read the review in the New York Times Sunday Book Review, here.
Read the article in the Journal News, here.
“A story begins, leaves marks on the country, then fades out. The will toward justice is the motor of Wolff’s history; its road is blocked, diverted, blown up, renamed, until one might find justice far more readily in a song than in life, and it may be that this book could not appear at a less receptive time. It is at precisely this moment that its story will be most fully heard.” (Greil Marcus)
“No matter how much you think you know about Bob Dylan and Woody Guthrie, you’re wrong… This is the best sense anyone has ever made about the connection between them, and the best reappraisal either has had in a couple of decades.” (Dave Marsh)
“In Grown-Up Anger, Daniel Wolff assembles an American triad to raise the ghosts of greed and misery. Through memory, music, and a clear insight into the emotional process of protest, Wolff reminds us of how it did, and how it does, ultimately feel.” (Patti Smith)
“A masterful tale of music, social, and economic history… Wolff’s elegantly intertwined historical drama is consistently revelatory. A dazzling, richly researched story impeccably told.” (Kirkus Reviews (starred review))
“The path leading from Woody Guthrie to Bob Dylan has been well traveled, but Daniel Wolff has gone off-road and forged bold new connections between the two cultural titans… The result is an imaginative tour de force that sheds new light on…the heartbreaking history that created them both.” (Anthony DeCurtis, contributing editor, Rolling Stone)
About Daniel Wolff
Daniel Wolff is the author of The Fight for Home; How Lincoln Learned to Read; 4th of July/Asbury Park; and You Send Me: The Life and Times of Sam Cooke, which won the Ralph J. Gleason Music Book Award. He’s been nominated for a Grammy, published three collections of poetry, and collaborated with, among others, songwriters, documentary filmmakers, photographers, and choreographer Marta Renzi, his wife.
About Dave Marsh
Dave Marsh, rock critic, historian, anticensorship activist, talk show host, and “Louie Louie” expert, has written more than 20 books about rock and popular music, as well as editing that many more. He co-founded and for four years edited Creem, the legendary rock and roll magazine … and spent five years as an associate and contributing editor of Rolling Stone … Marsh’s first book, Born to Run: The Bruce Springsteen Story (Doubleday) was published in 1979. It made the New York Times best-seller list…. Marsh’s most recent book is The Beatles Second Album (Rodale, 2007). A full bio is on his website, here.
