The Nightingale's Code: a poetic study of Bob Dylan, by John Gibbens with photographs by Keith Baugh. Touched Press, London, 2001. 384pp, 27 b/w illustrations, 111x178mm paperback. £10

The table of Contents, a two-page pdf, gives an idea of the scope of the study.

Sample section: 18 pages from the book, as a pdf.

(Both the above files require Acrobat Reader, which is available as a free download.)

HTML extract: a fairly lengthy passage (2,700 words) illustrated with a couple of Keith Baugh’s photographs.

More about the author, John Gibbens.

A portrait of the photographer, Keith Baugh. A selection of his paintings can be seen in the gallery at the Chelsea Arts Club website, www.arts.co.uk

Go to the Trading Post to buy The Nightingale’s Code

Some other musical essays:

Steady Rollin’ Man: a revolutionary critique of Robert Johnson

This brief essay on the famous bluesman presents in revised form some ideas that were originally mooted in The Nightingale’s Code.

We Walk the Line

A rambler’s guide to the Dylans, Bob and Thomas.
Expanded from a lecture originally given at the Dylan Thomas Centre in Swansea. The second half was published in Judas! magazine.
(PDF, requires Acrobat Reader) .

Bow Down to Her on Sunday

‘To Ramona’ and the Tarot.
Originally published in Judas! magazine.

The three kings, in the story that Bob Dylan wrote as a sleevenote for his album John Wesley Harding, wanted to get into his work “not too far but just far enough so’s we can say that we’ve been there”. The Nightingale’s Code takes the reader a bit further than that, in a penetrating, wide-ranging and innovative account of the great songwriter.

Paul Williams, one of America’s most distinguished rock writers, and himself the author of a number of books on Bob Dylan, greeted this new study enthusiastically:

“John Gibbens digs deep (below the basement) and casts new light on a body of work always worthy of fresh exploration and excavation. Even the songwriter himself might be pleased at this evidence that his early work is indeed made new once the empathetic listener has encountered and begun to absorb the Time Out of Mind songs and World Gone Wrong performances. The Nightingale’s Code is refreshing and surprising and well worth examining.”

Paula Radice, in the Dylan ’zine Freewheelin’ called it:

“The most challenging of any of the Dylan books I’ve read for a long while… a delight to read just for the neatness and eloquence of the writing…
iWhen I was only a little way into the book I was already formulating a theory that only real poets should be allowed to write about Dylan, because they are the only ones with sufficient understanding of the power of individual words and phrases to do Dylan’s art justice on the page.
iA gem amongst a lot of current fibreglass… essential reading”

Emma Hagestadt wrote in The Independent:

“This engaging study of the old troubadour’s ditties achieves perception without pretension… studded with sharp images and insights – just like the subject’s work.”

The text is illuminated with 27 superb black-and-white photographs, previously unpublished, taken by Keith Baugh at Dylan’s British concerts from 1978 to 2000.