(Herald & News) When Bob Dylan tells the story of Bob Dylan, he often starts at a concert by rock ‘n’ roll pioneer Buddy Holly in the winter of 1959.
At least, that’s where he started in his recent Nobel Prize for Literature lecture.
Something mysterious about Holly “filled me with conviction,” said Dylan. “He looked me right straight dead in the eye and he transmitted something. Something, I didn’t know what. And it gave me the chills.”
Days later, Holly died in a plane crash. Right after that, someone gave Dylan a recording of “Cotton Fields” by folk legend Lead Belly. It was “like I’d been walking in darkness and all of the sudden the darkness was illuminated. It was like somebody laid hands on me,” said Dylan.
That story probably sounded “rather strange to lots of people,” said Scott Marshall, author of the new book “Bob Dylan: A Spiritual Life.”
