Circle October 2025 in your calendar: Chris Gregory returns with Minstrel Boy: The Metamorphoses of Bob Dylan, Volume Two of his Picasso of Song trilogy, a vivid chronicle of Dylan’s restless middle decades. Leonard Cohen’s tag—“the Picasso of Song”—frames a study that fuses scholarship with stage-born insight, as Gregory tracks the years 1967–1990 with wit, warmth, and a musician’s ear.
Minstrel Boy moves through three acts. Retreat finds Dylan stepping back and leaning into country hues and inwardness (1967–1973). Return ignites a creative surge of landmark records and tours (1974–1978). Rebirth charts the spiritual conversion and yet another turn of the kaleidoscope (1979–1990). Gregory’s prose is accessible without losing depth, his analyses laced with ironic humour and cut by kinetic portraits of live performances. The influences are wide and deftly handled—William Blake and the King James Bible beside folk, blues, country, gospel, and rock and roll—revealing how Dylan keeps reinventing both the page and the stage.
This is the second instalment in a trilogy written in reverse chronological order, following Determined to Stand: The Reinvention of Bob Dylan, and setting the scene for Volume Three on the early years. That earlier book drew praise for its “intellectual necromancing” (Splice Today), richly atmospheric concert scenes and comprehensive song readings (Bilingual Culture), and its sweep from ancient myth to Shakespeare and William Blake (Louder than War), with Americana UK calling it a fascinating tale.
Gregory is no stranger to Dylan’s labyrinth. His site, From the Pen of Chris Gregory, has logged over 100,000 visits with essays on hundreds of songs. His podcast, Bob Dylan: A Headful of Ideas—nearly 80 episodes, over 10,000 downloads—streams on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Podbean, Buzzsprout and more, and is regularly listed by Feedspot, Player FM and Million Podcasts among the web’s top Dylan shows. Beyond Dylan, he’s authored Be Seeing You: Decoding the Prisoner, Star Trek: Parallel Narratives, and Who Could Ask For More: Reclaiming The Beatles.
Minstrel Boy is Gregory in full stride: academically rigorous, gloriously readable, and tuned to Dylan’s evolving frequencies. The retreat, the return, the rebirth—arriving October 2025.
