Positively 4th Street: The Lives and Times of Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Mimi Ba ez Farina and Richard Farina de Hajdu, David - 2002

US: North Point Press, 2002. Paperback. Good. When twenty-five-year-old Bob Dylan wrecked his motorcycle near Woodstock i n 1966 and dropped out of the public eye, he was already recognized as a ge nius, a youth idol with an acid wit and a barbwire throat; and Greenwich Vi llage, where he first made his mark, was unquestionably the center of youth culture. In Positively 4th Street, David Hajdu recounts the emergence of folk music from cult practice to popular and enduring art form as the story of a color ful foursome: not only Dylan but also his part-time lover Joan Baez -- the first voice of the new generation; her sister Mimi -- beautiful, haunted, a nd an artist in her own right; and Mimi's husband, Richard Fariña, a comic novelist (Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up to Me) who invented the worldl y-wise bohemian persona that Dylan adopted -- some say stole -- and made hi s own. A national bestseller in hardcover, acclaimed as "one of the best books abo ut music in America" (Jonathan Yardley, The Washington Post), Positively 4t h Street is that rare book with a new story to tell about the 1960s -- abou t how the decade and all that it is now associated with were created in a f it of collective inspiration, with an energy and creativity that David Hajd u has captured on the page as if for the first time. Editorial Reviews.