BLOOD IN THE TRACKS book discussion at the Woody Guthrie Center with Paul Metsa, Rick Shefchik, Kevin Odegard, Billy Peterson, and Gregg Inhofer
January 23 @ 7:00 pm – 8:00 pm CST
Paul Metsa and Rick Shefchik will join the Woody Guthrie Center with Blood on the Tracks band members Kevin Odegard, Billy Peterson, and Gregg Inhofer on Thursday, January 23, 2025, for a discussion of their book Blood in the Tracks: The Minnesota Musicians behind Dylan’s Masterpiece, at 7:00 p.m. CST.
This event is exclusively open to members of the Bob Dylan Center. It will precede a concert presented by the Bob Dylan Center the next day. More information on the concert is available here.
Blood in the Tracks tells the story of two nights in Minneapolis when six Minnesota musicians participated in a recording session with Bob Dylan as he re-recorded five songs on Blood on the Tracks, bringing their unique sound to some of Dylan’s best-known songs—only to have their names left off the album and their contribution unacknowledged for more than forty years.
“Beyond the richly detailed account of the Sound 80 sessions, Rick Shefchik and Paul Metsa have crafted a gripping pre-Internet tale of what it took (and still takes) to be a struggling musician. Dylan looms over every page, but for anyone who’s ever given themselves up to a life in music—or loved someone who did—the stories told by the Minnesota Six about gigging, practicing, recording, family life, and all the heartaches and triumphs that come along with the chase are equal parts poignant, romantic, sad, funny, and inspiring. An essential slice of Minnesota music history.” —Jim Walsh, songwriter, journalist, and author of Gold Experience: Following Prince in the ’90s
“Metsa and Shefchik give these unsung musicians their long-deserved due.” —Booklist
“Paul Metsa and Rick Shefchik’s biography of a record is like none I’ve ever read before. The intimate chronicling of the crafting and recording of Blood on the Tracks, from the songs’ beginnings in Dylan’s spiral notebooks to their shaping in New York and Minnesota, is indeed the life of Bob Dylan’s masterpiece. Long may the names of the Minneapolis musicians and Sound 80 staff, some of them garnering a first official credit for their work on the record, be remembered now.” —Anne Margaret Daniel, The New School
“Anyone who loves “Blood on the Tracks” will be surprised by how much one’s appreciation of the record is enhanced by reading these chronicles.” —Newcity Lit
