Chronicles: Volume One published

Instead of a straight life story, the book jumps between a few chosen periods. It spends long stretches on his arrival in New York in the early 1960s, on the folk scene, the clubs and the people who taught him; then turns to a family-centered stretch around 1970 when he tried to escape the role others assigned him; and to the making of Oh Mercy in New Orleans with Daniel Lanois at the end of the 1980s. The writing is vivid, funny and often unexpected, full of portraits of musicians and books that shaped him. Readers who had expected evasions found a generous, detailed storyteller. It was billed as the first of several volumes, but no second volume has followed, and his next major book came nearly two decades later.