WILL ANYBODY KNOW THAT I WAS HERE: THE SONGS OF BEULAH ROWLEY
AVAILABLE TO ORDER HERE AND IN STORES NOW! A DOUBLE VINYL RECORD STORE DAY EXCLUSIVE.
“...quite simply, spectacular.”
The Songs of Beulah Rowley came to me through a magical accident. A depression era singer and songwriter, Beulah achieved regional fame performing at her father’s Michigan cinema and touring county fairs in the Midwest. Tragically, she died at just 21 years of age in a house fire, but her songs and story survived in a locked, wrought-iron piano bench that travelled over the decades through flea markets and families till it landed in my own. On my tenth birthday, my father pried the bench open for me and there I found them: Beulah’s songs and diaries all carefully preserved. I fell in love with the melodies and words, figuring them out on the bench where she wrote them. I decided I must one day become a famous singer and bring her songs and story back to the world where they belonged. And now, with a lot of help from my friends, here they are for you: the Songs of Beulah Rowley.
“Just because I made this all up doesn’t mean it isn’t true.”
DREAMING OF DYLAN: 115 DREAMS ABOUT BOB
“One of the most interesting and original music-minded books of 2018… will appeal not only to fans of [Dylan] but of poetry and the burgeoning field of understanding dreams.”
Dreaming of Dylan: 115 Dreams About Bob | BMG Books | ISBN-10: 1947026178, ISBN-13: 978-1947026179
ABOUT THE BOOK
“…a gorgeous compilation of illustrated dreams by artists including Patti Smith, Warren Zanes and Jimbo Mathus, as well as social workers, attorneys and consultants from all over the world.”
“What at first I thought might be flights of whimsy turned out to be insightful meditations on the dream that is Dylan himself. These vignettes are as illuminating as they are delightful. Yes, I know there are more heady books out there, but this is the one I keep picking up.”
“…charming, imaginatively illustrated…”
Perhaps the only subject more fascinating than the mysterious world of dreams is the mysterious world of Bob Dylan. Dreaming of Dylan: 115 Dreams About Bob brings the two together for a weird and wonderful romp through the ways the mercurial musical master shows up in our subconscious states. Created, collected and edited by celebrated singer/songwriter Mary Lee Kortes, the heavily visual hardback book, printed on quality art paper and designed as a unique gift item for Dylan devotees, will be released by BMG on November 13, 2018.
Kortes’ band, Mary Lee’s Corvette, generated significant buzz after releasing a live song-for-song interpretation of Bob Dylan’s Blood on the Tracks album that captured the attention of the artist himself. Dylan invited Mary Lee to open shows for him, and she was fully embraced by his devoted circle of fans.
I dreamed I had dinner with Bob Dylan many times. One morning it occurred to me that I couldn't be the only one in this world dreaming about him. He’d taken up such wide residence in so many minds. So I started posting a call, here and there, for dreams of Dylan.
Over time people began to tell her about the dreams they’d had about Bob, which ultimately led to her curating and compiling this aesthetically engaging off-kilter collection of nocturnal visions. Paired with more than 100 original images, illustrations, and photographs, the collection of dreams will captivate readers in ways they never expected. Bob Dylan once sang “I’ll let you be in my dreams if I can be in yours.” And there are plenty of musical dreamers here, from the incomparable Patti Smith to Squirrel Nut Zippers frontman Jimbo Mathus to Kevin Odegard, whose guitar is heard on the memorable intro to Dylan’s “Tangled Up in Blue,” to renowned drummer Will Rigby. Not to mention the everyday dreamers, from plumbers to poets to pastors, who appear alongside dentists, attorneys, and psychotherapists.
Some dreams are poignant; some are disturbing; some are touching; and others are nothing short of bizarre. Taken together they’re an enthralling look at what the famously enigmatic singer/songwriter represents in the deepest recesses of our minds. You may have read books about Bob Dylan, but you’ve never read a book like this. Like a great Dylan song, you’ll return to many of these passages again and again to untangle their rich layers of meaning. Or simply to have a little fun.
Author Mary Lee Kortes is a musician and author based in Brooklyn, New York. She has released five albums of original material to wide critical acclaim, each of which landed on the Billboard critics’ top ten list in the year of its debut. Rolling Stone described her voice as “the high-mountain sunshine of Dolly Parton, with a sweet-iron undercoat of Chrissie Hynde.” She has toured the world both as a headliner and an opening act for established artists, including Dylan. Kortes is also a published short story writer. Dreaming of Dylan: 115 Dreams About Bob is her first book.
Dreaming of Dylan is available at Amazon.com, IndieBound.org and BarnesandNoble.com.
MARY LEE
Perhaps the New York Times described her songwriting best when it called the songs of Mary Lee Kortes "so meticulously crafted they sound completely natural". The Village Voice agreed, calling her "a masterful songwriter", and clearly one with her own voice, says Rolling Stone, proclaiming "the bright bite in Kortes' voice combines the high-mountain sunshine of Dolly Parton with a sweet-iron undercoat of Chrissie Hynde”.
Mary Lee has released four CD's of original compositions under her performance name "Mary Lee's Corvette", all to international acclaim and all landing on Billboard Magazine's "ten best records of the year" in their years of release. She also released one album of covers -- a complete, song-for-song recording of Dylan's classic "Blood On The Tracks," hailed by many critics as daring, and earning four stars from Rolling Stone for its "quietly direct magnificence.... Dylan likes this album so much he's featured one of the tracks on his web site".