Blood in the Tracks

"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 whos ever given themselves up to a life in musicor loved someone who didthe 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 "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 "One of the great services [Blood in the Tracks] does is Metsa and Shefchiks meticulous and expansive research on the lives and careers of the Minnesota musicians who gathered in Herb Pilhofers Sound 80 studio in Minneapolis."Houston Press "Metsa and Shefchik give these unsung musicians their long-deserved due."Booklist "Blood In The Tracks is a significant contribution toward correcting cultural history in the music world. It is a deeply human story, transformative in the authors' abilities to take facts and information to a level of narration that equals the power of the music they are writing about."Thunder Bay Chronicle Journal "Blood On the Tracks is probably the greatest, most fully-realized record that has ever been made. Meanwhile, Blood in the Tracksthe story of how the album was laid on tapeis no less riveting."Electric Review "Blood In The Tracks not only details the making of Dylans album, it also sheds light on both the vitality of the Minneapolis music scene and the intuitive dynamics at play in the mind of the Nobel Prize-winning singer/songwriter."Duluth Reader "Blood in the Tracks now stands as the definitive account of the sessions that produced one of the most lauded albums ever recorded in Minnesota."Duluth News Tribune

Paul Metsa is a musician and songwriter with twelve original records to his credit, as well as an autobiography, Blue Guitar Highway, also published by University of Minnesota Press. He has played more than five thousand professional gigsincluding at Farm Aid V in Dallas in 1992, the Tribute to Woody Guthrie at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996, and the Million Mom March in Washington, D.C., in 1999and has received seven Minnesota Music Awards. His self-published Alphabet Jazz: Poetry, Prose, Stories, and Songs was released in September of 2022. Rick Shefchik spent almost thirty years in daily journalism, mostly as a critic, reporter, and columnist for the St. Paul Pioneer Press. He is author of several books, including Everybodys Heard about the Bird: The True Story of 1960s Rock n Roll in Minnesota (Minnesota, 2015).