Dylan cover borrows image from Larry Brown book

I wondered why the cover of Bob Dylan‘s forthcoming album, Together Through Life, seemed familiar. Thanks to the Paper Cuts blog at the New York Times site, I now know: The photo that anchors the cover is the same used on the paperback version of Larry Brown‘s Big Bad Love story collection. Which means the photo has been sitting on my bookshelf for years.

In a bit of blog tag, Paper Cuts cites a piece on RollingStone.com that cites a piece in Baltimore magazine regarding the photo. According to the latter writeup by John Lewis, Dylan is a major fan of the late Brown’s work: “My buddy Jim Dickinson(who played on Time Out of Mind) once told me that while visiting with Dylan some years ago, Dylan asked if he knew Brown. Dickinson, who was a friend of Brown’s, asked why he wanted to know. ‘I’ve read every word the man’s ever written,’ Dylan replied.”

RollingStone.com goes on to link to the web site of the photographer, Bruce Davidson. The photo is part of “The Brooklyn Gang” series. According to the Amazon.com writeup about the book, “In 1959 Davidson read about the teenage gangs of New York City. Connecting with a social worker to make initial contact with a gang called the Jokers, Davidson became a daily observer — and photographer — of this alienated youth culture.”

So, is this an homage to Brown, or rather the latest appropriation of the past by Dylan? Given who we’re talking about, I’d guess it’s both.