Summary

• Mixing Up the Medicine draws on the Bob Dylan Center’s Tulsa archives, including lyric drafts, notebooks, letters, photographs, recordings, posters, and tour ephemera.
• The roughly chronological, 600-plus-page volume covers Dylan from his early years through Rough and Rowdy Ways and Shadow Kingdom-era material.
• Thirty, or approximately thirty, contributors provide essays on songs, albums, literary connections, collaborations, and early recordings.
• Several reviews find the strongest essays use manuscripts and rare recordings to reassess works such as Planet Waves, Under the Red Sky, Tangled Up in Blue, and Ballad of a Thin Man.
• The book is widely praised as a tactile, visually rich object suited to selective browsing, although its size and price may limit its audience.
• Critics differ on whether the volume functions as a reliable history, an introduction for newcomers, or an experiential archive showcase.
• The book’s largely celebratory approach is criticized for giving limited attention to failures, controversies, and factual complications.