Bob Dylan: No Direction Home by Robert Shelton, edited by Elizabeth Thomson (2021 edition) - Credit: André Langlois As the great American songwriter Bob Dylan reaches his 80th birthday next week, an updated version of a classic biography has been released. Bob Dylan: No Direction Home was written by Robert Shelton, a former Spaniards Road resident and often said to be the founder of rock music journalism. Shelton, born in Chicago, became friends with Dylan in Greenwich Village, New York, during the 1960s folk revival. The biography was long planned but did not see the light of day until 1986, and even then Shelton was not happy with the results of his editor and publishers’ work.