Robert Shelton

Robert Shelton was born in Chicago in 1926 and was on the staff of the New York Times for two decades until he went to Europe. Best known as the man who 'discovered' Bob Dylan, he was the principle chronicler of the 1960s US folk revival.His books include the Woody Guthrie collection Born to Win, The Face of Folk Music, The Country Music Story and The Electric Muse. He died in 1995.

Elizabeth Thomson knew Robert Shelton for the last 15 years of his life. She was responsible for the 2011 edition of No Direction Home, which restored Shelton's original manuscript and reshaped the book so it honoured his original intentions. This new edition abridges that text making it accessible to a wider readership. Thomson has been a Visiting Fellow of the Open University Sixties Research Group and was a contributor to The New Grove Dictionary of Music & Musicians. A widely published journalist, her books include Conclusions On the Wall: New Essays on Bob Dylan, The Dylan Companion, and Joan Baez: The Last Leaf.