Born and raised in New Jersey, and now living in Manhattan, Jim was a fan of Dylan and the Beatles from an early age. As he notes in his introduction, he believes the story of the Dylan-Beatles relationship was not told in sufficient detail partly because many Dylan biographers hold the Beatles in low regard and many writers who specialize in the Beatles don’t think much of Dylan.
Before joining The New York Times as an editor in 2015, Jim worked as a reporter and editor at The New York Observer and Vanity Fair. Along the way, he has written for New York, Rolling Stone, and The New Yorker. He has often focused music and other forms of entertainment in his work. While reporting his stories and profiles, he has interviewed George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, Rosanne Cash, Nick Lowe, Elvis Costello, Rufus Wainwright, Robert Plant, Aimee Mann, and Jon Stewart. Before becoming a journalist, he was a high school English teacher.

Jim Windolf is the author of Where the Music Had to Go: How Bob Dylan and the Beatles Changed Each Other — and the World, our Bob Dylan Book Club Book of the Month Selection for September 2026.
A longtime journalist, Jim wrote and researched the book over a five-year period while working as a features editor for The New York Times. He presented his chapters-in-progress at the 2023 World of Bob Dylan Conference in Tulsa, Okla., and at the 2025 Everything Fab 4 Fest in Asbury Park, N.J.
Where the Music Had to Go makes the argument that the relationship of Dylan and the Beatles was deeper and more consequential than has been noted by previous biographers and music writers. The book is built mainly on Jim’s research at the Dylan archive in Tulsa; interviews with people who were “there at the time,” including Paul McCartney, Dana Gillespie, Richard Alderson, and Gloria Steinem; and deep dives into contemporaneous reports, memoirs, and other firsthand accounts.
Book Club member Karen Lievense will host our discussion!

The book came out to wide acclaim in April 2026. Booklist called it “a riveting narrative — lively, incisive, and deeply researched.” The Wall Street Journal described it as an “engrossing take on the playful and sometimes competitive interchanges that occurred over the years between Mr. Dylan and the Beatles.” Mojo called it “an easy and addictive read.” Salon dubbed it “exquisite,” and America Magazine, a Jesuit publication, noted the book’s “riveting, you-are-there storytelling.” In a cover story for The New York Times Book Review, the novelist Francine Prose praised its “astonishing amount of research,” adding, “There’s something very moving about it that makes us feel a sense of gratitute for the work of these extraordinary talents — and to Jim Windolf for putting it all together.” The Telegraph gave it five stars, the Daily Mail made it a Pick of the Week, and the Irish Times called it a “triumph.”

Podcast Discussions with Jim Windolf
The author has appeared on a number of podcasts since the book was released, including:
Definitely Dylan
Something About the Beatles
Beatles Books
Gary Shapiro’s From the Bookshelf
A special collaborative episode between the Jokerman podcast and Tim Heidecker’s Office Hours Live.
Word in Your Ear ‍