A MEANINGLESS LOOK AT ICON OFFERS NOTHING NEW.

Byline: - D.K.

For anyone who'd actually be interested in watching, ``Bob Dylan: American Troubador'' could be retitled, ``Everything You Already Knew About Bob Dylan and Didn't Have to Ask.'' It's a fan's high-school term paper with such audiovisual aids as archival footage of '50s Minneapolis, a New York blizzard and race riots, combined with a line or two from a handful of Dylan classics.

One of the reasons for the program's stunning lack of insight into Dylan is the paltry band of witnesses it rounds up - gnarly-toothed geezers who knew Dylan back in the day, a couple of session guys, folks who apparently never even met the guy but have listened to his albums (hey, you and I could probably have been in this film). Only The Band's Levon Helm, who appears here, could be said to have spent any meaningful time with him, and his observations are none too acute.

There's a particularly strong '60s bent to the material, where the inspirations for even semi-obscure songs are discussed at length, while entire albums of the '70s, '80s and '90s aren't even mentioned. (Potentially interesting subjects, such as the underground controversy surrounding Dylan's authorship of ``Blowin' in the Wind,'' perhaps his most famous song, are of course ignored.) Dylan's previously well-documented '60s rate an hour of the documentary, while the '80s and '90s scarcely rate 15 minutes, when those are the decades that hold the most questions - such as how the heck did he tumble so far, anyway? And how did he muster enough oomph to put together one last great album, 1997's ``Time Out of Mind''?

Dylan never comes off as particularly friendly - or, in archival interviews, even as vaguely articulate - but his misanthropy is hardly challenged or explored beyond a sweeping nod to the ``pressures of fame.'' Interviewees mainly spend their time trying to convince us of his greatness, which seems fairly unnecessary given his still-substantial place in pop music history.

Oh, well, the producers do unearth one hilariously jaw-dropping piece of footage - a kitschy, Vegas-style tribute to Dylan from the '60s. And the snippets of music here should be enough to inspire fans to dust off their Dylan CDs and give them another play. Which can be done without, and more entertainingly than, sitting through this perfunctory exercise in hagiography.

The facts

--The Show: ``Bob Dylan: American Troubador''

--What: ``Biography'' on the folk-rocker.

--Where: A&E.

--When: 8 tonight.

--Our rating: Two stars

CAPTION(S):

photo

Photo:

A&E's ``Bob Dylan: American Troubador'' biography fails to reveal worthy information about the legendary musician.