Dylan, Bob
Bob Dylan (legally Robert Dylan,[3] born Robert Allen Zimmerman, May 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter. Often regarded as one of the greatest songwriters of all time,[4][5][6] Dylan has been a major figure in popular culture during a career spanning more than 60 years. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s, when songs such as "Blowin' in the Wind" (1963) and "The Times They Are a-Changin'" (1964) became anthems for the civil rights and antiwar movements. His lyrics during this period incorporated a range of political, social, philosophical, and literary influences, defying pop music conventions and appealing to the burgeoning counterculture.[7]
Dylan was born and raised in St. Louis County, Minnesota. Following his self-titled debut album in 1962, which comprised mainly traditional folk songs, he made his breakthrough as a songwriter with the release of The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan the following year. The album features "Blowin' in the Wind" and the thematically complex "A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall".
Many of his songs adapted the tunes and phraseology of older folk songs. He went on to release the politically charged The Times They Are a-Changin' and the more lyrically abstract and introspective Another Side of Bob Dylan in 1964. In 1965 and 1966, Dylan drew controversy among folk purists when he adopted electrically amplified rock instrumentation, and in the space of 15 months recorded three of the most important and influential rock albums of the 1960s: Bringing It All Back Home, Highway 61 Revisited (both 1965) and Blonde on Blonde (1966). His six-minute single "Like a Rolling Stone" (1965) expanded commercial and creative boundaries in popular music.[8][9]
In July 1966, a motorcycle accident led to Dylan's withdrawal from touring. During this period, he recorded a large body of songs with members of the Band, who had previously backed him on tour. These recordings were released as the collaborative album The Basement Tapes in 1975. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Dylan explored country music and rural themes in John Wesley Harding (1967), Nashville Skyline (1969), and New Morning (1970).
In 1975, he released Blood on the Tracks, which many saw as a return to form. In the late 1970s, he became a born-again Christian and released a series of albums of contemporary gospel music before returning to his more familiar rock-based idiom in the early 1980s. Dylan's 1997 album Time Out of Mind marked the beginning of a renaissance for his career. He has released five critically acclaimed albums of original material since then, the most recent being Rough and Rowdy Ways (2020). He also recorded a series of three albums in the 2010s comprising versions of traditional American standards, especially songs recorded by Frank Sinatra. Dylan has toured continuously since the late 1980s on what has become known as the Never Ending Tour.[10]
Since 1994, Dylan has published nine books of paintings and drawings, and his work has been exhibited in major art galleries. He has sold more than 145 million records,[11] making him one of the best-selling musicians of all time. He has received numerous awards, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom, ten Grammy Awards, a Golden Globe Award and an Academy Award. Dylan has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame and the Songwriters Hall of Fame. The Pulitzer Prize Board in 2008 awarded him a special citation for "his profound impact on popular music and American culture, marked by lyrical compositions of extraordinary poetic power". In 2016, Dylan was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature "for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition".[12]
Life and career
1941–1959: Origins and musical beginnings
The Zimmerman family home in Hibbing, Minnesota
Bob Dylan was born Robert Allen Zimmerman (Hebrew: שבתאי זיסל בן אברהם Shabtai Zisl ben Avraham)[1][13][14] in St. Mary's Hospital on May 24, 1941, in Duluth, Minnesota,[15][16] and raised in Hibbing, Minnesota, on the Mesabi Range west of Lake Superior. Dylan's paternal grandparents, Anna Kirghiz and Zigman Zimmerman, emigrated from Odesa in the Russian Empire (now Ukraine) to the United States, following the pogroms against Jews of 1905.[17] His maternal grandparents, Florence and Ben Stone, were Lithuanian Jews who had arrived in the United States in 1902.[17] In his autobiography, Chronicles: Volume One, Dylan wrote that his paternal grandmother's family was originally from the Kağızman district of Kars Province in northeastern Turkey.[18]
Dylan's father Abram Zimmerman and his mother Beatrice "Beatty" Stone were part of a small, close-knit Jewish community.[19][20][21] They lived in Duluth until Dylan was six, when his father contracted polio and the family returned to his mother's hometown, Hibbing, where they lived for the rest of Dylan's childhood, and his father and paternal uncles ran a furniture and appliance store.[21][22] In his early years he listened to the radio—first to blues and country stations from Shreveport, Louisiana, and later, when he was a teenager, to rock and roll.[23]
Dylan formed several bands while attending Hibbing High School. In the Golden Chords, he performed covers of songs by Little Richard[24] and Elvis Presley.[25] Their performance of Danny & the Juniors' "Rock and Roll Is Here to Stay" at their high school talent show was so loud that the principal cut the microphone.[26] In 1959, Dylan's high school yearbook carried the caption "Robert Zimmerman: to join 'Little Richard'".[24][27] That year, as Elston Gunnn, he performed two dates with Bobby Vee, playing piano and clapping.[28][29][30] In September 1959, Dylan moved to Minneapolis and enrolled at the University of Minnesota.[31] His focus on rock and roll gave way to American folk music, as he explained in a 1985 interview:
The thing about rock'n'roll is that for me anyway it wasn't enough ... There were great catch-phrases and driving pulse rhythms ... but the songs weren't serious or didn't reflect life in a realistic way. I knew that when I got into folk music, it was more of a serious type of thing. The songs are filled with more despair, more sadness, more triumph, more faith in the supernatural, much deeper feelings.[32]
Living at the Jewish-centric fraternity Sigma Alpha Mu house, Dylan began to perform at the Ten O'Clock Scholar, a coffeehouse a few blocks from campus, and became involved in the Dinkytown folk music circuit.[33][34] During this period, he began to introduce himself as "Bob Dylan".[35] In his memoir, he wrote that he considered adopting the surname Dillon before unexpectedly seeing poems by Dylan Thomas, and deciding upon that less common variant.[36][a 1] Explaining his change of name in a 2004 interview, he said, "You're born, you know, the wrong names, wrong parents. I mean, that happens. You call yourself what you want to call yourself. This is the land of the free."[37]
1960s
Relocation to New York and record deal
In May 1960, Dylan dropped out of college at the end of his first year. In January 1961, he traveled to New York City to perform there and visit his musical idol Woody Guthrie,[38] who was seriously ill with Huntington's disease in Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital.[39] Guthrie had been a revelation to Dylan and influenced his early performances. Describing Guthrie's impact, he wrote: "The songs themselves had the infinite sweep of humanity in them... [He] was the true voice of the American spirit. I said to myself I was going to be Guthrie's greatest disciple".[40] As well as visiting Guthrie in hospital, Dylan befriended Guthrie's protégé Ramblin' Jack Elliott. Much of Guthrie's repertoire was channeled through Elliott, and Dylan paid tribute to Elliott in Chronicles: Volume One.[41] Dylan later said he was influenced by African-American poets he heard on the New York streets, especially Big Brown.[42]
From February 1961, Dylan played at clubs around Greenwich Village, befriending and picking up material from folk singers there, including Dave Van Ronk, Fred Neil, Odetta, the New Lost City Ramblers and Irish musicians the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem.[43] He often accompanied other musicians on harmonica, which led to Dylan filling in for the ailing Sonny Terry on Harry Belafonte's 1962 album Midnight Special.[44]
Dylan later described this session as "my professional recording debut."[45] In September, The New York Times critic Robert Shelton boosted Dylan's career with a very enthusiastic review of his performance at Gerde's Folk City: "Bob Dylan: A Distinctive Folk-Song Stylist".[46] That month, Dylan played harmonica on folk singer Carolyn Hester's third album, bringing him to the attention of the album's producer John Hammond,[47] who signed Dylan to Columbia Records.[48] Dylan's first album, Bob Dylan, released March 19, 1962,[49][50] consisted of familiar folk, blues and gospel with just two original compositions. The album sold 5,000 copies in its first year, just enough to break even.[51]
Joan Baez and Dylan during the civil rights "March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom", August 28, 1963
In August 1962, Dylan took two decisive steps in his career. He changed his name to Bob Dylan,[a 2] and he signed a management contract with Albert Grossman.[52] Grossman remained Dylan's manager until 1970, and was known for his sometimes confrontational personality and protective loyalty.[53] Dylan said, "He was kind of like a Colonel Tom Parker figure ... you could smell him coming."[34] Tension between Grossman and John Hammond led to the latter suggesting Dylan work with the young African-American jazz producer Tom Wilson, who produced several tracks for the second album without formal credit. Wilson produced the next three albums Dylan recorded.[54][55]
Dylan made his first trip to the United Kingdom from December 1962 to January 1963.[56] He had been invited by television director Philip Saville to appear in a drama, Madhouse on Castle Street, which Saville was directing for BBC Television.[57] At the end of the play, Dylan performed "Blowin' in the Wind", one of its first public performances.[57] While in London, Dylan performed at London folk clubs, including the Troubadour, Les Cousins, and Bunjies.[56][58] He also learned material from UK performers, including Martin Carthy.[57]
By the release of Dylan's second album, The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, in May 1963, he had begun to make his name as a singer-songwriter. Many songs on the album were labeled protest songs, inspired partly by Guthrie and influenced by Pete Seeger's passion for topical songs.[59] "Oxford Town" was an account of James Meredith's ordeal as the first black student to risk enrollment at the University of Mississippi.[60]
The first song on the album, "Blowin' in the Wind", partly derived its melody from the traditional slave song, "No More Auction Block",[61] while its lyrics questioned the social and political status quo. The song was widely recorded by other artists and became a hit for Peter, Paul and Mary.[62] Another song, "A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall", was based on the folk ballad "Lord Randall". With veiled references to an impending apocalypse, it gained resonance when the Cuban Missile Crisis developed a few weeks after Dylan began performing it.[63][a 3] Like "Blowin' in the Wind", "A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall" marked a new direction in songwriting, blending a stream-of-consciousness, imagist lyrical attack with traditional folk form.[64]
Dylan's topical songs led to his being viewed as more than just a songwriter. Janet Maslin wrote of Freewheelin': "These were the songs that established [Dylan] as the voice of his generation—someone who implicitly understood how concerned young Americans felt about nuclear disarmament and the growing Civil Rights Movement: his mixture of moral authority and nonconformity was perhaps the most timely of his attributes."[65][a 4] Freewheelin' also included love songs and surreal talking blues. Humor was an important part of Dylan's persona,[66] and the range of material on the album impressed listeners, including the Beatles. George Harrison said of the album: "We just played it, just wore it out. The content of the song lyrics and just the attitude—it was incredibly original and wonderful".[67]
The rough edge of Dylan's singing unsettled some but was an attraction to others. Novelist Joyce Carol Oates wrote: "When we first heard this raw, very young, and seemingly untrained voice, frankly nasal, as if sandpaper could sing, the effect was dramatic and electrifying".[68] Many early songs reached the public through more palatable versions by other performers, such as Joan Baez, who became Dylan's advocate and lover.[69] Baez was influential in bringing Dylan to prominence by recording several of his early songs and inviting him on stage during her concerts.[70] Others who had hits with Dylan's songs in the early 1960s included the Byrds, Sonny & Cher, the Hollies, Peter, Paul and Mary, the Association, Manfred Mann and the Turtles.
"Mixed-Up Confusion", recorded during the Freewheelin' sessions with a backing band, was released as Dylan's first single in December 1962, but then swiftly withdrawn. In contrast to the mostly solo acoustic performances on the album, the single showed a willingness to experiment with a rockabilly sound. Cameron Crowe described it as "a fascinating look at a folk artist with his mind wandering towards Elvis Presley and Sun Records".[71]
Protest and Another Side
"The Times They Are a-Changin'"
0:20
Dylan said of "The Times They Are a-Changin'": "This was definitely a song with a purpose. I wanted to write a big song, some kind of theme song, with short concise verses that piled up on each other in a hypnotic way. The civil rights movement and the folk music movement were pretty close and allied together at that time."[32]