Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan standing on stage
Dylan in 2019
Born
Robert Allen Zimmerman

(1941-05-24) May 24, 1941 (age 83)
Other names
Occupations
  • Singer-songwriter
  • painter
  • writer
Years active1957–present[2]
Spouses
(m. 1965; div. 1977)
(m. 1986; div. 1992)
Children6, including Jesse and Jakob
Awards
Musical career
Genres
Instruments
  • Vocals
  • guitar
  • harmonica
  • keyboards
Discography
Labels
Websitebobdylan.com
Signature

Bob Dylan (legally Robert Dylan;[3] born Robert Allen Zimmerman, May 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter. Considered one of the greatest songwriters of all time,[4][5][6] Dylan has been a major figure in popular culture over his 60-year career. With an estimated figure of more than 125 million records sold worldwide, he is one of the best-selling musicians of all-time.[7] Dylan added increasingly sophisticated lyrical techniques to the folk music of the early 1960s, infusing it "with the intellectualism of classic literature and poetry".[6] His lyrics incorporated political, social and philosophical influences, defying pop music conventions and appealing to the burgeoning counterculture.[8]

Dylan was born and raised in St. Louis County, Minnesota, and at 20 years old he moved to New York City to pursue music. Following his 1962 self-titled debut album of traditional folk songs, he released his breakthrough album The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan (1963) which featured "Girl from the North Country" and "A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall", adapting the tunes and phrasing of older folk songs. His songs "Blowin' in the Wind" (1963) and "The Times They Are a-Changin'" (1964) became anthems for the civil rights and antiwar movements. In 1965 and 1966, Dylan drew controversy among folk purists when he adopted electrically amplified rock instrumentation, recording the rock albums 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.[9][10]

In July 1966, a motorcycle crash led Dylan to cease touring for seven years. During this period, he recorded a large body of songs with members of the Band which produced the album The Basement Tapes (1975). Dylan explored country music and rural themes on the albums John Wesley Harding (1967), Nashville Skyline (1969) and New Morning (1970). He gained critical attention for Blood on the Tracks (1975), and Time Out of Mind (1997), the latter of which earned him the Grammy Award for Album of the Year. Dylan still releases music and has toured continuously since the late 1980s on what has become known as the Never Ending Tour.[11] Since 1994, Dylan has published nine books of paintings and drawings, and his work has been exhibited in major art galleries. His life has been profiled in several documentaries and the biopic A Complete Unknown (2024).

Dylan has received numerous accolades throughout his career, including an Academy Award, ten Grammy Awards and a Golden Globe Award. He was honored with the Kennedy Center Honors in 1997, National Medal of Arts in 2009, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2012. Dylan has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame and the Songwriters Hall of Fame. He has also been awarded a Pulitzer Prize special citation in 2008, and the 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature "for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition."[12]

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference Sounes14 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ Erlewine, Stephen Thomas (December 12, 2019). "Bob Dylan biography". AllMusic. Retrieved January 6, 2020.
  3. ^ His legal name, Robert Dylan, is enumerated in the following sources:
  4. ^ "Dylan 'the greatest songwriter'". BBC News. May 23, 2001. Retrieved January 1, 2022.
  5. ^ "No. 1 Bob Dylan". Rolling Stone. April 10, 2020. Retrieved January 29, 2021.
  6. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference EncBr was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  7. ^ Lenthang, Marlene (January 25, 2022). "Bob Dylan sells his entire catalog of recorded music to Sony". NBC News. Retrieved June 11, 2024.
  8. ^ "The Counterculture" by Michael J. Kramer in Latham, Sean (ed.), 2021, The World of Bob Dylan, pp. 251–263.
  9. ^ "500 Greatest Songs Of All Time". Rolling Stone. April 7, 2011. Archived from the original on October 31, 2019. Retrieved January 6, 2020.
  10. ^ Rogovoy, Seth (September 27, 2021). "How Bob Dylan's greatest song changed music history — a deep-dive into an accidental masterpiece". The Forward. Archived from the original on September 28, 2021. Retrieved September 30, 2021. Bruce Springsteen, who was originally touted as a 'new Dylan' when he was signed to Columbia Records, Dylan's label, by the same label honcho, John Hammond, who signed Dylan, said this about 'Like a Rolling Stone':
    'Dylan freed your mind and showed us that because the music was physical did not mean it was anti-intellect. He had the vision and talent to make a pop song so that it contained the whole world. He invented a new way a pop singer could sound, broke through the limitations of what a recording could achieve, and he changed the face of rock 'n' roll for ever and ever.'
  11. ^ Heylin, Clinton, 2011, Bob Dylan: Behind The Shades, The 20th Anniversary Edition, pp. 646–652.
  12. ^ "The Nobel Prize in Literature 2016". nobelprize.org. October 13, 2016. Retrieved January 1, 2025.

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