BobDylan

From Hibbing to New York

Bob Dylan was born Robert Allen Zimmerman in Duluth, Minnesota on May 24, 1941. Growing up in Hibbing, Minnesota from age 6, the young Dylan had an early interest in music, listening avidly to blues, country and rock & roll on the radio and eventually taking up piano, guitar and harmonica. In high school he formed The Golden Chords and played covers of Little Richard and other popular songs of the time at local gigs. In 1959 he moved to Minneapolis where he enrolled at the arts college of the University of Minnesota. It was during these years that his interest in American folk music grew and he began to perform solo at coffeehouses under the name Bob Dylan.

The culmination of this period of songwriting was 1963's The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan; the album made a huge impact on the American folk scene with many performers covering Dylan’s songs. The most significant were Peter, Paul and Mary, whose version of “Blowin’ in the Wind” became a hit in the summer of 1963. It was not long before Bob Dylan had made a name for himself, and by 1964 he was playing 200 concerts a year.

From acoustic to electric

Dylan took a new turn in going over to electric guitar and instruments with "Like a rolling stone" and the Highway 61 revisited album in 1965. The first in many radical changes throughout his career.

"When I was a kid, Bob's voice somehow – it thrilled and scared me. It made me feel kind of irresponsibly innocent. And it still does. But it reached down and touched what little worldliness I think a 15-year-old kid, in high school, in New Jersey had in him at the time. Dylan was - he was a revolutionary, man, the way that Elvis freed your body, Bob freed your mind. And he showed us that just because the music was innately physical, it did not mean that it was anti-intellect. He had the vision and the talent to expand a pop song until it contained the whole world. He invented a new way a pop singer could sound. He broke through the limitations of what a recording artist could achieve, and he changed the face of rock and roll forever and ever."

– Bruce Springsteen speaking at the induction of Bob Dylan to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

The Band

In 1965 Bob Dylan hired The Hawks as his touring band. The Hawks changed their name to The Band in 1968 and would go on to become Dylan’s most famous backing band, primarily because of their intuitive chemistry and “wild thin mercury sound.” His albums through the late '60s and early '70s, however, were more country and folk influenced – to many people’s surprise.

1975’s Blood on the Tracks was hailed as a return to form by critics, and in the fall Dylan launched "The Rolling Thunder Revue tour" with an extensive list of supporting musicians, including Joan Baez, Joni Mitchell, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, Arlo Guthrie, Mick Ronson, Roger McGuinn and poet Allen Ginsberg. In the fall of 1976, he appeared in The Band’s farewell concert, The Last Waltz, which was filmed by Martin Scorsese.

In 1989 Dylan was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and later that year he released what would be his best received album during the 1980s – Oh Mercy. Produced by Daniel Lanois in New Orleans, the album was a coherent collection of songs that showcased a reenergized and engaged Dylan.

The Dylan Repertoire

Other artists’ covers and interpretations of his songs have always been an important part of Bob Dylan’s musical career – not only for spreading his music far and wide, but also for helping audiences discover Bob Dylan the artist. After his breakthrough in 1963-64, the hundreds and subsequently thousands of Bob Dylan covers are evidence of both the originality and the universality of his songs – not to mention his renown among other musicians and artists. In the Spotify list to the left you will find some of the best known and most important covers, as well as some of the lesser known.

"Master poet, caustic social critic and intrepid, guiding spirit of the counterculture generation."
– Time Magazine

"He so enlarged himself through the folk background that he incorporated it for a while. He defined the genre for a while.” – Paul Simon

“He’s laid down the template for lyric, tune, seriousness, spirituality, depth of rock music.”
– Joe Strummer

“The people I revered in the late ‘60s´and the early ‘70s, their motivation was to do great work and great works creates revolution. The motivation of Jimi Hendrix, Bob Dylan or The Who wasn’t marketing, to get rich, or be a celebrity.”
– Patti Smith

“They asked me what effect Bob Dylan had on me. That’s like asking how I was influenced by being born.”
– Pete Townshend

Soundtrack, Literature & the Arts

In 2001 he won his first Oscar for the song “Things Have Changed” in the film Wonder Boys. Later that year he released another new album of original material, Love and Theft, recorded with his touring band and produced by himself under the pseudonym Jack Frost. The album featured a wide array of genre influences, including rockabilly, Western swing, jazz and even lounge ballads, and was a success with critics. In the decade that followed, Dylan kept as artistically busy as ever: he wrote screenplays and an autobiography, acted, painted, hosted some 100 radio shows, and released two more studio albums – Modern Time (2006) and Together Through Life (2009).

Proceeds from the album were donated to various charities around the world. In 2011 Dylan’s label, Egyptian Records, released an album of previously unheard Hank Williams songs – The Lost Notebook of Hank Williams. Dylan helped curate the project, in which songs unfinished when Williams died in 1953 were completed and recorded by a variety of artists, including Dylan himself. On September 11, 2012, Dylan released Tempest, his 35th studio album since the debut in 1962.