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Born
Robert Allen Zimmerman, on May 24, 1941, in Duluth, Minnesota. Driven by the
influences of early rock stars like Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, and
Little Richard, the young Dylan formed his own bands, including the Golden
Chords and Elston Gunn and His Rock Boppers. While attending the University
of Minnesota in Minneapolis, he began performing folk and country songs at
local cafes, taking the name Bob Dylan after the late Welsh poet Dylan
Thomas.
In 1960, Dylan dropped out of college and moved to New York, where his idol,
the legendary folk singer Woody Guthrie, was hospitalized with a rare
hereditary disease of the nervous system. Dylan visited with Guthrie
regularly in his hospital room; he also became a regular in the folk clubs
and coffeehouses of Greenwich Village, met a host of other musicians, and
began writing songs at an astonishing pace, including "Song to Woody", a
tribute to his ailing hero. In the fall of 1961, after one of his
performances received a rave review in The New York Times, Dylan signed a
recording contract with Columbia Records. Released early in 1962, Bob Dylan
contained only two original songs, but showcased Dylans gravelly-voiced
singing style in a number of traditional folk songs and covers of blues
songs.
The 1963 release of The Freewheelin Bob Dylan marked Dylans emergence as one
of the most original and poetic voices in the history of American popular
music. The album included two of the most memorable 1960s folk songs, "Blowin
in the Wind" and "A Hard Rains Gonna Fall". His next album, The Times They
Are A Changin, firmly established Dylan as the definitive songwriter of the
60s protest movement, a reputation that only increased after he became
involved with one of the movements established icons, Joan Baez, in 1963.
While his romantic relationship with Baez lasted only two years, it
benefited both immensely in terms of their music careers, as Dylan wrote
some of Baez best-known material and Baez introduced him to thousands of
fans in her concerts. By 1964, Dylan was playing 200 concerts annually, but
had become tired of his role as 'the' folk singer-songwriter of the protest
movement. Another Side of Bob Dylan, recorded in 1964, was a much more
personal, introspective collection of songs, far less politically charged
than Dylans previous efforts.
In 1965, Dylan scandalized many of his folkie fans by recording the
half-acoustic, half-electric album Bringing It All Back Home, backed by a
nine-piece band. On July 25, 1965, he was famously booed at the Newport Folk
Festival when he performed electrically for the first time. The albums that
followed, Highway 61 Revisited (1965) including the seminal rock song "Like
a Rolling Stone" and the two record set Blonde on Blonde (1966) represented
Dylan at his most innovative. With his unmistakable voice and unforgettable
lyrics, Dylan brought the worlds of music and literature together as no one
else had.
Over the course of the next three decades, Dylan continued to reinvent
himself. Following a near-fatal motorcycle accident in July 1966, Dylan
spent almost a year recovering in seclusion. His next two albums, John
Wesley Harding (1968) including "All Along the Watchtower" later recorded by
guitar great Jimi Hendrix and the countryish Nashville Skyline (1969) were
far more mellow than his earlier works. Critics blasted the two-record set
Self-Portrait (1970), and Tarantula, a long-awaited collection of writings
Dylan published in 1971, also met with a poor reception. In 1973, Dylan
appeared in Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, a feature film directed by Sam
Peckinpah. He also wrote the films soundtrack, which became a hit and
included the now-classic song, "Knockin on Heavens Door".
In 1974, Dylan began his first full-scale tour since his accident, embarking
on a sold-out nationwide tour with his longtime backup band, the Band. An
album he recorded with the Band, Planet Waves, became his first No. 1 album
ever. He followed these successes with the celebrated 1975 album Blood on
the Tracks and Desire (1976), each of which hit No. 1 as well. Desire
included the song "Hurricane", written by Dylan about the boxer Rubin
"Hurricane" Carter, then serving life in prison after being wrongly
convicted of a triple murder in 1967. Dylan was one of many prominent public
figures who helped popularize Carters cause, leading to a retrial in 1976,
when he was again convicted.
After a painful split with his wife, Sara Lowndes, the song "Sara" on Desire
was Dylans plaintive but unsuccessful attempt to win Lowndes back, Dylan
again reinvented himself, declaring in 1979 that he was now a born-again
Christian. The evangelical Slow Train Coming was a commercial hit and won
Dylan his first Grammy Award, for Best Male Rock Vocal Performance. The tour
and albums that followed were less successful, however, and Dylans religious
leanings soon became less overt in his music.
Beginning in the 1980s, Dylan began touring full time, sometimes with fellow
legends Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers and the Grateful Dead. His concerts
were sometimes rambling and sloppy, and many fans began to suspect he was
burning out in his middle-aged years. Notable albums during this period
included Infidels (1983), the five-disc retrospective Biograph (1985),
Knocked Out Loaded (1986), and Oh Mercy (1989), which became his best
received album in years. He recorded two albums with the all-star band the
Traveling Wilburys, also featuring George Harrison, the late Roy Orbison,
Tom Petty and Jeff Lynne. In 1994, Dylan returned to his folk roots, winning
the Grammy Award for Best Traditional Folk Album for World Gone Wrong.
In 1989, when Dylan was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Bruce
Springsteen spoke at the ceremony, declaring that "Bob freed the mind the
way Elvis freed the body.He invented a new way a pop singer could sound,
broke through the limitations of what a recording artist could achieve, and
changed the face of rock and roll forever." In 1997, Dylan became the first
rock star ever to receive Kennedy Center Honors, considered the
nation?ighest award for artistic excellence.
Dylans 1997 album, Time Out of Mind reestablished this one-time folk icon as
one of the preeminent of rocks wise men, winning three Grammy Awards
including Album of the Year. He continues his vigorous touring schedule,
including a memorable performance in 1997 for Pope John Paul II in which he
played "Knockin on Heaven's Door", and a 1999 tour with Paul Simon.
Dylan and Lowndes, who married in 1965 and divorced in 1977, had four
children together: Jesse, Anna, Samuel, and Jakob. (Dylan also adopted
Lowndes daughter, Maria, from a previous marriage).
