DYLAN, BOB

DYLAN, BOB (Robert Allen Zimmerman; 1941– ), U.S. folk singer, composer. Probably the most significant folk artist in the last half of the 20th century, Dylan was born in Duluth, Minn., and grew up in the small town of Hibbing. He started writing poems at ten and taught himself piano and guitar in his early teens. He fell under the spell of the music of the country, rock, and folk performers Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Hank Williams, and Woody Guthrie. Dylan dropped out of the University of Minnesota and went to New York to be part of the burgeoning folk-music scene, and to meet Guthrie, who was hospitalized with a rare, incurable disease of the nervous system. Dylan spent all his time with other musicians and began writing songs, including a tribute, "Song to Woody." He began to perform at local nightclubs, honing his guitar and harmonica work and developing the expressive nasal sound that would become the hallmark of his distinctive style. Around this time he adopted the stage name Bob Dylan, presumably in honor of the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas. In 1961, a reviewer for the New York Times said he was "bursting at the seams with talent." Columbia Records soon signed him to a contract, and in 1962 his first recording, See That My Grave Is Kept Clean, offered the sound of an aging black blues man in the voice of a 21-year-old from Minnesota. His next album, The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, in 1963, contained two of the most important and durable folk anthems, "Blowin' in the Wind" and "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall," and two influential ballads, "Girl From the North Country" and "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right" as well as nine other originals, marking the emergence of the most distinctive and poetic voice in the history of American popular music. Dylan's next album, The Times They Are A-Changing, provided more of the same: the title cut, the protest song "The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll," and "Boots of Spanish Leather," a sad but graceful love song. In 1965, as he grew tired of the folk genre, Dylan recorded Bringing It All Back Home, a half-electric, half-acoustic album of complex biting songs like "Subterranean Homesick Blues," which featured the line "You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows." (It was a line that inspired the name, the Weathermen, an American antiwar protest group.) Also on the album were "Mr. Tambourine Man" and "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue." When Dylan introduced his move from folk to rock at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival, he was booed off the stage. Nevertheless, he released the album Highway 61 Revisited, which contained the monumental single "Like a Rolling Stone," an angry six-minute-long song that found a huge audience. Dylan had brought a new, literate standard to rock music writing. In Blonde on Blonde, a two-record set recorded in Nashville, Tenn., in 1966, he offered the now-classic "Stuck Inside of Mobile With the Memphis Blues Again," "Visions of Johanna," and "Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands." After a near-fatal motorcycle accident on July 29, 1966, Dylan retreated to his home in Woodstock, N.Y., to reevaluate his career. He produced more recordings: The Basement Tapes, John Wesley Harding, Nashville Skyline (which included "Lay Lady Lay"). Over the years he dabbled, unsuccessfully, as a film actor and toured extensively with various groups. In the mid-1970s, one rock promoter said there were mail-order requests for more than 12 million tickets, though only 658,000 seats were available for 40 shows in one period. Dylan's pain after his marriage ended resulted in the album Blood on the Tracks, a moving and profound examination of love and loss that included the songs "Tangled Up in Blue," "Idiot Wind," and "Shelter from the Storm." His religious explorations led him to profess to be a born-again Christian in 1978, but in   1983 he reportedly returned to his Jewish roots and was said to have observed the Jewish holidays. Widely regarded as America's greatest living popular songwriter, Dylan was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1988. In 1990 he received France's highest cultural award, the Commandeur dans l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. In 2001 he won an Academy Award and a Golden Globe for Best Original Song, "Things Have Changed," for the film Wonder Boys. The 1967 documentary Don't Look Back chronicles Dylan's 1965 tour of England, which includes appearances by Joan Baez and Donovan. Martin Scorsese's 1978 film The Last Waltz is a documentary about Dylan and The Band performing their last concert after 16 years on the road. Among Dylan's publications are Bob Dylan in His Own Words (with C. Williams, 1993); Tarantula, a book of poetry (1994); Younger Than That Now: The Collected Interviews with Bob Dylan (with J. Ellison, 2004); and his autobiography, Chronicles, Vol. 1 (2004). Beginning in the mid-1980s Dylan hit the road full-time, performing all over the world. His albums were not as successful as those of his early years, but he continued to perform and sing in his nasal twang through the early years of the 21st century. He rarely granted interviews, refused to explain the meaning of his songs, and remained a significant but enigmatic figure. He had millions of fans – he played in Rome at the behest of Pope John Paul II – and inspired hundreds of articles, books, and websites. In December 2004 he was one of five recipients of one of the highest awards for artistic excellence, the Kennedy Center honors. (Stewart Kampel (2nd ed.)