Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan
Dylan at the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and
Freedom
Background information
Birth name
Robert Allen Zimmerman
Also known
as
Elston Gunn[1] Blind Boy
Grunt, Lucky Wilbury/Boo
Wilbury, Elmer Johnson,
Sergei Petrov, Jack Frost,
Jack Fate, Willow Scarlet,
Robert Milkwood Thomas
Born
May 24, 1941 (1941-05-24)
Duluth, Minnesota, U.S.
Genre(s)
Folk, Rock, Country, Blues
Occupation(s) Singer-songwriter, author,
poet, screenwriter, disc
jockey
Instrument(s) Vocals, guitar, harmonica,
keyboards, piano, bass
Years active
1958–present
Label(s)
Columbia, Asylum, SONY
BMG
Associated
acts
The Band, Traveling Wilburys,
Grateful Dead, Tom Petty &
the Heartbreakers
Website
www.bobdylan.com
Bob Dylan (born Robert Allen Zimmer-
man on May 24, 1941) is an American
singer-songwriter, author, poet and painter
who has been a major figure in popular music
for five decades. Much of Dylan’s most celeb-
rated work dates from the 1960s, when he
became an informal chronicler and a reluct-
ant figurehead of American unrest. A number
of his songs, such as "Blowin’ in the Wind"
and "The Times They Are a-Changin’", be-
came anthems of both the civil rights move-
ments[2] and of the opposition to the Vietnam
War.[3]
After a lifetime of writing, recording, and
performing, Dylan’s latest record—his 33rd
studio album—Together Through Life was re-
leased on April 28, 2009.[4][5] The album
reached the number one spot on both the
Billboard 200 chart of top selling albums,[6]
and the UK album charts[7] in its first week
of release.
Dylan’s early lyrics incorporated political,
social, philosophical, and literary influences,
defying existing pop music conventions and
appealing widely to the counterculture. While
expanding and personalizing musical styles,
he has explored many traditions of American
song, from folk, blues and country to gospel,
rock and roll and rockabilly to English, Scot-
tish and Irish folk music, and even jazz and
swing.[8] Dylan performs with the guitar, pi-
ano and harmonica. Backed by a changing
line-up of musicians, he has toured steadily
since the late 1980s on what has been
dubbed the "Never Ending Tour". Although
his accomplishments as performer and re-
cording artist have been central to his ca-
reer, his songwriting is generally regarded as
his greatest contribution.[9]
Throughout his career, Dylan has won
many awards for his songwriting, perform-
ing, and recording. His records have earned
Grammy, Golden Globe,
and Academy
Awards, and he has been inducted into the
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Nashville Song-
writers Hall of Fame and Songwriters Hall of
Fame. In 2008, a "Cultural Pathway" was
named in Dylan’s honor in his birthplace, Du-
luth.[10][11]
In 2008, he was awarded a
Pulitzer Prize Special Citation for his "pro-
found impact on popular music and American
culture, marked by lyrical compositions of ex-
traordinary poetic power."[12]
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Bob Dylan
1
Life and career
Origins and musical beginnings
Robert Allen Zimmerman (Hebrew name Sh-
abtai Zisel ben Avraham)[13][14] was born in
St. Mary’s Hospital on May 24, 1941, in Du-
luth, Minnesota,[15] and raised there and in
Hibbing, Minnesota, on the Mesabi Iron
Range west of Lake Superior. Research by
Dylan’s biographers has shown that his pa-
ternal grandparents, Zigman and Anna Zim-
merman, emigrated from Odessa in the Rus-
sian Empire (now Ukraine) to the United
States following the antisemitic pogroms of
1905.[16] His mother’s grandparents, Ben-
jamin and Lybba Edelstein, were Lithuanian
Jews who arrived in America in 1902.[16] In
his autobiography Chronicles: Volume One,
Dylan writes that his paternal grandmother’s
maiden name was Kyrgyz and her family ori-
ginated from Istanbul.[17]
Dylan’s parents, Abram Zimmerman and
Beatrice "Beatty" Stone, were part of the
area’s small but close-knit Jewish community.
Robert Zimmerman lived in Duluth until age
six, when his father was stricken with polio
and the family returned to his mother’s home
town, Hibbing, where Zimmerman spent the
rest of his childhood. Robert Zimmerman
spent much of his youth listening to the ra-
dio—first to blues and country stations broad-
casting from Shreveport, Louisiana and,
later, to early rock and roll.[18] He formed
several bands in high school: The Shadow
Blasters was short lived, but his next, The
Golden Chords,[19] lasted longer and played
covers of popular songs. Their performance
of Danny and the Juniors’ "Rock and Roll Is
Here to Stay" at their high school talent show
was so loud that the principal cut the micro-
phone off.[20] In his 1959 school yearbook,
Robert Zimmerman listed as his ambition "To
join Little Richard."[21] The same year, using
the name Elston Gunnn, he performed two
dates with Bobby Vee, playing piano and
providing handclaps.[1][22][23]
Zimmerman moved to Minneapolis
in
September 1959 and enrolled at
the
University of Minnesota. His early focus on
rock and roll gave way to an interest in
American folk music. In 1985 Dylan ex-
plained the attraction that folk music had ex-
erted on him: "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 tri-
umph, more faith in the supernatural, much
deeper feelings."[24] He soon began to per-
form at the 10 O’clock Scholar, a coffee
house a few blocks from campus, and became
actively involved in the local Dinkytown folk
music circuit.[25][26]
During his Dinkytown days, Zimmerman
began introducing himself as "Bob Dylan".[19]
In a 2004 interview, Dylan explained: "You’re
born, you know, the wrong names, wrong
parents. I mean, that happens. You call your-
self what you want to call yourself. This is the
land of the free."[27] In his autobiography,
Chronicles: Volume One, Dylan acknow-
ledged that he was familiar with the poetry of
Dylan Thomas.[28]
1960s: Busy Being Born
Relocation to New York and record
deal
Dylan dropped out of college at the end of his
freshman year. In January 1961, he moved to
New York City, hoping to perform there and
visit his musical idol Woody Guthrie, who was
seriously ill with Huntington’s Disease in
Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital.[29] Gu-
thrie had been a revelation to Dylan and was
the biggest influence on his early perform-
ances. Dylan would later say of Guthrie’s
work, "You could listen to his songs and actu-
ally learn how to live."[26] As well as visiting
Guthrie in the hospital, Dylan befriended Gu-
thrie’s acolyte Ramblin’ Jack Elliott. Much of
Guthrie’s repertoire was actually channeled
through Elliott, and Dylan paid tribute to Elli-
ott in Chronicles (2004).[30]
From February 1961, Dylan played at vari-
ous clubs around Greenwich Village.
In
September, he eventually gained public re-
cognition when Robert Shelton wrote a posit-
ive review in The New York Times of a show
at Gerde’s Folk City.[31] The same month
Dylan played harmonica on folk singer Caro-
lyn Hester’s eponymous third album, which
brought his talents to the attention of the al-
bum’s producer John Hammond.[32] Ham-
mond signed Dylan to Columbia Records in
October. The performances on his
first
Columbia album, Bob Dylan (1962), consisted
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Bob Dylan
2
of familiar folk, blues and gospel material
combined with two original compositions.
The album made little impact, selling only
5,000 copies in its first year, just enough to
break even.[33] Within Columbia Records,
some referred to the singer as "Hammond’s
Folly" and suggested dropping his contract.
Hammond defended Dylan vigorously, and
Johnny Cash was also a powerful ally of
Dylan.[33] While working for Columbia, Dylan
also recorded several songs under the pseud-
onym Blind Boy Grunt,
for Broadside
Magazine, a folk music magazine and record
label.[34]
With Joan Baez during the civil rights march
in Washington, D.C., August 28, 1963
Dylan made two important career moves
in August 1962. He legally changed his name
to Robert Dylan, and signed a management
contract with Albert Grossman. Grossman re-
mained Dylan’s manager until 1970, and was
notable both for his sometimes confrontation-
al personality, and for the fiercely protective
loyalty he displayed towards his principal cli-
ent.[35] Dylan would subsequently describe
Grossman thus: "He was kind of like a Colon-
el Tom Parker figure ... you could smell him
coming."[26] Tensions between Grossman and
John Hammond led to Hammond being re-
placed as the producer of Dylan’s second al-
bum by the young African American jazz pro-
ducer Tom Wilson.[36]
1962 also saw him make his United King-
dom début at The Pinder Of Wakefield, a pub
venue near Kings Cross in London.[37]
By the time Dylan’s second album, The
Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, was released in May
1963, he had begun to make his name as
both a singer and a songwriter. Many of the
songs on this album were labelled protest
songs, inspired partly by Guthrie and influ-
enced by Pete Seeger’s passion for topical
songs.[38] "Oxford Town", for example, was a
sardonic account of James Meredith’s ordeal
as the first black student to risk enrollment
at the University of Mississippi.[39]
His most
famous song of
the time,
"Blowin’ in the Wind", partially derived its
melody from the traditional slave song "No
More Auction Block", while its lyrics ques-
tioned the social and political status quo.[40]
The song was widely recorded and became
an international hit for Peter, Paul and Mary,
setting a precedent for many other artists
who would have hits with Dylan’s songs. "A
Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall" was based on the
tune of the folk ballad "Lord Randall". With
its veiled references to nuclear apocalypse, it
gained even more resonance when the Cuban
missile crisis developed only a few weeks
after Dylan began performing it.[41] Like
"Blowin’ in the Wind", "A Hard Rain’s a-
Gonna Fall" marked an important new direc-
tion in modern song writing, blending a
stream-of-consciousness, imagist lyrical at-
tack with a traditional folk form.[42]
While Dylan’s topical songs solidified his
early reputation, Freewheelin’ also included
a mixture of love songs and jokey, surreal
talking blues. Humor was a large part of
Dylan’s persona,[44] and the range of materi-
al on the album impressed many listeners, in-
cluding The Beatles. George Harrison said,
"We just played it, just wore it out. The con-
tent of the song lyrics and just the atti-
tude—it was incredibly original and wonder-
ful."[45]
The rough edge of Dylan’s singing was un-
settling to some early listeners but an attrac-
tion to others. Describing the impact that
Dylan had on her and her husband, 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 electrify-
ing."[46] Many of his most famous early songs
first reached the public through more imme-
diately palatable versions by other per-
formers, such as Joan Baez, who became
Dylan’s advocate, as well as his lover.[19]
Baez was influential in bringing Dylan to na-
tional and international prominence by re-
cording several of his early songs and invit-
ing him onstage during her own concerts.[47]
Others who recorded and had hits with
Dylan’s songs in the early and mid-1960s in-
cluded The Byrds, Sonny and Cher, The Hol-
lies, Peter, Paul and Mary, Manfred Mann,
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Bob Dylan
3
and The Turtles. Most attempted to impart a
pop feel and rhythm to the songs, while
Dylan and Baez performed them mostly as
sparse folk pieces. The cover versions be-
came so ubiquitous that CBS started to pro-
mote him with the tag "Nobody Sings Dylan
Like Dylan."[48]
"Mixed Up Confusion", recorded during
the Freewheelin’ sessions with a backing
band, was released as a single and then
quickly 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 de-
scribed it as "a fascinating look at a folk
artist with his mind wandering towards Elvis
Presley and Sun Records."[49]
Protest and Another Side
In May 1963, Dylan’s political profile was
raised when he walked out of The Ed Sullivan
Show. During rehearsals, Dylan had been in-
formed by CBS Television’s "head of program
practices" that the song he was planning to
perform, "Talkin’ John Birch Society Blues",
was potentially libelous to the John Birch So-
ciety. Rather than comply with the censor-
ship, Dylan refused to appear on the pro-
gram.[50]
By this time, Dylan and Baez were both
prominent
in the civil rights movement,
singing together at the March on Washington
on August 28, 1963.[51] Dylan’s third album,
The Times They Are a-Changin’, reflected a
more politicized and cynical Dylan.[52] The
songs often took as their subject matter con-
temporary, real life stories, with "Only A
Pawn In Their Game" addressing the murder
of civil rights worker Medgar Evers; and the
Brechtian "The Lonesome Death of Hattie
Carroll" the death of black hotel barmaid
Hattie Carroll, at the hands of young white
socialite William Zantzinger.[53] On a more
general theme, "Ballad of Hollis Brown" and
"North Country Blues" address the despair
engendered by the breakdown of farming and
mining communities. This political material
was accompanied by two personal love songs,
"Boots of Spanish Leather" and "One Too
Many Mornings".[54]
By the end of 1963, Dylan felt both manip-
ulated and constrained by the folk and
protest movements.[55] These tensions were
publicly displayed when, accepting the "Tom
Paine Award" from the National Emergency
Civil Liberties Committee shortly after the
assassination of John F. Kennedy, a drunken,
rambling Dylan questioned the role of the
committee, insulted its members as old and
balding, and claimed to see something of
himself (and of every man) in Kennedy’s al-
leged assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald.[56]
Bob Dylan performing at St. Lawrence
University in upstate New York, 1963
Another Side of Bob Dylan, recorded on a
single June evening in 1964,[19] had a lighter
mood than its predecessor. The surreal, hu-
morous Dylan reemerged on "I Shall Be Free
#10" and "Motorpsycho Nightmare". "Span-
ish Harlem Incident" and "To Ramona" are
romantic and passionate love songs, while
"Black Crow Blues" and "I Don’t Believe You
(She Acts Like We Never Have Met)" suggest
the rock and roll soon to dominate Dylan’s
music. "It Ain’t Me Babe", on the surface a
song about spurned love, has been described
as a rejection of the role his reputation had
thrust at him.[57] His newest direction was
signaled by two lengthy songs: the impres-
sionistic "Chimes of Freedom", which sets
elements of social commentary against a
denser metaphorical landscape in a style
later characterized by Allen Ginsberg as
"chains of flashing images,"[58] and "My Back
Pages", which attacks the simplistic and arch
seriousness of his own earlier topical songs
and seems to predict the backlash he was
about to encounter from his former champi-
ons as he took a new direction.[59]
In the latter half of 1964 and 1965,
Dylan’s
appearance
and musical
style
changed rapidly, as he made his move from
leading contemporary songwriter of the folk
scene to Folk-Rock pop-music star. His
scruffy jeans and work shirts were replaced
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Bob Dylan
4
by a Carnaby Street wardrobe, sunglasses
day or night, and pointy "Beatle boots". A
London reporter wrote: "Hair that would set
the teeth of a comb on edge. A loud shirt that
would dim the neon lights of Leicester
Square. He looks like an undernourished
cockatoo."[60] Dylan also began to spar in in-
creasingly surreal ways with his interviewers.
Appearing on the Les Crane TV show and
asked about a movie he was planning to
make, he told Crane it would be a cowboy
horror movie. Asked if he played the cowboy,
Dylan replied, "No, I play my mother."[61]
Going electric
Dylan’s March 1965 album Bringing It All
Back Home was yet another stylistic leap.[62]
The album featured his first recordings made
with electric instruments. The first single,
"Subterranean Homesick Blues", owed much
to Chuck Berry’s "Too Much Monkey Busi-
ness" and was provided with an early music
video courtesy of D. A. Pennebaker’s cinéma
vérité presentation of Dylan’s 1965 tour of
England, Dont Look Back.[63] Its free associ-
ation lyrics both harked back to the manic
energy of Beat poetry and were a forerunner
of rap and hip-hop.[64]
By contrast, the B side of the album was
interpreted by some folk fans as a conciliat-
ory gesture: four long songs where Dylan ac-
companied himself on acoustic guitar and
harmonica.[65] "Mr. Tambourine Man" had
already been a hit for The Byrds, and would
become one of his best known songs; while
"It’s All Over Now Baby Blue" and "It’s Al-
right Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)" would be ac-
claimed as two of Dylan’s most important
compositions.[65][66]
In the summer of 1965, as the headliner at
the Newport Folk Festival, Dylan performed
his first electric set since his high school days
with a pickup group drawn mostly from the
Paul Butterfield Blues Band, featuring Mike
Bloomfield (guitar), Sam Lay (drums) and
Jerome Arnold (bass), plus Al Kooper (organ)
and Barry Goldberg (piano).[67] Dylan had ap-
peared at Newport in 1963 and 1964, but in
1965 Dylan, met with a mix of cheering and
booing, left the stage after only three songs.
As one version of the legend has it, the boos
were from the outraged folk fans whom
Dylan had alienated by appearing, unexpec-
tedly, with an electric guitar. An alternative
account claims audience members were
merely upset by poor sound quality and a sur-
prisingly short set.[68]
Dylan’s 1965 Newport performance pro-
voked an outraged response from the folk
music
establishment.[69] Ewan MacColl
wrote in Sing Out!, "Our traditional songs
and ballads are the creations of extraordinar-
ily talented artists working inside traditions
formulated over time ... But what of Bobby
Dylan? ... a youth of mediocre talent. Only a
non-critical audience, nourished on the wa-
tery pap of pop music could have fallen for
such tenth-rate drivel."[70] On July 29, just
four days after his controversial performance
at Newport, Dylan was back in the studio in
New York, recording "Positively 4th Street".
The lyrics teemed with images of vengeance
and paranoia,[71] and it was widely inter-
preted as Dylan’s put-down of former friends
from the folk community—friends he had
known in the clubs along West 4th Street.[72]
Highway 61 Revisited and Blonde on
Blonde
In July 1965, Dylan released the single "Like
a Rolling Stone", which peaked at #2 in the
U.S. and at #4 in the UK charts. At over six
minutes in length, the song has been widely
credited with altering attitudes about what a
pop single could convey. Bruce Springsteen,
in his speech during Dylan’s inauguration in-
to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame said that
on first hearing the single, "that snare shot
sounded like somebody’d kicked open the
door to your mind".[74] In 2004, Rolling Stone
Magazine listed it at #1 on its list of "The RS
500 Greatest Songs of All Time".[73] The song
also opened Dylan’s next album, Highway 61
Revisited, titled after the road that led from
Dylan’s Minnesota to the musical hotbed of
New Orleans.[75] The songs were in the same
vein as the hit single, flavored by Mike
Bloomfield’s blues guitar and Al Kooper’s or-
gan riffs. "Desolation Row" offers the sole ex-
ception, with Dylan attempting to convey sur-
real references of a variety of figures in
Western culture over the course of the song’s
eleven and a half minutes. Andy Gill wrote,
"’Desolation Row’ is an 11-minute epic of en-
tropy which takes the form of a Fellini-esque
parade of grotesques and oddities featuring a
huge cast of iconic characters, some historic-
al (Einstein, Nero), some biblical (Noah, Cain
and Abel), some fictional (Ophelia, Romeo,
Cinderella), some literary (T.S. Eliot and Ezra
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Bob Dylan
5
Pound), and some who fit into none of the
above categories, notably Dr. Filth and his
dubious nurse" [76]
In support of the record, Dylan was
booked for two U.S. concerts and set about
assembling a band. Mike Bloomfield was un-
willing to leave the Butterfield Band, so
Dylan mixed Al Kooper and Harvey Brooks
from his studio crew with bar-band stalwarts
Robbie Robertson and Levon Helm, best
known at the time for being part of Ronnie
Hawkins’s backing band The Hawks.[77] On
August 28 at Forest Hills Tennis Stadium, the
group was heckled by an audience still an-
noyed by Dylan’s electric sound. The band’s
reception on September 3 at the Hollywood
Bowl was more favorable.[78]
While Dylan and the Hawks met increas-
ingly receptive audiences on tour, their stu-
dio efforts floundered. Producer Bob John-
ston persuaded Dylan to record in Nashville
in February 1966, and surrounded him with a
cadre of top-notch session men. At Dylan’s in-
sistence, Robertson and Kooper came down
from New York City to play on the ses-
sions.[79] The Nashville sessions produced
the double-album Blonde on Blonde (1966),
featuring what Dylan later called "that thin
wild mercury sound".[80] Al Kooper described
the album as "taking two cultures and smash-
ing them together with a huge explosion": the
musical world of Nashville and the world of
the "quintessential New York hipster" Bob
Dylan.[81]
On November 22, 1965, Dylan secretly
married 25-year-old
former model Sara
Lownds.[19][82] Some of Dylan’s friends (in-
cluding Ramblin’ Jack Elliott) claim that, in
conversation immediately after the event,
Dylan denied that he was married.[82] Journ-
alist Nora Ephron first made the news public
in the New York Post in February 1966 with
the headline “Hush! Bob Dylan is wed.”[83]
Dylan undertook a world tour of Australia
and Europe in the spring of 1966. Each show
was split into two parts. Dylan performed
solo during the first half, accompanying him-
self on acoustic guitar and harmonica. In the
second half, backed by the Hawks, he played
high voltage electric music. This contrast
provoked many fans, who jeered and slow
handclapped.[84] The tour culminated in a
famously
raucous confrontation between
Dylan and his audience at the Manchester
Free Trade Hall in England.[85] At the climax
of the concert, one fan, angry with Dylan’s
electric sound, shouted: "Judas!" to which
Dylan responded, "I don’t believe you ...
You’re a liar!" He then turned to the band
and, just within earshot of the microphone,
said "Play it fucking loud!"[86] They then
launched into the last song of the night with
gusto—"Like a Rolling Stone".
Motorcycle accident and
reclusion
Dylan playing in Canada
After his European tour, Dylan returned to
New York, but the pressures on him contin-
ued to increase. ABC Television had paid an
advance for a TV show they could screen.[87]
His publisher, Macmillan, was demanding a
finished manuscript
of
the poem/novel
Tarantula. Manager Albert Grossman had
already scheduled an extensive concert tour
for that summer and fall.
On July 29, 1966, Dylan crashed his Tri-
umph 500 motorcycle on a road near his
home in Woodstock, New York, throwing him
to the ground. According to interviews con-
ducted years later, Dylan had "been up for
three days" preceding the accident.[88] The
incident also happened "really early in the
morning,"[88] and Dylan has claimed he was
blinded by the sun while approaching the top
of a hill: "I went blind for a second and I kind
of panicked or something. I stomped down on
the brake and the rear wheel locked up on
me and I went flyin’."[88] He later told a
friend: "I saw my whole life pass in front of
me."[88] Sara Dylan was following him in a
car at the time, and she retrieved him after
his spill.[88]
Though the extent of his injuries were nev-
er fully disclosed, Dylan said that he broke
several vertebrae in his neck.[89] D.A. Pen-
nebaker remembers the musician wearing a
neckbrace in early August 1966.[90] Mystery
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Bob Dylan
6
still surrounds the circumstances of the acci-
dent[91] since no ambulance was called to the
scene and Dylan was not hospitalized.[89]
Commenting on the significance of the crash,
Dylan expressed some bitterness at the way
he had been treated: "When I had that motor-
cycle accident ... I woke up and caught my
senses, I realized that I was just workin’ for
all these leeches. And I didn’t want to do
that. Plus, I had a family and I just wanted to
see my kids."[92] Many biographers believe
that the crash offered Dylan the much-
needed chance to escape from the pressures
that had built up around him.[89][90] In the
wake of his accident, Dylan withdrew from
the public and, apart from a few select ap-
pearances, did not tour again for eight
years.[91]
Once Dylan was well enough to resume
creative work, he began editing film footage
of his 1966 tour for Eat the Document, a
rarely exhibited follow-up to Dont Look Back.
A rough-cut was shown to ABC Television
and was promptly rejected as incomprehens-
ible to a mainstream audience.[93] In 1967 he
began recording music with the Hawks at his
home and in the basement of the Hawks’
nearby house, called "Big Pink".[94] These
songs, initially compiled as demos for other
artists to record, provided hit singles for Julie
Driscoll ("This Wheel’s on Fire"), The Byrds
("You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere", "Nothing Was
Delivered"), and Manfred Mann (Quinn the
Eskimo ("The Mighty Quinn"). Columbia be-
latedly released selections from them in 1975
as The Basement Tapes. Over the years,
more and more of the songs recorded by
Dylan and his band in 1967 appeared on vari-
ous bootleg recordings, culminating in a five-
CD bootleg set titled The Genuine Basement
Tapes, containing 107 songs and alternate
takes.[95] In the coming months, the Hawks
recorded the album Music from Big Pink us-
ing songs they first worked on in their base-
ment in Woodstock, and renamed themselves
The Band,[96] thus beginning a long and suc-
cessful recording and performing career of
their own.
In October and November 1967, Dylan re-
turned to Nashville.[97] Back in the recording
studio after a 19-month break, he was accom-
panied only by Charlie McCoy on bass,[98]
Kenny Buttrey on drums,[99] and Pete Drake
on steel guitar.[100] The result was John Wes-
ley Harding, a quiet, contemplative record of
shorter songs, set in a landscape that drew
on both the American West and the Bible.
The sparse structure and instrumentation,
coupled with lyrics that took the Judeo-Chris-
tian tradition seriously, marked a departure
not only from Dylan’s own work but from the
escalating psychedelic fervor of the 1960s
musical culture.[101] It included "All Along
the Watchtower", with lyrics derived from the
Book of Isaiah (21:5–9). The song was later
recorded by Jimi Hendrix, whose version
Dylan himself would later acknowledge as
definitive.[24]
Woody Guthrie died on October 3, 1967,
and Dylan made his first live appearance in
twenty months at a Guthrie memorial concert
held at Carnegie Hall on January 20,
1968.[102]
Dylan’s next
release, Nashville Skyline
(1969), was virtually a mainstream country
record featuring instrumental backing by
Nashville musicians, a mellow-voiced Dylan,
a duet with Johnny Cash, and the hit single
"Lay Lady Lay", which had been originally
written for the Midnight Cowboy soundtrack,
but was not submitted in time to make the fi-
nal cut.[104] In May 1969, Dylan appeared on
the first episode of Johnny Cash’s new televi-
sion show, duetting with Cash on "Girl from
the North Country", "It Ain’t Me Babe" and
"Living the Blues". Dylan next travelled to
England to top the bill at the Isle of Wight
rock festival on August 31, 1969, after reject-
ing overtures to appear at the Woodstock
Festival far closer to his home.[105]
1970s: Shelter From The Storm
In the early 1970s critics charged Dylan’s
output was of varied and unpredictable qual-
ity. Rolling Stone magazine writer and Dylan
loyalist Greil Marcus notoriously asked "What
is this shit?" upon first listening to 1970’s
Self Portrait.[106][107] In general, Self Por-
trait, a double LP including few original
songs, was poorly received.[19] Later that
year, Dylan released New Morning, which
some considered a return to form.[108] In
November 1968, Dylan had co-written "I’d
Have You Anytime" with George Harris-
on;[109] Harrison recorded both "I’d Have
You Anytime" and Dylan’s "If Not For You"
for his 1970 solo triple album All Things Must
Pass. Dylan’s surprise appearance at Harris-
on’s 1971 Concert for Bangladesh attracted
much media coverage, reflecting that Dylan’s
live appearances had become rare.[110]
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Bob Dylan
7
Between March 16 and 19, 1971, Dylan
reserved three days at Blue Rock Studios, a
small studio in New York’s Greenwich Vil-
lage. These sessions resulted in one single,
"Watching The River Flow", and a new re-
cording of "When I Paint My Masterpiece".
[54] On November 4, 1971 Dylan recorded
"George Jackson" which he released a week
later.[54] For many, the single was a surpris-
ing return to protest material, mourning the
killing of Black Panther George Jackson in
San Quentin Prison that summer.[111]
In 1972 Dylan signed onto Sam Peckin-
pah’s film Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid,
providing songs and backing music for the
movie, and playing the role of "Alias", a mem-
ber of Billy’s gang who had some basis in his-
tory.[112] Despite the film’s failure at the box
office, the song "Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door"
has proven its durability as one of Dylan’s
most extensively covered songs. [113][114]
Return to touring
Bob Dylan and The Band touring in Chicago
in 1974.
Dylan began 1973 by signing with a new
record label, David Geffen’s Asylum Records,
when his contract with Columbia Records ex-
pired. On his next album, Planet Waves, he
used The Band as backing group, while re-
hearsing for a major tour. The album in-
cluded two versions of "Forever Young",
which became one of his most popular
songs.[115] Christopher Ricks has connected
the chorus of this song with John Keats’s
"Ode on a Grecian Urn", which contains the
line
"For ever panting,
and
for ever
young."[116] As one critic described it, the
song projected "something hymnal and heart-
felt that spoke of the father in Dylan",[117]
and Dylan himself commented: "I wrote it
thinking about one of my boys and not want-
ing to be too sentimental."[118] Biographer
Howard Sounes noted that Jakob Dylan be-
lieved the song was about him.[115]
Columbia Records
simultaneously
re-
leased Dylan, a haphazard collection of stu-
dio outtakes (almost exclusively cover songs),
which was widely interpreted as a churlish
response to Dylan’s signing with a rival re-
cord label.[119] In January 1974 Dylan and
The Band embarked on their high-profile,
coast-to-coast North American tour. A live
double album of the tour, Before the Flood,
was released on Asylum Records.
After the tour, Dylan and his wife became
publicly estranged. He filled a small red note-
book with songs about relationships and rup-
tures, and quickly recorded a new album en-
titled Blood on the Tracks
in September
1974.[120] Dylan delayed the album’s release,
however, and re-recorded half of the songs at
Sound 80 Studios in Minneapolis with pro-
duction assistance from his brother David
Zimmerman.[121] During this time, Dylan re-
turned to Columbia Records which eventually
reissued his Asylum albums.
Released in early 1975, Blood on the
Tracks received mixed reviews. In the NME,
Nick Kent described "the accompaniments
[as] often so trashy they sound like mere
practise takes."[122] In Rolling Stone, review-
er Jon Landau wrote that "the record has
been made with typical shoddiness."[123]
However, over the years critics have come to
see it as one of Dylan’s greatest achieve-
ments, perhaps the only serious rival to his
mid-60s trilogy of albums. In Salon.com, Bill
Wyman wrote: "Blood on the Tracks is his
only flawless album and his best produced;
the songs, each of them, are constructed in
disciplined fashion. It is his kindest album
and most dismayed, and seems in hindsight
to have achieved a sublime balance between
the
logorrhea-plagued excesses
of
his
mid-’60s output and the self-consciously
simple compositions of his post-accident
years."[124] Novelist Rick Moody called it
"the truest, most honest account of a love af-
fair from tip to stern ever put down on mag-
netic tape."[125]
That summer Dylan wrote his first suc-
cessful "protest" song in twelve years, cham-
pioning the cause of boxer Rubin "Hurricane"
Carter, who had been imprisoned for a triple
murder in Paterson, New Jersey. After visit-
ing Carter in jail, Dylan wrote "Hurricane",
presenting the case for Carter’s innocence.
Despite its 8:32 minute length, the song was
released as a single, peaking at #33 on the
U.S. Billboard Chart, and performed at every
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Bob Dylan
8
Bob Dylan photographed by Elsa Dorfman
with Allen Ginsberg, on the Rolling Thunder
Revue in 1975.
1975 date of Dylan’s next tour, the Rolling
Thunder Revue.[126] The tour was a varied
evening of entertainment featuring about one
hundred performers and supporters[127]
drawn from the resurgent Greenwich Village
folk scene, including T-Bone Burnett, Ram-
blin’ Jack Elliott, Joni Mitchell.[128] David
Mansfield, Roger McGuinn, Mick Ronson,
Joan Baez, and violinist Scarlet Rivera, whom
Dylan discovered while she was walking
down the street, her violin case hanging on
her back.[129] Allen Ginsberg accompanied
the troupe, staging scenes for the film Dylan
was simultaneously shooting. Sam Shepard
was initially hired to write the film’s screen-
play, but ended up accompanying the tour as
informal chronicler.[130]
Running through late 1975 and again
through early 1976, the tour encompassed
the release of the album Desire, with many of
Dylan’s new songs featuring an almost
travelogue-like narrative style, showing the
influence of his new collaborator, playwright
Jacques Levy.[131][132] The spring 1976 half
of the tour was documented by a TV concert
special, Hard Rain, and the LP Hard Rain; no
concert album from the better-received and
better-known opening half of the tour was re-
leased until 2002’s Live 1975.[133]
The fall 1975 tour with the Revue also
provided the backdrop to Dylan’s nearly four-
hour film Renaldo and Clara, a sprawling and
improvised narrative, mixed with concert
footage and reminiscences. Released in 1978,
the movie received generally poor, some-
times scathing, reviews and had a very brief
theatrical run.[134][135] Later in that year,
Dylan allowed a two-hour edit, dominated by
the concert performances, to be more widely
released.[136]
In November 1976 Dylan appeared at The
Band’s "farewell" concert, along with other
guests
including
Joni Mitchell, Muddy
Waters, Van Morrison and Neil Young.
Martin
Scorsese’s
acclaimed
cinematic
chronicle of this show, The Last Waltz, was
released in 1978 and included about half of
Dylan’s set.[137] In 1976, Dylan also wrote
and duetted on the song "Sign Language" for
Eric Clapton’s No Reason To Cry[138].
Dylan’s 1978 album Street-Legal, recor-
ded with a large, pop-rock band, complete
with female backing vocalists, was lyrically
one of his more complex and cohesive.[139] It
suffered, however, from a poor sound mix (at-
tributed
to his
studio
recording prac-
tices),[140] submerging much of its instru-
mentation until its remastered CD release
nearly a quarter century later.
Born-again period
Further information: Slow Train Coming
In the late 1970s, Dylan became a born-again
Christian[141][142][143] and released two al-
bums of Christian gospel music. Slow Train
Coming (1979) featured the guitar accom-
paniment of Mark Knopfler (of Dire Straits)
and was produced by veteran R&B producer,
Jerry Wexler. Wexler recalled that when
Dylan had started to evangelize to him during
the recording, he replied: "Bob, you’re deal-
ing with a sixty-two-year old Jewish atheist.
Let’s just make an album."[144] The album
won Dylan a Grammy Award as "Best Male
Vocalist" for the song "Gotta Serve Some-
body". The second evangelical album, Saved
(1980), received mixed reviews, although
Kurt Loder in Rolling Stone declared the al-
bum was far superior, musically, to its prede-
cessor.[145] When touring from the fall of
1979 through the spring of 1980, Dylan
would not play any of his older, secular
works, and he delivered declarations of his
faith from the stage, such as:
Years ago they ... said I was a proph-
et. I used to say, "No I’m not a
prophet" they say "Yes you are,
you’re a prophet." I said, "No it’s not
me." They used to say "You sure are
a prophet." They used to convince
me I was a prophet. Now I come out
and say Jesus Christ is the answer.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Bob Dylan
9
They say, "Bob Dylan’s no prophet."
They just can’t handle it.[146]
Dylan’s embrace of Christianity was unpopu-
lar with some of his fans and fellow musi-
cians.[147] Shortly before his murder, John
Lennon recorded "Serve Yourself"
in re-
sponse
to Dylan’s
"Gotta Serve Some-
body".[148] By 1981, while Dylan’s Christian
faith was obvious, Stephen Holden wrote in
the New York Times that "neither age (he’s
now 40) nor his much-publicized conversion
to born-again Christianity has altered his es-
sentially iconoclastic temperament."[149]
1980s: Trust Yourself
Dylan in Barcelona, Spain, 1984
Photo: F. Antolín Hernandez
In the fall of 1980 Dylan briefly resumed
touring for a series of concerts billed as "A
Musical Retrospective", where he restored
several of his popular 1960s songs to the rep-
ertoire. Shot of Love, recorded the next
spring, featured Dylan’s first secular compos-
itions in more than two years, mixed with ex-
plicitly Christian songs. The haunting "Every
Grain of Sand" reminded some critics of Willi-
am Blake’s verses.[150]
In the 1980s the quality of Dylan’s recor-
ded work varied, from the well-regarded Infi-
dels, with Mark Knopfler and Mick Taylor
supporting him in 1983 to the panned Down
in the Groove in 1988. Critics such as Mi-
chael Gray condemned Dylan’s 1980s albums
both for showing an extraordinary careless-
ness in the studio and for failing to release
his best songs.[151] The Infidels recording
sessions, for example, produced several not-
able songs that Dylan left off the album. Most
well regarded of these were "Blind Willie
McTell" (a tribute to the dead blues singer
and an evocation of African American his-
tory[152]), "Foot of Pride" and "Lord Protect
My Child".[153] These songs were later re-
leased on The Bootleg Series Volumes 1-3
(Rare & Unreleased) 1961-1991.
Between July 1984 and March 1985, Dylan
recorded his next studio album, Empire Bur-
lesque.[154] Arthur Baker, who had remixed
hits for Bruce Springsteen and Cyndi Lauper,
was asked to engineer and mix the album.
Baker has said he felt he was hired to make
Dylan’s album sound "a little bit more con-
temporary".[154]
Dylan sang on USA for Africa’s famine re-
lief fundraising single "We Are the World".
On July 13, 1985, he appeared at the climax
at the Live Aid concert at JFK Stadium, Phil-
adelphia. Backed by Keith Richards and Ron-
nie Wood, Dylan performed a ragged version
of "Hollis Brown", his ballad of rural poverty,
and then said to the worldwide audience ex-
ceeding one billion people: "I hope that some
of the money ... maybe they can just take a
little bit of it, maybe ... one or two million,
maybe ... and use it to pay the mortgages on
some of the farms and, the farmers here, owe
to the banks."[155] His remarks were widely
criticized as inappropriate, but they did in-
spire Willie Nelson to organize a series of
events, Farm Aid, to benefit debt-ridden
American farmers.[156]
In April 1986, Dylan made a foray into the
world of rap music when he added vocals to a
verse of Kurtis Blow’s "Street Rock", which
appeared
on
Blow’s
album Kingdom
Blow.[157]
In
July 1986 Dylan released
Knocked Out Loaded, an album containing
three cover songs (by Little Junior Parker,
Kris Kristofferson and the traditional gospel
hymn "Precious Memories"), three collabora-
tions with other writers (Tom Petty, Sam
Shepard and Carole Bayer Sager), and two
solo compositions by Dylan. The album re-
ceived mainly negative reviews; Rolling
Stone called it "a depressing affair",[158] and
it was the first Dylan album since Freewheel-
in’ (1963) to fail to make the Top 50.[159]
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Bob Dylan
10
Since then, some critics have called the
eleven-minute epic that Dylan co-wrote with
Sam Shepard, ’Brownsville Girl’, a work of
genius.[160] In 1986 and 1987, Dylan toured
extensively with Tom Petty and The Heart-
breakers, sharing vocals with Petty on sever-
al songs each night. Dylan also toured with
The Grateful Dead in 1987, resulting in a live
album Dylan & The Dead. This album re-
ceived some very negative reviews: Allmusic
said, "Quite possibly the worst album by
either Bob Dylan or the Grateful Dead."[161]
After performing with these musical per-
mutations, Dylan initiated what came to be
called The Never Ending Tour on June 7,
1988, performing with a tight back-up band
featuring guitarist G. E. Smith. Dylan would
continue to tour with this small but con-
stantly evolving band for
the next 20
years.[54]
Dylan in Toronto April 18, 1980
Photo: Jean-Luc Ourlin
In 1987, Dylan starred in Richard Mar-
quand’s movie Hearts of Fire, in which he
played Billy Parker, a washed-up-rock-star-
turned-chicken farmer whose teenage lover
(Fiona) leaves him for a jaded English synth-
pop sensation (played by Rupert Ever-
ett).[162] Dylan also contributed two original
songs
to
the
soundtrack—"Night After
Night", and "I Had a Dream About You,
Baby", as well as a cover of John Hiatt’s "The
Usual". The film was a critical and commer-
cial flop.[163] Dylan was inducted into the
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in January 1988.
Bruce Springsteen’s induction speech de-
clared: "Bob freed your mind the way Elvis
freed your body. He showed us that just be-
cause music was innately physical did not
mean that it was anti-intellectual."[164] Dylan
then released the album Down in the Groove,
which was even more unsuccessful in its
sales than his previous studio album.[165] The
song "Silvio", however, had some success as
a single.[166] Later that spring, Dylan was a
co-founder and member of the Traveling Wil-
burys with George Harrison, Jeff Lynne, Roy
Orbison, and Tom Petty returning to the al-
bum charts with the multi-platinum selling
Traveling Wilburys Vol. 1.[165] Despite Or-
bison’s death in December 1988, the remain-
ing four recorded a second album in May
1990, which they released with the unexpec-
ted title Traveling Wilburys Vol. 3.[167]
Dylan finished the decade on a critical
high note with Oh Mercy produced by Daniel
Lanois. Rolling Stone magazine called the al-
bum
"both
challenging
and
satisfy-
ing".[168][169] The track "Most of the Time", a
lost love composition, was later prominently
featured in the film High Fidelity, while
"What Was It You Wanted?" has been inter-
preted both as a catechism and a wry com-
ment on the expectations of critics and
fans.[170] The religious imagery of "Ring
Them Bells" struck some critics as a re-af-
firmation of faith.[171]
1990s: Not Dark Yet
Dylan’s 1990s began with Under the Red Sky
(1990), an about-face from the serious Oh
Mercy. The album contained several appar-
ently simple songs, including "Under the Red
Sky" and "Wiggle Wiggle". The album was
dedicated to "Gabby Goo Goo"; this was later
explained as a nickname for the daughter of
Dylan and Carolyn Dennis, Desiree Gabrielle
Dennis-Dylan, who was four at that time.[172]
Sidemen on the album included George Har-
rison, Slash from Guns N’ Roses, David
Crosby, Bruce Hornsby, Stevie Ray Vaughan,
and Elton John. Despite the stellar line-up,
the record received bad reviews and sold
poorly. Dylan did not make another studio al-
bum of new songs for seven years.[173]
In 1991, Dylan was honored by the record-
ing
industry with a Grammy Lifetime
Achievement Award.[174] The event coincided
with the start of the Gulf War against Sad-
dam Hussein, and Dylan performed his song
"Masters of War".[175] Dylan then made a
short speech which startled some of the audi-
ence. [175]
The next few years saw Dylan returning to
his roots with two albums covering old folk
and blues numbers: Good as I Been to You
(1992) and World Gone Wrong (1993), featur-
ing interpretations and acoustic guitar work.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Bob Dylan
11
Many critics and fans commented on the
quiet beauty of the song "Lone Pilgrim",[176]
penned by a 19th century teacher and sung
by Dylan with a haunting reverence. An ex-
ception to this rootsy mood came in Dylan’s
1991 songwriting collaboration with Michael
Bolton; the resulting song "Steel Bars", was
released on Bolton’s album Time, Love &
Tenderness. In November 1994 Dylan recor-
ded two live shows for MTV Unplugged. He
claimed his wish to perform a set of tradition-
al songs for the show was overruled by Sony
executives who insisted on a greatest hits
package.[177] The album produced from it,
MTV Unplugged, included "John Brown", an
unreleased 1963 song detailing the ravages
of both war and jingoism.
Dylan performs at a 1996 concert in
Stockholm
With a collection of songs reportedly writ-
ten while snowed-in on his Minnesota
ranch,[178] Dylan booked recording time with
Daniel Lanois at Miami’s Criteria Studios in
January 1997. The subsequent recording ses-
sions were, by some accounts, fraught with
musical tension.[179] Late that spring, before
the album’s release, Dylan was hospitalized
with a life-threatening heart infection, peri-
carditis, brought on by histoplasmosis. His
scheduled European tour was cancelled, but
Dylan made a speedy recovery and left the
hospital saying, "I really thought I’d be see-
ing Elvis soon."[180] He was back on the road
by midsummer, and in early fall performed
before Pope John Paul II at the World Euchar-
istic Conference in Bologna, Italy. The Pope
treated the audience of 200,000 people to a
sermon based on Dylan’s lyric "Blowin’ in the
Wind".[181]
September saw the release of the new
Lanois-produced album, Time Out of Mind.
With its bitter assessment of love and morbid
ruminations, Dylan’s
first
collection of
original songs in seven years was highly ac-
claimed. Rolling Stone said "Mortality bears
down hard, while shots of gallows humor ring
out."[182] This collection of complex songs
won him his first solo "Album of the Year"
Grammy Award (he was one of numerous
performers on The Concert for Bangladesh,
the 1972 winner). The love song "Make You
Feel My Love" became a number one country
hit for Garth Brooks.[19]
In December 1997 U.S. President Bill Clin-
ton presented Dylan with a Kennedy Center
Honor in the East Room of the White House,
paying this tribute: "He probably had more
impact on people of my generation than any
other creative artist. His voice and lyrics
haven’t always been easy on the ear, but
throughout his career Bob Dylan has never
aimed to please. He’s disturbed the peace
and discomforted the powerful."[183]
2000s: Things Have Changed
In
2000, Dylan’s
song
"Things Have
Changed", penned for the film Wonder Boys,
won a Golden Globe and an Academy Award.
The Oscar (by some reports a facsimile) tours
with him, presiding over shows perched atop
an amplifier.[185]
"Love and Theft" was released on Septem-
ber 11, 2001. Recorded with his touring
band, Dylan produced the album himself un-
der the pseudonym Jack Frost.[186] The al-
bum was critically well-received and earned
nominations for several Grammy awards.[187]
Critics noted that Dylan was widening his
musical palette to include rockabilly, Western
swing, jazz, and even lounge ballads.[188]
In 2003 Dylan revisited the evangelical
songs from his "born again" period and parti-
cipated in the CD project Gotta Serve Some-
body: The Gospel Songs of Bob Dylan. That
year also saw the release of the film Masked
& Anonymous, a collaboration with TV produ-
cer Larry Charles that had Dylan appearing
in a cast of well-knowns,
including Jeff
Bridges, Penelope Cruz and John Goodman.
The film polarised critics: many dismissed it
as an “incoherent mess”[189][190]; a few
treated it as a serious work of art.[191][192]
In October 2004, Dylan published the first
part
of
his
autobiography, Chronicles:
Volume One. The book confounded expecta-
tions.[193] Dylan devoted three chapters to
his first year in New York City in 1961–1962,
virtually ignoring the mid-’60s when his fame
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Bob Dylan
12
was at its height. He also devoted chapters to
the albums New Morning (1970) and Oh
Mercy (1989). The book reached number two
on The New York Times’ Hardcover Non-Fic-
tion best seller list in December 2004 and
was
nominated
for
a National
Book
Award.[194]
Dylan performing in Bologna in November
2005.
Martin Scorsese’s acclaimed[195] film bio-
graphy No Direction Home was broadcast in
September 2005.[196] The documentary fo-
cuses on the period from Dylan’s arrival in
New York in 1961 to his motorcycle crash in
1966, featuring interviews with Suze Rotolo,
Liam Clancy, Joan Baez, Allen Ginsberg, Pete
Seeger, Mavis Staples, and Dylan himself.
The film received a Peabody Award in April
2006[197] and a Columbia-duPont Award in
January
2007.[198]
The
accompanying
soundtrack featured unreleased songs from
Dylan’s early career.
Modern Times (2006-2008)
Dylan, the Spectrum, 2007
May 3, 2006, was the premiere of Dylan’s
DJ career, hosting a weekly radio program,
Theme Time Radio Hour, for XM Satellite Ra-
dio, with song selections revolving around a
chosen theme.[199][200] Dylan played classic
and obscure records from the 1930s to the
present day, including contemporary artists
as diverse as Blur, Prince, L.L. Cool J and The
Streets. The show was praised by fans and
critics as "great radio," as Dylan told stories
and made eclectic references with his sar-
donic humor, while achieving a thematic
beauty with his musical choices.[201][202]
Music author Peter Guralnick commented:
"With this show, Dylan is tapping into his
deep love—and I would say his belief in—a
musical world without borders. I feel like the
commentary often reflects the same surreal-
istic appreciation for the human comedy that
suffuses his music."[203] In April 2009, Dylan
broadcast the 100th show in his radio series;
the theme was "Goodbye" and the final re-
cord played was Woody Guthrie’s "So Long,
It’s Been Good To Know Yuh". This has led to
speculation that Dylan’s radio series may
have ended.[204]
On August 29, 2006, Dylan released his
Modern Times album. In a Rolling Stone in-
terview, Dylan criticized the quality of mod-
ern sound recordings and claimed that his
new songs "probably sounded ten times bet-
ter in the studio when we recorded ’em."[205]
Despite some coarsening of Dylan’s voice (a
critic for The Guardian characterised his
singing on the album as "a catarrhal death
rattle"[206]) most reviewers praised the al-
bum, and many described it as the final in-
stallment of a successful trilogy, embracing
Time Out of Mind and "Love and Theft".[207]
Modern Times entered the U.S. charts at
number one, making it Dylan’s first album to
reach that position since 1976’s Desire.[208]
Nominated for three Grammy Awards,
Modern Times won Best Contemporary Folk/
Americana Album and Bob Dylan also won
Best Solo Rock Vocal Performance
for
"Someday Baby". Modern Times was named
Album of the Year, 2006, by Rolling Stone
magazine,[209] and by Uncut in the UK.[210]
On the same day that Modern Times was re-
leased the iTunes Music Store released Bob
Dylan: The Collection, a digital box set con-
taining all of his albums (773 tracks in total),
along with
42
rare
and
unreleased
tracks.[211]
August 2007 saw the unveiling of the
award-winning film I’m Not There,[212][213]
written and directed by Todd Haynes, bear-
ing the tagline "inspired by the music and
many lives of Bob Dylan".[214] The movie
uses six distinct characters to represent dif-
ferent aspects of Dylan’s life, played by
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Bob Dylan
13
Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett, Marcus Carl
Franklin, Richard Gere, Heath Ledger and
Ben Whishaw.[214][215] Dylan’s previously un-
released 1967 recording from which the film
takes its name[216] was released for the first
time on the film’s original soundtrack; all oth-
er tracks are covers of Dylan songs, specially
recorded for the movie by a diverse range of
artists,
including Eddie Vedder, Stephen
Malkmus, Jeff Tweedy, Willie Nelson, Cat
Power, Richie Havens, and Tom Verlaine.[217]
Bob Dylan performs at Air Canada Centre,
Toronto, November 7, 2006
On October 1, 2007, Columbia Records re-
leased the triple CD retrospective album
Dylan, anthologising his entire career under
the Dylan 07 logo.[218] As part of this cam-
paign, Mark Ronson produced a re-mix of
Dylan’s 1966 tune "Most Likely You Go Your
Way (And I’ll Go Mine)", which was released
as a maxi-single. This was the first time
Dylan had sanctioned a re-mix of one of his
classic recordings.[219]
The sophistication of the Dylan 07 market-
ing campaign was a reminder that Dylan’s
commercial profile had risen considerably
since the 1990s. This first became evidenced
in 2004, when Dylan appeared in a TV ad-
vertisement
for Victoria’s Secret
linger-
ie[220]. Three years later, in October 2007, he
participated in a multi-media campaign for
the 2008 Cadillac Escalade.[221][222] Then, in
2009, he gave the highest profile endorse-
ment of his career, appearing with rapper
Will.i.am in a Pepsi ad that debuted during
the telecast of Super Bowl XLIII.[223] The ad,
broadcast to a record audience of 98 million
viewers, opened with Dylan singing the first
verse of
"Forever Young"
followed by
Will.i.am doing a hip hop version of the
song’s third and final verse.[224][225]
Over a decade after Random House had
published Drawn Blank (1994), a book of
Dylan’s drawings, an exhibit of his art, The
Drawn Blank Series, opened in October 2007
at the Kunstsammlungen in Chemnitz, Ger-
many.[226] This first public exhibition of
Dylan’s paintings showcased more than 200
watercolors and gouaches made earlier in
2007 from the original drawings. The exhibi-
tion’s opening also premiered the release of
the book Bob Dylan: The Drawn Blank Series,
which includes 170 reproductions from the
series.[226] [227][228]
In an interview with The Times[229]
in
July, 2008, Dylan ended with what may have
been an endorsement of presidential candid-
ate Barack Obama:
Well, you know right now America is
in a state of upheaval. Poverty is de-
moralizing. You can’t expect people
to have the virtue of purity when
they are poor. But we’ve got this guy
out there now who is redefining the
nature of politics from the ground
up: Barack Obama. He’s redefining
what a politician is, so we’ll have to
see how things play out. Am I hope-
ful? Yes, I’m hopeful that things
might change. Some things are go-
ing to have to.[230]
In October 2008, Columbia released Volume
8 of Dylan’s Bootleg Series, Tell Tale Signs:
Rare And Unreleased 1989-2006 as both a
two-CD set and a three-CD version with a
150-page hardcover book. The set contains
live performances and outtakes from selected
studio albums from Oh Mercy to Modern
Times, as well as soundtrack contributions
and collaborations with David Bromberg and
Ralph Stanley.[231] The pricing of the al-
bum—the two-CD set went on sale for $18.99
and the three-CD version for $129.99—led to
complaints about "rip-off packaging" from
some fans and commentators.[232][233] The
release was widely acclaimed by critics.[234]
The plethora of alternative takes and unre-
leased material suggested to Uncut’s review-
er: "Tell Tale Signs is awash with evidence of
(Dylan’s) staggering mercuriality, his evident
determination even in the studio to repeat
himself as little as possible."[235]
During 2008, Dylan began curating a pro-
ject to set some of Hank Williams’ "lost" lyr-
ics to music, overseeing contributions from
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Bob Dylan
14
Jack White, Willie Nelson, Lucinda Williams,
and Norah Jones.[236][237] The idea for the
project, which was sanctioned by Hank Willi-
ams’ estate, originated after music publisher
Acuff Rose entrusted Dylan with some of the
so-called "Shoebox Songs", a collection of
notebooks and drafts that had been kept by
Williams’ widow.[236]
Together Through Life (2009-present)
Bob Dylan’s latest studio album, Together
Through Life, was released on April 28,
2009.[4][5]
In a conversation with music
journalist Bill Flanagan, published on Dylan’s
website, Dylan explained that the genesis of
the record was when French film director
Olivier Dahan asked him to supply a song for
his new road movie, My Own Love Song; ini-
tially only intending to record a single track,
"Life Is Hard," "the record sort of took its
own direction". Dylan also acknowledged the
contributions of backing musicians Mike
Campbell, the guitarist with Tom Petty and
the Heartbreakers, and David Hidalgo, the
accordionist with Los Lobos.[238] Nine of the
ten songs on the album are credited as co-
written by Bob Dylan and Robert Hunter.[239]
The album received largely favourable re-
views,[240] although several critics described
it as a minor addition to Dylan’s canon of
work. In Rolling Stone magazine, David
Fricke wrote: "The album may lack the
instant-classic aura of Love and Theft or
Modern Times, but it is rich in striking mo-
ments, set in a willful rawness."[241] Dylan
critic Andy Gill wrote in The Independent
that the record "features Dylan in fairly re-
laxed, spontaneous mood, content to grab
such grooves and sentiments as flit moment-
arily across his radar. So while it may not
contain too many landmark tracks, it’s one of
the most naturally enjoyable albums you’ll
hear all year."[242]
In its first week of release, the album
reached number one in the Billboard 200
chart in the U.S..[243] It also reached number
one on the UK album charts, 39 years after
Dylan’s previous UK album chart topper New
Morning. This meant that Dylan currently
holds the record for the longest gap between
solo number one albums in the UK chart. [7]
Never Ending Tour
The Never Ending Tour commenced on June
7, 1988,[244] and Dylan has played roughly
Bob Dylan (right on keyboards) at the
Roskilde Festival, 2006.
100 dates a year for the entirety of the 1990s
and the 2000s—a heavier schedule than most
performers who started out in the 1960s.[245]
By the end of 2008, Dylan and his band had
played more than 2100 shows,[246] anchored
by long-time bassist Tony Garnier and filled
out with talented sidemen. To the dismay of
some of his audience,[247] Dylan’s perform-
ances remain unpredictable as he alters his
arrangements and changes his vocal ap-
proach night after night.[248] Critical opinion
about Dylan’s shows remains divided. Critics
such as Richard Williams and Andy Gill have
argued that Dylan has found a successful way
to present his
rich
legacy of materi-
al.[249][250] Others have criticised his vocal
style as a “one-dimensional growl with which
he chews up, mangles and spits out the
greatest lyrics ever written so that they are
effectively unrecognisable”,[251] and his lack
of interest in bonding with his audience.[252]
Bob Dylan’s European tour of spring 2009
opened in Stockholm on March 22 and ended
in Dublin on May 6.[253] His summer tour of
the U.S. will begin in Milwaukee on July
1.[253]
Personal life
Family
Dylan married Sara Lownds on November 22,
1965; their first child, Jesse Byron Dylan, was
born on January 6, 1966. Bob and Sara Dylan
had four children: Jesse Byron, Anna Lea,
Samuel Isaac Abraham, and Jakob Luke (born
December 9, 1969). Dylan also adopted
Sara’s daughter from a prior marriage, Maria
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Bob Dylan
15
Lownds (later Dylan), (born October 21, 1961
now married to musician Peter Himmelman).
In the 1990s his son Jakob Dylan became well
known as the lead singer of the band The
Wallflowers. Jesse Dylan is a film director
and a successful businessman. Bob and Sara
Dylan were divorced on June 29, 1977.[254]
In June 1986, Dylan married his longtime
backup singer Carolyn Dennis (often profes-
sionally known as Carol Dennis).[255] Their
daughter, Desiree Gabrielle Dennis-Dylan,
was born on January 31, 1986. The couple di-
vorced in October 1992. Their marriage and
child remained a closely guarded secret until
the publication of Howard Sounes’ Dylan bio-
graphy, Down the Highway: The Life Of Bob
Dylan in 2001.[256]
Religious beliefs
Growing up in Hibbing, Dylan and his par-
ents were part of the area’s small but close-
knit Jewish community, and in May 1954
Dylan had his Bar Mitzvah.[257] However, for
a period during the late 1970s and early 80s,
Bob Dylan publicly converted to Christianity.
From January to April 1979, Dylan particip-
ated in Bible study classes at the Vineyard
School of Discipleship in Reseda, Southern
California. Pastor Kenn Gulliksen has re-
called: "Larry Myers and Paul Emond went
over to Bob’s house and ministered to him.
He responded by saying, ’Yes he did in fact
want Christ in his life.’ And he prayed that
day and received the Lord."[258][259]
Since his trilogy of Christian albums,
Dylan’s faith has become a subject of scru-
tiny.
In 1997 he told David Gates of
Newsweek:
Here’s the thing with me and the re-
ligious thing. This is the flat-out
truth: I find the religiosity and philo-
sophy in the music. I don’t find it
anywhere else. Songs like "Let Me
Rest on a Peaceful Mountain" or "I
Saw the Light"—that’s my religion. I
don’t adhere to rabbis, preachers,
evangelists, all of that. I’ve learned
more from the songs than I’ve
learned from any of this kind of en-
tity. The songs are my lexicon. I be-
lieve the songs.[9]
In an interview published in The New York
Times on September 28, 1997, journalist Jon
Pareles reported that "Dylan says he now
subscribes to no organized religion."[260]
Dylan has been described, in the last 20
years,
as a supporter of
the Chabad
Lubavitch movement[261] and has publicly
and privately participated in Jewish religious
events, including the bar mitzvahs of his
sons. Subsequently, Jewish news services
have reported that Dylan has "shown up" a
few times at various High Holiday services at
various Chabad synagogues.[262] For ex-
ample, he attended Congregation Beth Tefil-
lah, in Atlanta, Georgia on September 22,
2007 (Yom Kippur), where he was called to
the Torah for the sixth aliyah.[263]
Dylan has continued to perform songs
from his gospel albums in concert, occasion-
ally covering traditional religious songs. He
has also made passing references to his reli-
gious faith—such as in a 2004 interview with
60 Minutes, when he told Ed Bradley that
"the only person you have to think twice
about lying to is either yourself or to God."
He also explained his constant touring sched-
ule as part of a bargain he made a long time
ago with the "chief commander—in this earth
and in the world we can’t see."[27]
Legacy
Bob Dylan has been described as one of the
most influential figures of the 20th century,
musically and culturally. Dylan was included
in the Time 100: The Most Important People
of the Century where he was called "master
poet, caustic social critic and intrepid, guid-
ing spirit of
the counterculture genera-
tion".[264] In 2004, he was ranked number
two in Rolling Stone magazine’s
list of
"Greatest Artists of All Time".[265] Dylan bio-
grapher Howard Sounes placed him in even
more exalted company when he said, "There
are giant figures in art who are sublimely
good—Mozart, Picasso, Frank Lloyd Wright,
Shakespeare, Dickens. Dylan ranks alongside
these artists."[266]
Initially modelling his style on the songs of
Woody Guthrie,[267] and lessons learnt from
the blues of Robert Johnson,[268] Dylan added
increasingly sophisticated lyrical techniques
to the folk music of the early 60s, infusing it
"with the intellectualism of classic literature
and poetry".[269] Paul Simon suggested that
Dylan’s early compositions virtually took over
the folk genre: "[Dylan’s] early songs were
very rich ... with strong melodies. "Blowin’ in
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Bob Dylan
16
the Wind" has a really strong melody. He so
enlarged himself
through the folk back-
ground that he incorporated it for a while. He
defined the genre for a while."[270]
When Dylan made his move from acoustic
music to a rock backing, the mix became
more complex. For many critics, Dylan’s
greatest achievement was the cultural syn-
thesis exemplified by his mid-’60s trilogy of
albums—Bringing It All Back Home, Highway
61 Revisited and Blonde on Blonde. In Mike
Marqusee’s words: "Between late 1964 and
the summer of 1966, Dylan created a body of
work that remains unique. Drawing on folk,
blues, country, R&B, rock’n’roll, gospel, Brit-
ish beat, symbolist, modernist and Beat po-
etry, surrealism and Dada, advertising jargon
and social commentary, Fellini and Mad
magazine, he forged a coherent and original
artistic voice and vision. The beauty of these
albums retains the power to shock and con-
sole."[271]
One legacy of Dylan’s verbal sophistica-
tion was the increasing attention paid by lit-
erary critics to his lyrics. Professor Chris-
topher Ricks published a 500 page analysis of
Dylan’s work, placing him in the context of
Eliot, Keats and Tennyson,[272] and claiming
that Dylan was a poet worthy of the same
close and painstaking analysis.[273] Former
British poet laureate, Andrew Motion, argued
that Bob Dylan’s lyrics should be studied in
schools.[274] Dylan has been nominated sev-
eral times for the Nobel Prize in Literat-
ure.[275][276][277]
Dylan’s voice was, in some ways, as start-
ling as his lyrics. New York Times critic
Robert Shelton described Dylan’s early vocal
style as "a rusty voice suggesting Guthrie’s
old performances, etched in gravel like Dave
Van Ronk’s."[278] When the young Bobby
Womack told Sam Cooke he didn’t under-
stand Dylan’s vocal style, Cooke explained
that: “from now on, it’s not going to be about
how pretty the voice is. It’s going to be about
believing that
the voice
is
telling
the
truth.”[279] Rolling Stone magazine ranked
Dylan at number seven in their 2008 listing
of
“The 100 Greatest Singers of All
Time”.[280] Bono commented that “Dylan has
tried out so many personas in his singing be-
cause it is the way he inhabits his subject
matter.”[279]
Dylan’s influence has been felt in several
musical genres. As Edna Gundersen stated in
USA Today:
"Dylan’s musical DNA has
informed nearly every simple twist of pop
since 1962." [281]. Many musicians have testi-
fied to Dylan’s influence, such as Joe Strum-
mer, who praised Dylan as having "laid down
the template for lyric, tune, seriousness, spir-
ituality, depth of rock music."[282] Other mu-
sicians to have acknowledged Dylan’s import-
ance include John Lennon,[283] Paul McCart-
ney,[284] Neil Young,[285][286] Bruce Spring-
steen,[287]
David
Bowie,[288]
Bryan
Ferry,[289]
Syd
Barrett,[290]
Nick
Cave,[291][292]
Patti
Smith,[293]
Joni
Mitchell,[294] Cat Stevens[295] and Tom
Waits.[296]
There have been dissenters. Because
Dylan was widely credited with imbuing pop
culture with a new seriousness, the critic Nik
Cohn objected: "I can’t take the vision of
Dylan as seer, as teenage messiah, as
everything else he’s been worshipped as. The
way I see him, he’s a minor talent with a ma-
jor gift for self-hype."[297] Similarly, Australi-
an critic Jack Marx credited Dylan with chan-
ging the persona of the rock star: "What can-
not be disputed is that Dylan invented the
arrogant, faux-cerebral posturing that has
been the dominant style in rock since, with
everyone from Mick Jagger to Eminem edu-
cating themselves from the Dylan hand-
book."[298]
If Dylan’s legacy in the 1960s was seen as
bringing intellectual ambition to popular mu-
sic, as Dylan advances into his sixties, he is
today described as a figure who has greatly
expanded the folk culture from which he ini-
tially emerged. As J. Hoberman wrote in The
Village Voice, "Elvis might never have been
born, but someone else would surely have
brought the world rock ’n’ roll. No such logic
accounts for Bob Dylan. No iron law of his-
tory demanded that a would-be Elvis from
Hibbing, Minnesota, would swerve through
the Greenwich Village folk revival to become
the world’s first and greatest rock ’n’ roll
beatnik bard and then—having achieved fame
and adoration beyond reckoning—vanish into
a folk tradition of his own making." [299]
Discography
Awards
Further
information: List of Bob Dylan
awards
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Bob Dylan
17
Notes
[1]^ An interview with Bobby Vee suggests
the young Zimmerman may have been
eccentric in spelling his early
pseudonym: "[Dylan] was in the Fargo/
Moorhead area ... Bill [Velline] was in a
record shop in Fargo, Sam’s Record
Land, and this guy came up to him and
introduced himself as Elston Gunnn--with
three n’s, G-U-N-N-N." Bobby Vee
Interview, July 1999, Goldmine
Reproduced online:"Early alias for
Robert Zimmerman". Expecting Rain.
1999-08-11. http://expectingrain.com/
dok/who/g/gunnnelston.html. Retrieved
on 2008-09-11.
[2] Dylan sang “Blowin’ In The Wind” at the
Washington D.C. concert, January 20,
1986, which marked the inauguration of
Martin Luther King Day. Gray, 2006, The
Bob Dylan Encyclopedia, pp. 63–64.
[3] "Dylan ’reveals origin of anthem’". BBC
News. 2004-04-11. http://news.bbc.co.uk/
1/hi/entertainment/music/3618291.stm.
Retrieved on 2009-02-06.
[4]^ "Together Through Life". Amazon.
2009-03-14. http://www.amazon.com/
Together-Through-Life-Deluxe-Dylan/dp/
B001VNB57C/
ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1237033626&sr=1-2.
Retrieved on 2009-03-14.
[5]^ Fricke, David (2009-03-04). "Dylan
Records Surprise ’Modern Times’
Follow-up". Rolling Stone.
http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/
26445175/
dylan_records_surprise_modern_times_followup.
Retrieved on 2009-03-04.
[6] Caulfield, Keith (2009-05-06). "Bob Dylan
Bows Atop Billboard 200". Billboard.
http://www.billboard.com/bbcom/news/
bob-dylan-bows-atop-
billboard-200-1003969664.story.
Retrieved on 2009-05-07.
[7]^ "Dylan is in chart seventh heaven".
BBC News. 2009-05-03.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/
8031636.stm. Retrieved on 2009-05-03.
[8] Browne, David (2001-09-10). "Love and
Theft review". Entertainment Weekly.
http://www.ew.com/ew/article/
0,,173933~4~~lovetheft,00.html.
Retrieved on 2008-09-07.
[9]^ Gates, David (1997-10-06). "Dylan
Revisited". Newsweek.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/97107/
output/print. Retrieved on 2008-10-13.
[10] "Bob Dylan Way". duluthmn.com.
2006-10-17.
http://bobdylanway.duluthmn.com/
path.html. Retrieved on 2009-01-29.
[11] "Dylan Way Opens in Duluth".
Northlands News Centre. 2008-05-15.
http://www.northlandsnewscenter.com/
news/range11/18967444.html. Retrieved
on 2009-01-29.
[12] "The Pulitzer Prize Winners 2008:
Special Citation". Pulitzer. 2008-05-07.
http://www.pulitzer.org/citation/
2008,Special+Awards+and+Citations.
Retrieved on 2008-09-06.
[13]Sounes, Down The Highway: The Life Of
Bob Dylan, p. 14, gives his Hebrew name
as Shabtai Zisel ben Avraham
[14]A Chabad news service gives the variant
Zushe ben Avraham, which may be a
Yiddish variant "Singer/Songwriter Bob
Dylan Joins Yom Kippur Services in
Atlanta". Chabad.org News. 2007-09-24.
http://www.chabad.org/news/article_cdo/
aid/573406/jewish/SingerSongwriter-
Bob-Dylan-Joins-Yom-Kippur-Services-in-
Atlanta.htm. Retrieved on 2008-09-11.
[15]Sounes, Down The Highway: The Life Of
Bob Dylan, p. 14
[1]^ Sounes, Down The Highway: The Life
Of Bob Dylan, pp. 12–13.
[17]Dylan, Chronicles, Volume One, pp.
92–93.
[18]Shelton, No Direction Home, pp. 38–39.
[19]^ Updated from The Rolling Stone
Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll (Simon &
Schuster, 2001). "Bob Dylan: Biography".
Rolling Stone.
http://www.rollingstone.com/artists/
bobdylan/biography. Retrieved on
2008-09-23.
[20]Sounes, Down The Highway: The Life Of
Bob Dylan, pp. 29–37.
[21]Shelton, No Direction Home, pp. 39–43.
[22]Sounes, Down The Highway: The Life Of
Bob Dylan, pp. 41–42.
[23]Heylin, Bob Dylan: Behind the Shades
Revisited, pp. 26–27.
[24]^ Biograph, 1985, Liner notes & text by
Cameron Crowe.
[25]Shelton, No Direction Home, pp. 65–82.
[26]^ This is related in the documentary film
No Direction Home, Director: Martin
Scorsese. Broadcast: September 26,
2005, PBS & BBC Two
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Bob Dylan
18
[27]^ Leung, Rebecca (2005-06-12). " "Dylan
Looks Back". CBS News.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/
12/02/60minutes/
main658799.shtml%20". Retrieved on
2009-02-25.
[28]Dylan, Chronicles, Volume One, pp.
78–79.
[29]Dylan, Chronicles, Volume One, p. 98.
[30]Dylan, Chronicles, Volume One, pp.
250–252.
[31]Robert Shelton, New York Times,
1961-09-21, "Bob Dylan: A Distinctive
Stylist" reproduced online: Robert
Shelton (1961-09-21). "Bob Dylan: A
Distinctive Stylist". Bob Dylan Roots.
http://www.bobdylanroots.com/
shelton.html. Retrieved on 2008-09-11.
[32]Richie Unterberger (2003-10-08).
"Carolyn Hester Biography". All Music.
http://www.allmusic.com/cg/
amg.dll?p=amg&sql=11:jifpxqq5ld6e~T1.
Retrieved on 2008-09-11.
[33]^ Scaduto, Bob Dylan, p. 110.
[34]Shelton, No Direction Home, pp.
157–158.
[35]Gray, The Bob Dylan Encyclopedia, pp.
283–284.
[36]Heylin, Bob Dylan: Behind the Shades
Revisited, pp. 115–116.
[37]Web Guardian newspaper © Guardian
News and Media Limited 2009
[38]Shelton, No Direction Home, pp.
138–142.
[39]Shelton, No Direction Home, p. 156.
[40]The booklet by John Bauldie
accompanying Dylan’s The Bootleg
Series Volumes 1–3 (Rare & Unreleased)
1961–1991 (1991) says: "Dylan
acknowledged the debt in 1978 to
journalist Marc Rowland: Blowin’ In The
Wind’ has always been a spiritual. I took
it off a song called ’No More Auction
Block’—that’s a spiritual and ’Blowin’ In
The Wind follows the same feeling.’" pp.
6–8.
[41]Heylin, Bob Dylan: Behind the Shades
Revisited, pp. 101–103.
[42]Ricks, Dylan’s Visions of Sin, pp.
329–344.
[43]Gill, My Back Pages, 23
[44]Scaduto, Bob Dylan, p. 35.
[45]Mojo magazine, December 1993.
[46]Hedin (ed.), 2004, Studio A: The Bob
Dylan Reader, p. 259. Reproduced
online:Joyce Carol Oates (2001-05-24).
"Dylan at 60". University of San
Francisco. http://www.usfca.edu/
~southerr/ondylan.html. Retrieved on
2008-09-29.
[47] Joan Baez entry, Gray, The Bob Dylan
Encyclopedia, pp. 28–31.
[48]Meacham, Steve (2007-08-15). "It ain’t
me babe but I like how it sounds". The
Sydney Morning Herald.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/music/bob-
dylans-songs-offer-rich-pickings-for-
other-singers/2007/08/14/
1186857512999.html. Retrieved on
2008-09-24.
[49]Biograph, 1985, Liner notes & text by
Cameron Crowe. Musicians on "Mixed
Up Confusion": George Barnes & Bruce
Langhorne (guitars); Dick Wellstood
(piano); Gene Ramey (bass); Herb
Lovelle (drums)
[50]Dylan had recorded "Talkin’ John Birch
Society Blues" for his Freewheelin
album, but the song was replaced by
later compositions, including "Masters of
War". See Heylin, Bob Dylan: Behind the
Shades Revisited, pp. 114–115.
[51]Dylan performed "Only a Pawn in Their
Game" and "When the Ship Comes In";
see Heylin, Bob Dylan: A Life In Stolen
Moments, p. 49.
[52]Gill, My Back Pages, pp. 37–41.
[53]Ricks, Dylan’s Visions of Sin, pp.
221–233.
[54]^ "Bob Dylan Timeline". BBC.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/music/
bobdylan/timeline/timeline_html.shtml.
Retrieved on 2008-09-25.
[55]Shelton, No Direction Home, pp.
200–205.
[56]Part of Dylan’s speech went: "There’s no
black and white, left and right to me any
more; there’s only up and down and
down is very close to the ground. And
I’m trying to go up without thinking of
anything trivial such as politics."; see,
Shelton, No Direction Home, pp.
200–205.
[57]Shelton, No Direction Home, p. 222.
[58] In an interview with Seth Goddard for
Life magazine (July 5, 2001) Ginsberg
claimed that Dylan’s technique had been
inspired by Jack Kerouac: "(Dylan) pulled
Mexico City Blues from my hand and
started reading it and I said, ’What do
you know about that?’ He said,
’Somebody handed it to me in ’59 in St.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Bob Dylan
19
Paul and it blew my mind.’ So I said
’Why?’ He said, ’It was the first poetry
that spoke to me in my own language.’
So those chains of flashing images you
get in Dylan, like ’the motorcycle black
Madonna two-wheeled gypsy queen and
her silver studded phantom lover,’
they’re influenced by Kerouac’s chains of
flashing images and spontaneous
writing, and that spreads out into the
people." Reproduced online at: "Online
Interviews With Allen Ginsberg".
University of Illinois at Urbana
Champaign. 2004-10-08.
http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/
g_l/ginsberg/interviews.htm. Retrieved
on 2008-09-11.
[59]Shelton, No Direction Home, pp.
219–222.
[60]Shelton, No Direction Home, pp.
267–271; pp. 288–291.
[61]Heylin, Bob Dylan: Behind the Shades
Revisited, pp. 178–181.
[62]Heylin, Bob Dylan: Behind the Shades
Revisited, pp. 181–182.
[63]Gill, My Back Pages, pp. 68–69.
[64]Marqusee, Wicked Messenger, p. 144.
[65]^ Sounes, Down The Highway: The Life
Of Bob Dylan, pp. 168–169.
[66]Shelton, 2003, No Direction Home, pp.
276–277.
[67]Heylin, Bob Dylan: Behind the Shades
Revisited, pp. 208–216.
[68] "Exclusive: Dylan at Newport—Who
Booed?". Mojo. 2007-10-25.
http://www.mojo4music.com/blog/2007/
10/
exclusive_dylan_at_newport_who.html.
Retrieved on 2008-09-07.
[69]Shelton, No Direction Home, pp.
305–314.
[70]Sing Out!, September 1965, quoted in
Shelton, No Direction Home, p. 313.
[71] "You got a lotta nerve/To say you are my
friend/When I was down/You just stood
there grinning" Reproduced online:Bob
Dylan. "Positively 4th Street".
bobdylan.com. http://www.bobdylan.com/
#/songs/positively-4th-street. Retrieved
on 2008-09-30.
[72]Sounes, Down The Highway: The Life Of
Bob Dylan, p. 186.
[73]^ "The RS 500 Greatest Songs of All
Time". Rolling Stone. 2004-12-09.
http://www.rollingstone.com/news/
coverstory/500songs. Retrieved on
2008-09-07.
[74]Springsteen’s Speech during Dylan’s
induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of
Fame, January 20, 1988 Quoted in
Bauldie, Wanted Man, p. 191.
[75]Gill, 1999, My Back Pages, pp. 87–88.
[76]Gill, My Back Pages, p. 89.
[77]Palmer, Robert (1987-11-01).
"Recordings; Robbie Robertson Waltzes
Back Into Rock". The New York Times.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/
fullpage.html?res=9B0DE2DA103DF932A35752C1A9
Retrieved on 2008-09-27.
[78]Sounes, Down The Highway: The Life Of
Bob Dylan, pp. 189–90.
[79]Heylin, Bob Dylan: Behind the Shades
Revisited, pp. 238–243.
[80] "The closest I ever got to the sound I
hear in my mind was on individual bands
in the Blonde on Blonde album. It’s that
thin, that wild mercury sound. It’s
metallic and bright gold, with whatever
that conjures up." Dylan Interview,
Playboy, March 1978; see Cott, Dylan on
Dylan: The Essential Interviews, p. 204.
Reproduced online:Ron Rosenbaum
(1978-02.28). "Playboy interview with
Bob Dylan, March 1978".
interferenza.com.
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[83]Shelton, No Direction Home, p. 325.
[84]Heylin, Bob Dylan: Behind the Shades
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[85]Rolling Stone review of live album of
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[86]Dylan’s dialogue with the Manchester
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Martin Scorsese’s documentary No
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[87]Sounes, Down The Highway: The Life Of
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[88]^ Heylin, Bob Dylan: Behind the Shades
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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Bob Dylan
20
[89]^ Sounes, Down The Highway: The Life
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[90]^ Heylin, Bob Dylan: Behind the Shades
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[94]Sounes, Down The Highway: The Life Of
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[95]Marcus, The Old, Weird America, pp.
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[96]Helm, Levon and Davis, This Wheel’s on
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[102]Shelton, No Direction Home, pp.
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[103]Shelton, No Direction Home, p. 463.
[104]Gill, My Back Pages, p. 140.
[105]Sounes, Down The Highway: The Life Of
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[109]Heylin, 2009, Revolution In The Air, The
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[110]Heylin, Bob Dylan: Behind the Shades
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[111]Gray, The Bob Dylan Encyclopedia, ´pp.
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[112]C. P. Lee wrote: "In Garrett’s ghost-
written memoir, The Authentic Life of
Billy The Kid, published within a year of
Billy’s death, he wrote that ’Billy’s
partner doubtless had a name which was
his legal property, but he was so given to
changing it that it is impossible to fix on
the right one. Billy always called him
Alias.’" Lee, Like a Bullet of Light: The
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[116]Ricks, Dylan’s Visions of Sin, p. 453.
[117]Heylin, Bob Dylan: Behind the Shades
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[118]Dylan’s comment in booklet notes to
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[119]Heylin, Bob Dylan: Behind the Shades
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[120]Heylin, Bob Dylan: Behind the Shades
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[121]Heylin, Bob Dylan: Behind the Shades
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[122]Heylin, Bob Dylan: Behind the Shades
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[123]Landau, Jon (1975-03-13). "Blood On the
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[124]"Bob Dylan". Salon.com. May 5, 2001.
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[125]Hedin, Studio A: The Bob Dylan Reader,
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[126]"Log of every performance of
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[127]Kokay, Les via Olof Björner (2000).
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[129]Gray, The Bob Dylan Encyclopedia, p.
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[130]Shepard, Rolling Thunder Logbook, pp.
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[132]Gray, The Bob Dylan Encyclopedia, p.
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[136]Lee, Like a Bullet of Light: The Films of
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[137]"Reviews of The Last Waltz".
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[138]Bream, Jon (1991-05-22). "50 fascinating
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[140]Heylin, Bob Dylan: Behind the Shades
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[141]Sounes, Down The Highway: The Life Of
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[142]Heylin, Bob Dylan: Behind the Shades
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[143]Dylan Interview with Karen Hughes,
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[144]Heylin, Bob Dylan: Behind the Shades
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[145]Loder, Kurt (1980-09-18). "Bob Dylan’s
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[146]Bjorner (2001-06-08). "Omaha,
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[147]Sounes, Down The Highway: The Life Of
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[148]"First Exhibition of John Lennon’s Lyrics
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[149]Stephen, Holden (1981-10-29). "Rock:
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[150]Gray, The Bob Dylan Encyclopedia, pp.
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[151]Gray, Song & Dance Man III: The Art of
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[152]Gray, The Bob Dylan Encyclopedia, pp.
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[153]Sounes, Down The Highway: The Life Of
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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Bob Dylan
22
[154]̂ Sounes, 2001, Down The Highway:
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[155]Sounes, Down The Highway: The Life Of
Bob Dylan, p. 367.
[156]Sounes, Down The Highway: The Life Of
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[157]Gray, 2006, The Bob Dylan Encyclopedia,
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[158]DeCurtis, Anthony (1986-09-11).
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[159]Heylin, Bob Dylan: Behind the Shades
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[160]Gray, The Bob Dylan Encyclopedia, pp.
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[161]Stephen Thomas Erlewine (1989-07-27).
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[162]Sounes, Down The Highway: The Life Of
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[163]Heylin, Bob Dylan: Behind the Shades
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[164]Springsteen, Bruce (1988-01-20).
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[166]"Hot Mainstream Rock Tracks: "Silvio"".
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[167]Heylin, Bob Dylan: Behind the Shades
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[168]DeCurtis, Anthony (1989-09-21). "Bob
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[169]Dylan, Chronicles, Volume One, pp.
145–221.
[170]Ricks, Dylan’s Visions of Sin, pp. 413–20.
[171]Scott Marshall wrote: "When Dylan sings
that ’The sun is going down upon the
sacred cow’, it’s safe to assume that the
sacred cow here is the biblical metaphor
for all false gods. For Dylan, the world
will eventually know that there is only
one God." Marshall, Restless Pilgrim, p.
103.
[172]Gray, The Bob Dylan Encyclopedia, p.
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[173]Sounes, Down The Highway: The Life Of
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[174]"Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award".
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[175]̂ Heylin, Bob Dylan: Behind the Shades
Revisited, pp. 664-665. Heylin quotes the
speech: "My daddy once said to me, he
said, ’Son, it is possible for you to
become so defiled in this world that your
own mother and father will abandon you.
If that happens, God will believe in your
ability to mend your own ways.’ "
[176]Gray, The Bob Dylan Encyclopedia, p.
423.
[177]Sounes, Down The Highway: The Life Of
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[178]Heylin, Bob Dylan: Behind the Shades
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[179]Drozdowski, Ted (2008-01-02). "How
Dylan’s Time Out of Mind Survived
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[180]Sounes, Down The Highway: The Life Of
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[181]Sounes, Down The Highway: The Life Of
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[182]Greg Kot (2001-01-22). "Time Out of
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[183]"Remarks by the President at Kennedy
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[184]"Column, tower, and dome, and spire/
Shine like obelisks of fire/ Pointing with
inconstant motion/ From the altar of dark
ocean/ To the sapphire-tinted skies” from
Lines Written Among the Euganean Hills
by Percy Bysshe Shelley, October, 1818.
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[185]Cashmere, Paul (2007-08-20). "Dylan
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Bob Dylan
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[186]Gray, The Bob Dylan Encyclopedia, pp.
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[187]"Love and Theft". MetaCritic.com.
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[188]"Love and Theft". Entertainment Weekly.
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[189]A. O. Scott (2003-07-24). "Times They
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[190]Todd McCarthy (2003-02-02). "Masked
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[191]"Masked & Anonymous". The New
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[192]Motion, Andrew. "Masked and
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[193]Maslin, Janet (2004-10-05). "So You
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[194]Gray, The Bob Dylan Encyclopedia, pp.
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[195]"Reviews of No Direction Home".
Metacritic.com. 2005-10-31.
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[196]It was shown on September 26-27, 2005,
on BBC Two in the United Kingdom and
PBS in the United States."No Direction
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[197]"George Foster Peabody Award Winners"
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[198]"Past duPont Award Winners". The
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2007.
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[199]"XM Theme Time Radio Hour". XM
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[200]"Theme Time Radio playlists". Not Dark
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[201]Sawyer, Miranda (2006-12-31). "The
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[202]Watson, Tom (2007-02-16). "Dylan
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[203]Weeks, Linton (2007-11-11). "The Joys of
Dylan the DJ". The Telegraph (Nashua).
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[204]Hinckley, David (2009-04-19). "Bob
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time might be up". New York Daily
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[205]Jonathan Lethem (2006-08-21). "The
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[206]Petridis, Alex (2006-08-28). "Bob Dylan’s
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[207]"Modern Times". Metacritic.
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[208]"Dylan gets first US number one for 30
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http://www.nme.com/news/bob-dylan/
24234. Retrieved on 2008-09-11.
[209]"Modern Times, Album of the Year,
2006". Rolling Stone. 2006-12-16.
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[210]"Modern Times, Album of the Year,
2006". Uncut. 2006-12-16.
http://www.uncut.co.uk/music/uncut/
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[211]Gundersen, Edna (2006-12-01). "Get The
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[212]Hernandez, Eugene (2006-09-01).
"Haynes’ Dylan Stories Stir Telluride".
indieWire. http://www.indiewire.com/ots/
2007/09/telluride_07_ha.html. Retrieved
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[213]"Blanchett wins top Venice Award". BBC
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1/hi/entertainment/6985422.stm.
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[214]̂Todd McCarthy (2007-09-04). "I’m Not
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[215]A. O. Scott (2007-11-07). "I’m Not
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[216]Greil Marcus wrote: "There is nothing
like ’I’m Not There’ in the rest of the
basement recordings, or anywhere else
in Bob Dylan’s career. Very quickly the
listener is drawn into the sickly embrace
of the music, its wash of half-heard, half-
formed words and the increasing
bitterness and despair behind them.
Words are floated together in a dyslexia
that is music itself – a dyslexia that
seems to prove the claims of music over
words, to see just how little words can
achieve."; see Marcus, The Old, Weird
America, pp. 198–204.
[217]"Dylan covered by... very long list.".
Uncut. 2007-10-01.
http://www.uncut.co.uk/blog/
index.php?blog=6&title=bob_dylan_covered_by_vedd
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[218]"Dylan 07". Sony BMG Music
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[219]Walker, Tim (2007-10-27). "Mark
Ronson: Born Entertainer". The
Independent.
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entertainer-398023.html. Retrieved on
2008-09-07.
[220]"What’s Bob Dylan Doing In A Victoria’s
Secret Ad?". Slate. 2004-04-12.
http://www.slate.com/id/2098635/.
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[221]"Dylan, Cadillac". XM Radio. 2007-10-22.
http://www.xmradio.com/dylan-cadillac/
index.xmc. Retrieved on 2008-09-16.
[222]Dylan also devoted an hour of his Theme
Time Radio Hour to the theme of ’the
Cadillac’. He first sang about the car in
his 1963 nuclear war fantasy, "Talkin’
World War III Blues", when he described
it as a "good car to drive—after a war".
[223]Kreps, Daniel (January 30, 2009). "Bob
Dylan Teams Up With Will.i.am for Pepsi
Super Bowl Commercial". Rolling Stone.
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index.php/2009/01/30/bob-dylan-teams-
up-with-william-for-pepsi-super-bowl-
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[224]Kissel, Rick (February 3, 2009). "Super
Bowl ratings hit new high". Variety.
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[225]"Pepsi: Forever Young Super Bowl
Commercial 2009". YouTube. February 1,
2009. http://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=K_Fwryx85tM. Retrieved on
2009-02-02.
[226]̂Macintyre, James (2007-08-10).
"Dylan’s drawings to go on
display—alongside Picasso’s". The
Independent.
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-
entertainment/music/news/dylans-
drawings-to-go-on-display--alongside-
picassos-460955.html. Retrieved on
2008-09-16.
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Bob Dylan
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[227]"The Drawn Blank Series". Prestel
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[228]Pessl, Marsha (June 1, 2008). "When I
Paint My Masterpiece". The New York
Times Book Review.
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[229]Jackson, Alan (2008-06-06). "Bob Dylan:
He’s got everything he needs, he’s an
artist, he don’t look back". The Times.
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/
tol/arts_and_entertainment/visual_arts/
article4074327.ece. Retrieved on
2008-09-16.
[230]Chris Francescani of ABC News
commented: "If indeed intended as an
endorsement of America’s first black
major party presidential candidate, the
statements were extraordinary for
Dylan—from a cultural if not necessarily
political standpoint. Even at the height of
his fame in the 1960s, when mass
movements like the civil rights brigades
and the anti-war establishment literally
begged Dylan to lead them, the artist
recoiled from taking sides."Francescani,
Chris (2008-06-06). "Has Bob Dylan
Endorsed Obama?". abc News.
http://abcnews.go.com/
print?id=5014367. Retrieved on
2008-09-16.
[231]Gundersen, Edna (2008-07-29). "Dylan
Reveals Many Facets on ’Tell Tale
Signs’". USA Today.
http://www.usatoday.com/life/music/
news/2008-07-28-dylan-telltale-
signs_N.htm.
[232]Cairns, Dan (2008-10-05). "Tell Tale
Signs". The Sunday Times.
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/
tol/arts_and_entertainment/music/
cd_reviews/article4859960.ece.
Retrieved on 2008-10-06.
[233]Michael Gray expressed his opinion in
his Bob Dylan Encyclopedia blog "Tell
Tale Signs Pt. 3, Money Doesn’t Talk...".
Bob Dylan Encyclopedia blog.
2008-08-14.
http://bobdylanencyclopedia.blogspot.com/
2008/08/tell-tale-signs-pt-3-money-
doesnt-talk.html. Retrieved on
2008-09-06.
[234]"Reviews of Tell Tale Signs".
Metacritic.com.
http://www.metacritic.com/music/artists/
dylanbob/telltalesigns?q=Bob%20Dylan.
Retrieved on 2008-10-26.
[235]Jones, Allan (2008-09-30). "Album
Review: Bob Dylan — The Bootleg Series.
Vol. 8". Uncut. http://www.uncut.co.uk/
music/bob_dylan/reviews/12229.
Retrieved on 2008-10-26.
[236]̂Juarez, Vanessa (2007-04-17). "Bob
Dylan, Norah Jones put tunes to Hank
Williams’ lyrics". Entertainment Weekly.
http://hollywoodinsider.ew.com/2008/04/
dylan-jones-and.html. Retrieved on
2008-09-16.
[237]Michaels, Sean (2008-02-16). "Dylan gets
Jack White to bring Hank Williams to
life". The Guardian.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2008/
feb/26/folk.news. Retrieved on
2008-09-16.
[238]Flanagan, Bill (2009-03-16). "Bob Dylan
talks about the new album with Bill
Flanagan". bobdylan.com.
http://www.bobdylan.com/sites/
www.bobdylan.com/themes/zen/dylan/
pdf/conversation-6.pdf. Retrieved on
2009-03-16.
[239]"Bob Dylan Rep Confirms Robert Hunter
Co-Wrote “Together Through Life”
Lyrics". Rolling Stone. 2009-04-15.
http://www.rollingstone.com/rockdaily/
index.php/2009/04/15/bob-dylan-rep-
confirms-robert-hunter-co-wrote-
together-through-life-lyrics/. Retrieved
on 2009-04-16.
[240]"Together Through Life". Metacritic.
2009-04-29. http://www.metacritic.com/
music/artists/dylanbob/
togetherthroughlife. Retrieved on
2009-04-29.
[241]Fricke, David (2009-04-13). "Together
Through Life". Rolling Stone.
http://www.rollingstone.com/reviews/
album/27386686/review/27534262/
together_through_life. Retrieved on
2009-04-28.
[242]Gill, Andy (2009-04-24). "Bob Dylan’s
Together Through Life". Salon.com.
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-
entertainment/music/reviews/album-bob-
dylan-together-through-life-
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Bob Dylan
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