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Bob Dylan Biography
The most profoundly
influential singer-songwriter of the rock era, Bob Dylan (b. Robert Allen
Zimmerman, May 24, 1941, Duluth, Minnesota) has released over 45 albums
since his 1962 debut and remains today as vital an artist, and as imposing
a figure, as he was in his '60s heyday. The changes he wrought in all of
pop music have been the subject of countless essays, articles, books,
films and documentaries, as have the changes he himself has undergone,
musical or otherwise.
There are literally no major
artists in popular music who have not been affected by Dylan on one level
or another: He was a major catalyst in the careers of the Beatles and
Rolling Stones in the '60s; his song "All Along the Watchtower"
was the sole hit single by the Jimi Hendrix Experience; he was the figure
to whom distinguished singer-songwriters such as Bruce Springsteen, John
Prine, Loudon Wainwright III were compared upon their debuts; he was the
subject of a song by David Bowie and the central inspiration of "new
wave" up-and-comer Elvis Costello in the '70s; his "Mr.
Tambourine Man" sparked the Byrds' success and thus spawned R.E.M.
and the entire genre of folk-rock; and his many songs have been covered by
literally hundreds of artists of nearly every musical genre.
Dylan's memorable 30th
Anniversary Concert, held at Madison Square Garden October 16, 1992, gave
just an inkling of the number of superstar artists who consider themselves
indebted to the singer-songwriter; among those performing were Neil Young,
George Harrison, Eric Clapton, Lou Reed, Johnny & June Carter Cash,
Roger McGuinn, Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, Willie Nelson, Stevie
Wonder, John Mellencamp, the Band, the O'Jays, Chrissie Hynde, Sinead
O'Connor, Kris Kristofferson, and even Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam.
Dylan
has said that he listened most to rock 'n' roll artists such as Little
Richard, Carl Perkins, and Jerry Lee Lewis before hearing Leadbelly and
turning toward folk music, then burgeoning in the late '50s. He read and
was moved by Woody Guthrie's Bound For Glory, and began performing in
coffeehouses near the University of Minnesota, where he enrolled briefly
in 1959. By 1961, he had moved to New York, where he visited the
hospitalized Guthrie in New Jersey and began performing in Greenwich
Village folk clubs such as Gerde's Folk City. Finding early session work
as a harmonica player, Dylan met legendary Columbia Records producer and
talent scout John Hammond at a Carolyn Hester recording session; Hammond
invited Dylan to make a demo tape. A rave review by New York Times critic
Robert Shelton of a Dylan Gerde's appearance further drew attention to the
singer, and by October, Hammond had signed Dylan to Columbia.
Dylan's earliest records were very much folk music in the tradition of
Guthrie and Pete Seeger. Though his 1962 Bob Dylan bore only two original
tunes ("Talkin' New York" and "Song To Woody," both
talking blues), by the next year's The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, the singer
had produced enough original material to base an entire career upon. Among
the best known songs were "Blowin' In The Wind" and "Don't
Think Twice, It's Alright" (both top 10 hits for Peter, Paul &
Mary in 1963), "Masters Of War," and the uniquely wordy "A
Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall." Written during the 1962 Cuban Missile
Crisis, the latter track was "a desperate kind of song," Dylan
said at the time. "Every line in it is actually the start of a whole
song. But when I wrote it, I thought I wouldn't have enough time alive to
write all those songs so I put all I could into this one."
Though Dylan would not "go electric" until 1965, his earlier
albums still found a wide audience: Freewheelin' had reached No. 22 on the
charts, and 1964's The Times They Are A-Changin' peaked at No. 20. And
while 1965's follow-up Another Side Of Bob Dylan only reached No. 43, the
songs it contained were among Dylan's best-known due to cover versions by
other artists: "My Back Pages" and "All I Really Want To
Do" were both top 40 hits by the Byrds, the latter also a top 15 hit
by Cher, and "It Ain't Me Babe" was a top 10 hit for the
Turtles.
If any year was Bob Dylan's, it was 1965: He added an electric backing
band on half of Bringing It All Back Home, was booed at the Newport Folk
Festival for the same offense, and in June released what would be the most
galvanizing single of his career--and perhaps all time--"Like A
Rolling Stone." An immediate hit that held the No. 2 slot for two
weeks (the Beatles' "Help" was No. 1), it would inspire a
generation and become as close to a theme song as the budding
counter-cultural "movement" of the '60s would ever have. The two
albums that followed, Highway 61 Revisited and Blonde On Blonde are
considered the singer's all-time classics, and indeed, Dylan's impact was
felt everywhere: In the songs of contemporaries the Beatles and Rolling
Stones, in the surge of former folk singers who were picking up electric
guitars, and in the entranced media, that typically saw Dylan as a
mysterious, charismatic figure who might provide a clue into the workings
of what seemed an increasingly disenfranchised youth culture.
In July,
1966, a serious motorcycle accident kept Dylan in seclusion for many
months, during which time he would eventually record material with a
backing group soon to be known as the Band. Though that material was
widely heard on many late-'60s bootlegs, its first legitimate release came
in 1975, when Columbia issued it as The Basement Tapes. Had it been issued
when it was recorded, it might've explained the jarring transition between
Blonde On Blonde and 1968's John Wesley Harding, a stripped-down, starkly
acoustic album of songs filled with noticeable religious imagery. While in
retrospect it seems a logical move--particularly in light of the
verbal-imagery overload of Blonde On Blonde's final track, "Sad Eyed
Lady Of The Lowlands," which might have signaled an approaching
stylistic blind alley--it surprised many fans at the time. In truth, it
was just another instance of one-time folkie Bob Dylan re-inventing
himself. By the time of his wholly countrified Nashville Skyline, which
featured the singer's voice sounding a near-octave lower than normal and
simplistic songs such as "Country Pie," some wayward fans were
suggesting Dylan's motorcycle accident was more serious than had been let
on.
Dylan had many more surprises up his sleeve, and for the first time in his
career was beginning to lose faithful critics. His 1970 double-LP Self
Portrait--on which rock's songwriting legend covered both Paul Simon and
Gordon Lightfoot--confused many and was widely panned; when he seemed to
return to form short months later with New Morning, initially giddy
critics were soon moping about a perceived "lack of depth" in
Dylan's new material. In the meantime, Dylan took on an acting role in Sam
Peckinpah's Pat Garrett & Billy The Kid and recorded its
soundtrack--which included "Knockin' On Heaven's Door," a song
that has since grown to become a classic in Dylan's canon.
Though Dylan's two ensuing ventures with the Band--1974's Planet Waves and
the live Before The Flood--won a fair amount of praise (and sales: Planet
Waves was the singer's first No. 1 album), it was his magnificent Blood On
The Tracks that stands as his crowning achievement of the '70s. Seemingly
a mixture of autobiography and romantic nostalgia, the album's
"Tangled Up In Blue," "Simple Twist Of Fate," and
"Lily, Rosemary And The Jack Of Hearts" were richly rewarding
tracks certainly the equal of much of his past work, and in many ways more
lyrically mature. The set was the second No. 1 album in Dylan's career,
and would only be bested commercially by its follow-up Desire, which was
No. 1 for five weeks and greatly pushed by the singer's much-publicized
Rolling Thunder Revue tour of 1975-76.
Increasingly, Dylan's recordings began to be marked by cycles of seeming
dead ends and critical rebirths. When the singer surprised many by
announcing he was a born-again Christian in 1979, it was accompanied by
the marvelously peculiar Slow Train Coming, which featured
religious-themed tracks such as "Gotta Serve Somebody,"
"Man Gave Names To All The Animals," and "When He
Returns"; the oddest facet of Dylan's conversion, as displayed in
Slow Train's songs, was his apparent belief in a merciless and vengeful
God. Follow-up albums Saved (1980) and Shot Of Love (1981) lacked the
superb songs of Slow Train, but by 1983's Infidels, Dylan was writing some
of his sharpest songs in ages. Their political orientation bothered some
critics who considered Dylan's religious conversion to have gone
hand-in-hand with a new political conservatism; indeed, with their
references to Israel and greedy labor union leaders, many songs such as
"Neighborhood Bully" and "Union Sundown" were
scathingly attacked by former staunch fans.
Since then, there have been many Bob Dylans on display for both critics
and fans to choose from:
*The Dylan of the Past--whose glorious works have been resurrected twice
now in much-lauded CD boxed-set format, Biograph (1985) and The Bootleg
Series, Vols. 1-3 [Box] (Rare And Unreleased) 1961-1991 (1991).
*The
Dylan of the Never Ending Tour--who has continued to document his non-stop
live performance activities with Real Live (1985) and Dylan & The Dead
(1989).
*The Dylan of Traveling Wilburys Fame--who recorded two hit albums between
1988-1990 with George Harrison, Roy Orbison, Jeff Lynne, and Tom Petty.
*The Dylan of Today--who continues to roll out new albums, with a
celebrity-studded cast of musicians and producers, such as Knocked Out
Loaded (with Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, 1986), Down In The Groove
(with Eric Clapton, Mark Knopfler, Ron Wood, and members of the Grateful
Dead, Clash, and Sex Pistols, 1988), Oh Mercy (produced by Daniel Lanois,
1989), and Under The Red Sky (with David Crosby, George Harrison, Bruce
Hornsby, Elton John, Jimmy & Stevie Ray Vaughan, and Slash of Guns N'
Roses, 1990).
*The Dylan as He'd Like to Be Remembered--in which the former fledgling
folksinger who started out with a guitar, harmonica, and other people's
songs, does it all over again with Good As I Been To You (1992) and World
Gone Wrong (1993).
Less than a year after his massive 30th Anniversary Concert gathered
together some of the finest musicians in the world to pay him tribute, Bob
Dylan was gearing up for the road yet again, this time touring with old
friend Carlos Santana. "It's all about a livelihood," he told an
Associated Press writer at the time. "It's all about going out and
playing. That's what every musician who has crossed my path strives
for."
Bob Dylan Links
Bob
Dylan Official Website |
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