DYLAN, Bob

(b. 24 May 1941 in Duluth, Minnesota), song-writer, musician, and folksinger whose poetic songs, eclectic style, and creation of folk-rock music made him one of the most influential forces in the popular music of the 1960s.

Dylan, born Robert Allen Zimmerman, was one of two sons of Abram Zimmerman, a manager for the Standard Oil Company, and Beatrice Stone, a homemaker. When Dylan was five the family moved to Hibbing, northwest of Duluth. Young Dylan loved music and taught himself to play the piano without learning how to read music. He also tried the trumpet and saxophone, finally settling on the acoustic guitar as his main instrument.

Listening to music on the radio, he grew particularly fond of Johnny Ray and Hank Williams, Sr., who, he thought, was the greatest American songwriter. He also loved the blues and learned to play them himself. His favorite movie star was James Dean, but he also loved Elvis Presley and Little Richard.

In Hibbing High School, from which he graduated in June 1959, Dylan formed several bands with friends. He had been performing in high school bands as Bobby Zimmerman, a name he felt was too Jewish for success, and felt he needed a stage name. He took the common Hibbing surname Dillon, changing the spelling due to his fondness for the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas. His name was changed legally to Bob Dylan on 9 August 1962.

In September 1959 Dylan enrolled at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, majoring in music, which he was fonder of than attending classes. He frequented the Ten O'Clock Scholar, a coffeehouse hangout in Dinky-town, the bohemian neighborhood in downtown Minneapolis. He was fascinated by folk music, imitating the folk songs of the popular Kingston Trio, Pete Seeger, and his idol, Woody Guthrie, whose memoir, Bound for Glory, Dylan loved so much that he copied Guthrie's use of a wire harmonica rack worn around the neck while playing the guitar.

During his first year of college Dylan smoked marijuana and became sexually promiscuous. When he was not playing his acoustic guitar he was reading the Beat literature of the day, such as Jack Kerouac's On the Road, Allen Ginsberg's Howl, and Lawrence Ferlinghetti's A Coney Island of the Mind.

Leaving college to pursue his ambition of becoming a singing movie star like Elvis, Dylan hitchhiked from Minneapolis to New York City, arriving in Greenwich Village on 24 January 1961. After a visit to his hero, Woody Guthrie, in East Orange, New Jersey, Dylan wrote "Song to Woody," his first important composition. He sang for room and board at coffeehouses in Manhattan's Greenwich Village and, helped by new friends, including Tom Paxton and the Clancy Brothers, he got a regular gig at Gerde's Folk City on West Fourth Street.

In June 1961 he was spotted performing by Roy Silver, a show business manager, who signed Dylan with Columbia Records, the biggest record label in the United States. His first album, Bob Dylan, released in March 1962, sold only 5,000 copies at first. A year later, Albert B. Grossman, a successful Chicago businessman who was looking for talent to develop, became Dylan's personal manager.

The struggling artist had a banner year in 1962. He wrote "Blowin' in the Wind," the foundation stone of his career; the song became the anthem of the civil rights movement, sung by Peter, Paul, and Mary, a new group also managed by Grossman. This was followed by some of Dylan's most famous songs, including "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right," "Tomorrow Is a Long Time," and "A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall," which, because of the Cuban Missile Crisis, caught on and made Dylan famous. A solo concert at New York City's Town Hall made him a star, as well as the high priest of protest singers for the new generation.

Dylan came along at just the right moment for these protesting idealists. His use of folk music created a connection with the common folk, the working class. Unlike his folk-singing predecessors, he was a true poet. His words dealt with the serious issues of the day. He was the resurrection of the troubadour singer who stuffed his possessions into a knapsack and traveled the road.

In May 1963 Dylan appeared at the Monterey Folk Festival in California with Joan Baez, a major folk star. This was the start of one of the most celebrated love affairs of the 1960s. Dylan's albums, including The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan (1963), The Times They Are a-Changin' (1964), and Another Side of Bob Dylan (1964), sold very well, and he played standing-room-only concerts. His fifth album, Bringing It All Back Home (1965), integrated the rock-and-roll sound of the Beatles with his own poetic lyrics, creating a new style of music, folk rock. In 1965 he recorded "Like a Rolling Stone," which rose to number two on the Billboard chart. However, when he traded in his acoustic guitar for an amplified electric guitar, often associated with rock-and-roll commercialism, Dylan lost many fans and was openly heckled and booed during concerts. This did not daunt the individualistic Dylan. He put together a rock-and-roll band, the Hawks, which later became The Band, led by Robbie Robertson. They toured the country playing rock music despite the boos. Other albums Dylan released in the 1960s include Highway 61 Revisited (1965), Blonde on Blonde (1966), Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits (1967), John Wesley Harding (1967), and Nashville Skyline (1969).

In spite of negative audience reactions, many singers recognized the timelessness of Dylan's words and recorded their own versions of his songs. Cher recorded "All I Really Want to Do" a month after the Byrds released their version. The Turtles had a version of "It Ain't Me, Babe," and Stevie Wonder did a rhythm-and-blues rendition of "Blowin' in the Wind." Imitators ground out what have been called Dylanesque singles, such as Barry McGuire's "Eve of Destruction" and Simon and Garfunkel's "Sounds of Silence."

In the mid-1960s Dylan was living in the Arts and Crafts Movement Colony of Byrdcliffe, a mile from Woodstock, New York, with Sara Lownds, whom he had met in Greenwich Village in 1964. Sara moved in with her daughter, whom Dylan later adopted. The couple married on 22 November 1965.

A few months after the birth of his first son, Dylan had a motorcycle accident on 29 July 1966 as he was leaving Grossman's house in upstate New York. After the accident, in which he broke his neck, Dylan became a recluse, leading a quiet, domestic life. He and Sara would have a daughter and two more sons. Because of the havoc wrought at the Woodstock Festival in the summer of 1969, a songfest at which he never appeared, Dylan moved his family to New York City and purchased a townhouse in Greenwich Village. Stalked by aggressive fans, Dylan bought a ranch house in Arizona.

The double album Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits, Volume II (1971) became the best-selling record of Dylan's career, with over five million sold in the United States. Following this success, Dylan went on Tour '74 with The Band, the first major stadium tour of the rock era. On tour, Dylan returned to drinking and womanizing. His wife left him and, in the summer of 1974, alone in Minnesota, he wrote songs about failed relationships for the album Blood on the Tracks (1975), which rose to number one on the charts. The following year he began the Rolling Thunder Revue, touring small towns by bus, inviting special appearances by celebrities like Joan Baez and Joni Mitchell.

In 1980 Dylan reassessed his career. He had gone through a bitter divorce and lost custody of his five children. His foray into Christian music earned terrible reviews and poor record sales. Mentally disturbed fans stalked him. Finally, he was involved in costly legal battles with Grossman. At the age of forty, Bob Dylan closed down his studios and took a sabbatical from music.

On 4 June 1986 Dylan married Carolyn Dennis, whom he had met during his 1978 world tour. They have one daughter. Dylan's career was at an all-time low. He was drinking more and more. In 1990 Dennis filed for dissolution of their four-year marriage; they divorced in 1992. As usual, whenever escaping domestic or financial problems, Dylan threw himself into touring and began to make a comeback.

Dylan was a huge hit at Woodstock '94. The same year he was nominated for the Nobel Prize for Literature. In September 1997 he sang "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" for Pope Paul II at the World Eucharistic Congress. Three months later he received the Kennedy Center Medal in Washington, D.C., from President William J. (Bill) Clinton. Dylan won three Grammy awards in February 1998 for Time Out of Mind, his first album of new songs in years. In 1998 Time magazine named him among the 100 most influential artists and entertainers of the twentieth century. In 2000 Dylan contributed the song "Things Have Changed" to the soundtrack for the film Wonder Boys, which netted him both a Golden Globe and an Oscar the following year for best original song. His album Love and Theft was awarded a Grammy for best contemporary folk album in February 2002. Dylan is credited with composing more than 500 songs, and he has twenty-nine gold albums and thirteen platinum albums.

Dylan helped define the rebellious 1960s. His antiestablishment, peace-loving songs of the early 1960s—"Blowin' in the Wind" and "The Times They Are a-Changin'"—influenced countless artists, including the Beatles. Always the individual, he withstood the booing of former fans and the scorn of critics when he entered his electric phase and whenever he changed his style. He continued to be innovative in the twenty-first century, continuing the Never Ending Tour. As Bruce Springsteen said at Dylan's induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on 20 January 1988, "Bob freed your mind the way Elvis freed your body."

Dylan's autobiography is Bob Dylan: Self Portrait (1970). Biographies of Dylan include Anthony Scaduto, Bob Dylan (1972); Michael Gross and Robert Alexander, Bob Dylan: An Illustrated History (1978); Bob Spitz, Dylan: A Biography (1989); Clinton Heylin, Bob Dylan: Behind the Shades (1991); William McKeen, Bob Dylan: A Bio-Bibliography (1993); Susan Richardson, Bob Dylan (1995); and Howard Sounes, Down the Highway: The Life of Bob Dylan (2001). Dylan's official web site is at <www.bobdylan.com>.

John J. Byrne