Bob Dylan
Encyclopedia
Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s
when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly reluctant figurehead of social unrest. A number of his early songs such as "Blowin' in the Wind
" and "The Times They Are a-Changin'
" became anthems for the US civil rights and anti-war
movements. Leaving his initial base in the culture of folk music
behind, Dylan proceeded to revolutionize perceptions of the limits of popular music in 1965 with the six-minute single "Like a Rolling Stone
".
His lyrics incorporated a variety of political, social, philosophical, and literary influences. They defied existing pop music conventions and appealed hugely to the then burgeoning counterculture
. Initially inspired by the songs of Woody Guthrie
, Robert Johnson
, Hank Williams, and the performance styles of Buddy Holly
and Little Richard
, Dylan has both amplified and personalized musical genres
. His recording career, spanning fifty years, has explored numerous distinct traditions in American song—from folk
, blues
and country
to gospel
, rock and roll
, and rockabilly
, to English
, Scottish, and Irish folk music
, embracing even jazz
and swing.
Dylan performs with guitar, keyboards, 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
. His accomplishments as a recording artist and performer have been central to his career, but his greatest contribution is generally considered to be his songwriting.
Since 1994, Dylan has published three books of drawings and paintings, and his work has been exhibited in major art galleries. As a songwriter and musician, Dylan has received numerous awards over the years including Grammy, Golden Globe, and Academy Awards; he has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
, Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame
, and Songwriters Hall of Fame
. In 2008, a road called the Bob Dylan Pathway was opened in the singer's honor in his birthplace of Duluth
, Minnesota. The Pulitzer Prize
jury in 2008 awarded him a special citation
for "his profound impact on popular music and American culture, marked by lyrical compositions of extraordinary poetic power."
, Minnesota, and raised in Hibbing, Minnesota, on the Mesabi Iron Range west of Lake Superior
. His paternal grandparents, Zigman and Anna Zimmerman, emigrated from Odessa
in the Russian Empire
(now Ukraine
) to the United States following the anti-Semitic pogrom
s of 1905. His maternal grandparents, Benjamin and Lybba Edelstein, were Lithuanian Jews
who arrived in the United States in 1902. In his autobiography Chronicles: Volume One
, Dylan writes that his paternal grandmother's maiden name was Kyrgyz and her family originated from Kars
, Turkey.
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 radio—first to blues
and country stations broadcasting from Shreveport
, Louisiana and, later, to early rock and roll
. He formed several bands while he attended Hibbing High School
. The Shadow Blasters was short-lived, but his next, The Golden Chords, 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 microphone off. In his 1959 school yearbook, Robert Zimmerman listed as his ambition "To follow Little Richard
." The same year, using the name Elston Gunnn , he performed two dates with Bobby Vee
, playing piano and providing handclaps.
Zimmerman moved to Minneapolis in September 1959 and enrolled at the University of Minnesota
, where his early focus on rock and roll gave way to an interest in American folk music. In 1985, Dylan explained the attraction that folk music had exerted on him:
He soon began to perform 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.
During his Dinkytown days, Zimmerman began introducing himself as "Bob Dylan". In his autobiography, Dylan acknowledged that he had been influenced by the poetry of Dylan Thomas
. Explaining his change of name in a 2004 interview, Dylan remarked: "You're born, you know, the wrong names, wrong parents. I mean, that happens. You call yourself what you want to call yourself. This is the land of the free."
, who was seriously ill with Huntington's Disease
in Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital
. Guthrie had been a revelation to Dylan and was the biggest influence on his early performances. Describing Guthrie's impact on him, Dylan later wrote: "The songs themselves had the infinite sweep of humanity in them ... [He] was the true voice of the American spirit. I said to myself I was going to be Guthrie's greatest disciple." As well as visiting Guthrie in the hospital, Dylan befriended Guthrie's acolyte Ramblin' Jack Elliott
. Much of Guthrie's repertoire was actually channeled through Elliott, and Dylan paid tribute to Elliott in Chronicles (2004).
From February 1961, Dylan played at various clubs around Greenwich Village
. In September, he gained some public recognition when Robert Shelton wrote a positive review in The New York Times
of a show at Gerde's Folk City
. The same month Dylan played harmonica on folk singer Carolyn Hester
's eponymous third album, which brought his talents to the attention of the album's producer John Hammond
. Hammond signed Dylan to Columbia Records
in October. The performances on his first Columbia album, Bob Dylan
(1962), consisted 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. Within Columbia Records, some referred to the singer as "Hammond's Folly" and suggested dropping his contract. Hammond defended Dylan vigorously. In March 1962, Dylan contributed harmonica and back-up vocals to the album Three Kings and the Queen, accompanying Victoria Spivey
and Big Joe Williams
on a recording for Spivey Records
. While working for Columbia, Dylan also recorded several songs under the pseudonym Blind Boy Grunt, for Broadside Magazine
, a folk music magazine and record label. Dylan used the pseudonym Bob Landy to record as a piano player on the 1964 anthology album, The Blues Project, issued by Elektra Records
. Under the pseudonym Tedham Porterhouse, Dylan contributed harmonica to Ramblin' Jack Elliott's
1964 album Jack Elliott
.
Dylan made two important career moves in August 1962. He legally changed his name to Bob Dylan, and signed a management contract with Albert Grossman
. Grossman remained Dylan's manager until 1970, and was notable both for his sometimes confrontational personality, and for the fiercely protective loyalty he displayed towards his principal client. Dylan subsequently said of Grossman, "He was kind of like a Colonel Tom Parker
figure ... you could smell him coming." Tensions between Grossman and John Hammond
led to Hammond being replaced as the producer of Dylan's second album by the young African American jazz producer Tom Wilson.
From December 1962 to January 1963, Dylan made his first trip to the United Kingdom. He had been invited by TV director Philip Saville
to appear in a drama, The Madhouse on Castle Street
, which Saville was directing for BBC Television
. At the end of the play, Dylan performed "Blowin' in the Wind", one of the first major public performances of the song. The recording of The Madhouse on Castle Street was wiped
by the BBC in 1968. While in London, Dylan performed at several London folk clubs, including Les Cousins
, The Pinder of Wakefield
, and Bunjies
. He also learned new songs from several UK performers, including Martin Carthy
.
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 labeled protest song
s, inspired partly by Guthrie and influenced by Pete Seeger
's passion for topical songs. "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
.
His most famous song at this time, "Blowin' in the Wind
", partially derived its melody from the traditional slave song "No More Auction Block", while its lyrics questioned the social and political status quo. The song was widely recorded and became an international hit for Peter, Paul and Mary
, setting a precedent for many other artists who had 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. Like "Blowin' in the Wind", "A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall" marked an important new direction in modern songwriting, blending a stream-of-consciousness, imagist lyrical attack with a traditional folk form.
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, and the range of material on the album impressed many listeners, including The Beatles
. George Harrison
said, "We just played it, just wore it out. The content of the song lyrics and just the attitude—it was incredibly original and wonderful."
The rough edge of Dylan's singing was unsettling to some early listeners but an attraction 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 electrifying." Many of his most famous early songs first reached the public through more immediately palatable versions by other performers, such as Joan Baez
, who became Dylan's advocate, as well as his lover. Baez was influential in bringing Dylan to national and international prominence by recording several of his early songs and inviting him onstage during her own concerts.
Others who recorded and had hits with Dylan's songs in the early and mid-1960s included The Byrds
; Sonny and Cher; The Hollies
; Peter, Paul and Mary
; The Association
; Manfred Mann
; 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 became so ubiquitous that CBS
started to promote him with the tag "Nobody Sings Dylan Like Dylan."
"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
described it as "a fascinating look at a folk artist with his mind wandering towards Elvis Presley
and Sun Records
."
. During rehearsals, Dylan had been informed by CBS Television's "head of program practices" that the song he was planning to perform, "Talkin' John Birch Paranoid Blues
", was potentially libelous to the John Birch Society
. Rather than comply with the censorship, Dylan refused to appear on the program.
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. Dylan's third album, The Times They Are a-Changin'
, reflected a more politicized and cynical Dylan. The songs often took as their subject matter contemporary, 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. 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".
By the end of 1963, Dylan felt both manipulated and constrained by the folk and protest movements. 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
, an intoxicated Dylan brashly questioned the role of the committee, characterized the members as old and balding, and claimed to see something of himself (and of every man) in Kennedy's alleged assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald
.
Another Side of Bob Dylan
, recorded on a single June evening in 1964, had a lighter mood than its predecessor. The surreal, humorous Dylan reemerged on "I Shall Be Free #10" and "Motorpsycho Nightmare". "Spanish 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. His newest direction was signaled by two lengthy songs: the impressionistic
"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," 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 champions as he took a new direction.
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 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
." Dylan also began to spar in increasingly 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."
was yet another stylistic leap, featuring his first recordings made with electric instruments. The first single, "Subterranean Homesick Blues
", owed much to Chuck Berry
's "Too Much Monkey Business
"; its free association lyrics have been described as both harkening back to the manic energy of Beat poetry and as a forerunner of rap
and hip-hop. The song was provided with an early music video which opened D. A. Pennebaker
's cinéma vérité
presentation of Dylan's 1965 tour of England, Dont Look Back
. Instead of miming to the recording, Dylan illustrated the lyrics by throwing cue cards containing key words from the song on the ground. Pennebaker has said the sequence was Dylan's idea, and it has been widely imitated in both music videos and advertisements.
The B side
of Bringing It All Back Home consisted of four long songs on which Dylan accompanied himself on acoustic guitar and harmonica. "Mr. Tambourine Man
" quickly became one of Dylan's best known songs when The Byrds
recorded an electric version that reached number one in both the U.S. and the U.K. charts. "It's All Over Now Baby Blue" and "It's Alright Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)" were acclaimed as two of Dylan's most important compositions.
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). Dylan had appeared 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. One version of the legend has it that the boos were from the outraged folk fans whom Dylan had alienated by appearing, unexpectedly, with an electric guitar. Murray Lerner
, who filmed the performance, said: "I absolutely think that they were booing Dylan going electric." An alternative account claims audience members were merely upset by poor sound quality and a surprisingly short set. This account is supported by Kooper and one of the directors of the festival, who reports his audio recording of the concert proves that the only boos were in reaction to the emcee's announcement that there was only enough time for a short set.
Nevertheless, Dylan's 1965 Newport performance provoked a hostile response from the folk music establishment. In the September issue of Sing Out!
, singer Ewan MacColl
wrote: "Our traditional songs and ballads are the creations of extraordinarily talented artists working inside disciplines formulated over time... 'But what of Bobby Dylan?' scream the outraged teenagers... Only a completely non-critical audience, nourished on the watery pap of pop music, could have fallen for such tenth-rate drivel." 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, and it was widely interpreted as Dylan's put-down of former friends from the folk community—friends he had known in the clubs along West 4th Street.
", which peaked at No.2 in the U.S. and at No.4 in the UK charts. At over six minutes, 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 into 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". In 2004, and again in 2011, Rolling Stone Magazine listed it as number one on its list of "The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time
". 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. The songs were in the same vein as the hit single, flavored by Mike Bloomfield
's blues guitar and Al Kooper
's organ riffs. "Desolation Row
" offers the sole acoustic
exception, with Dylan making surreal allusions to a variety of figures in Western culture during this epic song, which was described by Andy Gill as "an 11-minute epic of entropy, which takes the form of a Fellini-esque parade of grotesques and oddities featuring a huge cast of celebrated characters, some historical (Einstein, Nero
), some biblical (Noah, Cain and Abel), some fictional (Ophelia, Romeo, Cinderella), some literary (T.S. Eliot and Ezra Pound
), and some who fit into none of the above categories, notably Dr. Filth and his dubious nurse."
In support of the record, Dylan was booked for two U.S. concerts and set about assembling a band. Mike Bloomfield
was unwilling 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 (later to become The Band
). On August 28 at Forest Hills Tennis Stadium, the group was heckled by an audience still annoyed by Dylan's electric sound. The band's reception on September 3 at the Hollywood Bowl
was more favorable.
While Dylan and the Hawks met increasingly receptive audiences on tour, their studio efforts floundered. Producer Bob Johnston
persuaded Dylan to record in Nashville
in February 1966, and surrounded him with a cadre of top-notch session men. At Dylan's insistence, Robertson and Kooper came down from New York City to play on the sessions. The Nashville sessions produced the double-album Blonde on Blonde
(1966), featuring what Dylan later called "that thin wild mercury sound". Al Kooper described the album as "taking two cultures and smashing them together with a huge explosion": the musical world of Nashville and the world of the "quintessential New York hipster" Bob Dylan.
On November 22, 1965, Dylan secretly married 25-year-old former model Sara Lownds
. Some of Dylan's friends (including Ramblin' Jack Elliott
) claim that, in conversation immediately after the event, Dylan denied that he was married. Journalist Nora Ephron
first made the news public in the New York Post
in February 1966 with the headline "Hush! Bob Dylan is wed."
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 himself 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. The tour culminated in a famously raucous confrontation between Dylan and his audience at the Manchester Free Trade Hall
in England on May 17, 1966. An official recording of this concert was finally released in 1998: The Bootleg Series Vol. 4: Bob Dylan Live 1966. At the climax of the evening, a member of the audience, angered by Dylan's electric backing, shouted: "Judas
!" to which Dylan responded, "I don't believe you ... You're a liar!" Dylan turned to his band and said, "Play it fucking loud!" as they launched into the final song of the night—"Like a Rolling Stone."
During his 1966 tour, Dylan was frequently described as exhausted and acting "as if on a death trip". D. A. Pennebaker
, the film maker accompanying the tour, described Dylan as "taking a lot of amphetamine and who-knows-what-else." In a 1969 interview with Jann Wenner
, Dylan said, "I was on the road for almost five years. It wore me down. I was on drugs, a lot of things... just to keep going, you know?" In 2011, BBC Radio 4
reported that, in an interview which Robert Shelton had taped in 1966, Dylan claimed that he had kicked a heroin habit in New York City: "I got very, very strung out for a while... I had about a $25-a-day habit and I kicked it." Some journalists questioned the validity of this confession, pointing out that Dylan had "been telling journalists wild lies about his past since the earliest days of his career."
had paid an advance for a TV show they could screen. 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 500cc Triumph Tiger 100
motorcycle on a road near his home in Woodstock
, New York, throwing him to the ground. Though the extent of his injuries were never fully disclosed, Dylan said that he broke several vertebrae in his neck. Mystery still surrounds the circumstances of the accident since no ambulance was called to the scene and Dylan was not hospitalized. Dylan's biographers have written that the crash offered Dylan the much-needed chance to escape from the pressures that had built up around him. Dylan confirmed this interpretation of the crash when he stated in his autobiography, "I had been in a motorcycle accident and I'd been hurt, but I recovered. Truth was that I wanted to get out of the rat race." In the wake of his accident, Dylan withdrew from the public and, apart from a few select appearances, did not tour again for eight years.
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 incomprehensible to a mainstream audience. In 1967 he began recording music with the Hawks at his home and in the basement of the Hawks' nearby house, called "Big Pink". 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
("Mighty Quinn"). Columbia belatedly 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 various bootleg recording
s, culminating in a five-CD bootleg set titled The Genuine Basement Tapes, containing 107 songs and alternate takes. In the coming months, the Hawks recorded the album Music from Big Pink
using songs they first worked on in their basement in Woodstock, and renamed themselves The Band
, thus beginning a long and successful recording and performing career of their own.
In October and November 1967, Dylan returned to Nashville
. Back in the recording studio after a 19-month break, he was accompanied only by Charlie McCoy
on bass, Kenny Buttrey
on drums, and Pete Drake
on steel guitar. The result was John Wesley 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-Christian
tradition seriously, marked a departure not only from Dylan's own work but from the escalating psychedelic fervor of the 1960s musical culture. 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 later acknowledged as definitive. 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, where he was backed by The Band.
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
." Dylan and Cash also recorded a series of duets, including Dylan's "One Too Many Mornings
," but they were not used on the album.
In May 1969, Dylan appeared on the first episode of Johnny Cash
's new television show, duetting with Cash on "Girl from the North Country
", "I Threw It All Away" 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 rejecting overtures to appear at the Woodstock Festival
far closer to his home.
notoriously asked "What is this shit?" upon first listening to 1970's Self Portrait
. In general, Self Portrait, a double LP including few original songs, was poorly received. Later that year, Dylan released New Morning
, which some considered a return to form. In November 1968, Dylan had co-written "I'd Have You Anytime" with George Harrison
; 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 Harrison's 1971 Concert for Bangladesh attracted much media coverage, reflecting that Dylan's live appearances had become rare.
Between March 16 and 19, 1971, Dylan reserved three days at Blue Rock Studios, a small studio in New York's Greenwich Village
. These sessions resulted in one single, "Watching the River Flow
", and a new recording of "When I Paint My Masterpiece
". On November 4, 1971 Dylan recorded "George Jackson
", which he released a week later. For many, the single was a surprising return to protest material, mourning the killing of Black Panther
George Jackson
in San Quentin Prison that summer. Dylan contributed piano and harmony vocals to Steve Goodman
's album, Somebody Else's Troubles, under the pseudonym Robert Milkwood Thomas in September 1972.
In 1972, Dylan signed onto Sam Peckinpah
's film Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid
, providing songs and backing music for the movie, and playing the role of "Alias", a member of Billy's gang with some historical basis. 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.
Dylan began 1973 by signing with a new record label, David Geffen
's Asylum Records
, when his contract with Columbia Records
expired. On his next album, Planet Waves
, he used The Band
as backing group, while rehearsing for a major tour. The album included two versions of "Forever Young", which became one of his most popular songs. As one critic described it, the song projected "something hymnal and heartfelt that spoke of the father in Dylan", and Dylan himself commented: "I wrote it thinking about one of my boys and not wanting to be too sentimental." Biographer Howard Sounes
noted that Jakob Dylan
believed the song was about him.
Columbia Records simultaneously released Dylan, a haphazard collection of studio outtakes (almost exclusively cover songs), which was widely interpreted as a churlish response to Dylan's signing with a rival record label. In January 1974, Dylan returned to live touring after a break of seven years; backed by The Band, he embarked on a high-profile, coast-to-coast North American tour
, playing 40 concerts. A live double album of the tour, Before the Flood
, was released on Asylum Records. Soon, Columbia Records sent word that they "will spare nothing to bring Dylan back into the fold". Dylan had second thoughts about Asylum, apparently miffed that while there had been millions of unfulfilled ticket requests for the 1974 tour, Geffen had managed to sell only 700,000 copies of Planet Waves. Dylan returned to Columbia Records, which subsequently reissued his two Asylum albums on their imprint.
After the tour, Dylan and his wife became publicly estranged. He filled a small red notebook with songs about relationships and ruptures, and quickly recorded a new album entitled Blood on the Tracks
in September 1974. Dylan delayed the album's release, however, and re-recorded half of the songs at Sound 80
Studios in Minneapolis with production assistance from his brother David Zimmerman.
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 practice takes." In Rolling Stone, reviewer Jon Landau
wrote that "the record has been made with typical shoddiness." However, over the years critics have come to see it as one of Dylan's greatest achievements, 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." Novelist Rick Moody
called it "the truest, most honest account of a love affair from tip to stern ever put down on magnetic tape."
That summer Dylan wrote a lengthy ballad championing the cause of boxer Rubin "Hurricane" Carter
, who had been imprisoned for a triple murder committed in Paterson
, New Jersey, in 1966. After visiting 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 No.33 on the U.S. Billboard Chart
, and performed at every 1975 date of Dylan's next tour, the Rolling Thunder Revue
, named after the Shoshone
medicine man, shaman, teacher, and activist Rolling Thunder
. The tour was a varied evening of entertainment featuring about one hundred performers and supporters drawn from the resurgent Greenwich Village folk scene, including T-Bone Burnett
, Ramblin' Jack Elliott
, Joni Mitchell
, 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. Allen Ginsberg
accompanied the troupe, staging scenes for the film Dylan was simultaneously shooting. Sam Shepard
was initially hired to write the film's screenplay, but ended up accompanying the tour as informal chronicler.
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
. 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 released until 2002's Live 1975
.
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, sometimes scathing, reviews and had a very brief theatrical run. Later in that year, Dylan allowed a two-hour edit, dominated by the concert performances, to be more widely released.
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. In 1976, Dylan also wrote and duetted on the song "Sign Language" for Eric Clapton
's No Reason To Cry
.
In 1978, Dylan embarked on a year-long world tour
, performing 114 shows in Japan, the Far East, Europe and the US, to a total audience of two million people. For the tour, Dylan assembled an eight piece band, and was also accompanied by three backing singers. Concerts in Tokyo in February and March were recorded and released as the live double album, Bob Dylan At Budokan
. Reviews were mixed. Robert Christgau
awarded the album a C+ rating, giving the album a derisory review, while Janet Maslin
defended it in Rolling Stone, writing: "These latest live versions of his old songs have the effect of liberating Bob Dylan from the originals." When Dylan brought the tour to the US in September 1978, he was dismayed the press described the look and sound of the show as a 'Las Vegas Tour'. The 1978 tour grossed more than $20 million, and Dylan acknowledged to the Los Angeles Times that he had some debts to pay off because "I had a couple of bad years. I put a lot of money into the movie, built a big house ... and it costs a lot to get divorced in California."
In April and May 1978, Dylan went into the studio in Santa Monica
, California, to record an album of new material with the same large band and backing vocalists: Street-Legal. It was described by Michael Gray as, "after Blood On The Tracks, arguably Dylan's best record of the 1970s: a crucial album documenting a crucial period in Dylan's own life". However, it suffered from poor sound recording and mixing (attributed to Dylan's studio practices), muddying the instrumental detail until a remastered CD release in 1999 restored some of the songs' strengths.
(1979) featured the guitar accompaniment of Mark Knopfler
(of Dire Straits
) and was produced by veteran R&B producer, Jerry Wexler
. Wexler recalled that when Dylan had tried to evangelize him during the recording, he replied: "Bob, you're dealing with a sixty-two-year old Jewish atheist. Let's just make an album." The album won Dylan a Grammy Award
as "Best Male Vocalist" for the song "Gotta Serve Somebody
". The second evangelical album, Saved
(1980), received mixed reviews, and was described by Dylan critic Michael Gray as "the nearest thing to a follow-up album Dylan has ever made, Slow Train Coming II and inferior." 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:
Dylan's embrace of born-again Christianity was unpopular with some of his fans and fellow musicians. Shortly before his murder, John Lennon
recorded "Serve Yourself" in response to Dylan's "Gotta Serve Somebody". By 1981, 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 essentially iconoclastic temperament."
, recorded the next spring, featured Dylan's first secular compositions in more than two years, mixed with explicitly Christian songs; the song "Every Grain of Sand" reminded some critics of William Blake
's verses.
In the 1980s the quality of Dylan's recorded work varied, from the well-regarded Infidels
in 1983 to the panned Down in the Groove
in 1988. Critics such as Michael Gray
condemned Dylan's 1980s albums both for showing an extraordinary carelessness in the studio and for failing to release his best songs. The Infidels recording sessions, for example, produced several notable songs that Dylan left off the album. Most well regarded of these were "Blind Willie McTell
", a tribute to the dead blues musician and an evocation of African American history
, "Foot of Pride" and "Lord Protect My Child". These three songs were later released on The Bootleg Series Volumes 1–3 (Rare & Unreleased) 1961–1991.
Between July 1984 and March 1985, Dylan recorded his next studio album, Empire Burlesque
. 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 contemporary".
Dylan sang on USA for Africa
's famine relief fundraising single "We Are the World
". On July 13, 1985, he appeared at the climax at the Live Aid
concert at JFK Stadium, Philadelphia. Backed by Keith Richards
and Ronnie Wood, Dylan performed a ragged version of "Hollis Brown", his ballad of rural poverty, and then said to the worldwide audience exceeding 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." His remarks were widely criticized as inappropriate, but they did inspire Willie Nelson
to organize a series of events, Farm Aid
, to benefit debt-ridden American farmers.
In April 1986, Dylan made a brief foray into the world of rap music when he added vocals to the opening verse of "Street Rock", a song featured on Kurtis Blow
's album Kingdom Blow. Dylan's next studio album, Knocked Out Loaded
, was released in July 1986 and contained three cover songs (by Little Junior Parker
, Kris Kristofferson
and the traditional gospel hymn "Precious Memories"), plus three collaborations with other writers (Tom Petty
, Sam Shepard
and Carole Bayer Sager
), and two solo compositions by Dylan. One reviewer commented that "the record follows too many detours to be consistently compelling, and some of those detours wind down roads that are indisputably dead ends. By 1986, such uneven records weren't entirely unexpected by Dylan, but that didn't make them any less frustrating." It was the first Dylan album since Freewheelin'
(1963) to fail to make the Top 50. Since then, some critics have called the 11-minute epic that Dylan co-wrote with Sam Shepard, 'Brownsville Girl
', a work of genius.
In 1986 and 1987, Dylan toured extensively with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
, sharing vocals with Petty on several songs each night. Dylan also toured with The Grateful Dead
in 1987, resulting in a live album Dylan & The Dead
. This album received some very negative reviews: Allmusic said, "Quite possibly the worst album by either Bob Dylan or the Grateful Dead." After performing with these musical permutations, 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 continued to tour with this small but constantly evolving band for the next 20 years.
In 1987, Dylan starred in Richard Marquand
'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 Everett
). 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 commercial flop.
Dylan was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
in January 1988, with Bruce Springsteen
's introductory speech declaring, "Bob freed your mind the way Elvis freed your body. He showed us that just because music was innately physical did not mean that it was anti-intellectual.
When Dylan released the album Down in the Groove
in May 1988, it was even more unsuccessful in its sales than his previous studio album. Michael Gray wrote: "The very title undercuts any idea that inspired work may lie within. Here was a further devaluing of the notion of a new Bob Dylan album as something significant." The critical and commercial disappointment of that album was swiftly followed by the success of the Traveling Wilburys
. Dylan co-founded the band with George Harrison
, Jeff Lynne
, Roy Orbison
, and Tom Petty
, and in the fall of 1988 their multi-platinum Traveling Wilburys Vol. 1
reached number three on the US album chart, featuring songs that were described as Dylan's most accessible compositions in years. Despite Orbison's death in December 1988, the remaining four recorded a second album in May 1990, which they released with the unexpected title Traveling Wilburys Vol. 3
.
Dylan finished the decade on a critical high note with Oh Mercy
produced by Daniel Lanois
. Dylan critic Michael Gray wrote that the album was: "Attentively written, vocally distinctive, musically warm, and uncompromisingly professional, this cohesive whole is the nearest thing to a great Bob Dylan album in the 1980s." 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 interpreted both as a catechism and a wry comment on the expectations of critics and fans. The religious imagery of "Ring Them Bells" struck some critics as a re-affirmation of faith.
(1990), an about-face from the serious Oh Mercy. The album contained several apparently 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. Sidemen on the album included George Harrison
, 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.
In 1991, Dylan was honored by the recording industry with a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award
from American actor Jack Nicholson
. The event coincided with the start of the Gulf War
against Saddam Hussein
, and Dylan performed his song "Masters of War
". Dylan then made a short speech that startled some of the audience.
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), featuring interpretations and acoustic guitar work. Many critics and fans commented on the quiet beauty of the song "Lone Pilgrim", penned by a 19th century teacher and sung by Dylan with a haunting reverence. In November 1994 Dylan recorded two live shows for MTV Unplugged
. He claimed his wish to perform a set of traditional songs for the show was overruled by Sony
executives who insisted on a greatest hits package. The album produced from it, MTV Unplugged
, included "John Brown", an unreleased 1963 song detailing the ravages of both war and jingoism
.
With a collection of songs reportedly written while snowed-in on his Minnesota ranch, Dylan booked recording time with Daniel Lanois
at Miami's Criteria Studios
in January 1997. The subsequent recording sessions were, by some accounts, fraught with musical tension. Late that spring, before the album's release, Dylan was hospitalized with a life-threatening heart infection, pericarditis
, 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 seeing Elvis
soon." He was back on the road by midsummer, and in early fall performed before Pope John Paul II
at the World Eucharistic Conference in Bologna
, Italy. The Pope treated the audience of 200,000 people to a homily based on Dylan's lyric "Blowin' in the Wind
".
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 acclaimed. One critic wrote: "the songs themselves are uniformly powerful, adding up to Dylan's best overall collection in years." This collection of complex songs won him his first solo "Album of the Year" Grammy Award
.
In December 1997, U.S. President Bill Clinton
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."
", penned for the film Wonder Boys
, won an Academy Award in March 2001. The Oscar (by some reports a facsimile) tours with him, presiding over shows perched atop an amplifier.
"Love and Theft" was released on September 11, 2001. Recorded with his touring band, Dylan produced the album himself under the pseudonym Jack Frost. The album was critically well-received and earned nominations for several Grammy awards. Critics noted that Dylan was widening his musical palette to include rockabilly
, Western swing, jazz, and even lounge ballads. "Love and Theft" generated controversy when The Wall Street Journal
pointed out similarities between the album's lyrics and Japanese author Junichi Saga's book Confessions of a Yakuza
.
In 2003, Dylan revisited the evangelical songs from his "born again" period and participated in the CD project Gotta Serve Somebody: The Gospel Songs of Bob Dylan
. That year also saw the release of the film Masked & Anonymous, which Dylan co-wrote with director Larry Charles
under the alias Sergei Petrov. Dylan played the central character in the film, Jack Fate, alongside a cast which included Jeff Bridges
, Penelope Cruz
and John Goodman
. The film polarised critics: many dismissed it as an "incoherent mess"; a few treated it as a serious work of art.
In October 2004, Dylan published the first part of his autobiography, Chronicles: Volume One
. The book confounded expectations. Dylan devoted three chapters to his first year in New York City in 1961–1962, virtually ignoring the mid-'60s when his fame 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-Fiction best seller list in December 2004 and was nominated for a National Book Award
.
Martin Scorsese
's acclaimed film biography No Direction Home
was broadcast in September 2005. It was shown on September 26–27, 2005, on BBC Two
in the UK and PBS
in the US. The documentary focuses 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 and a Columbia-duPont Award in January 2007. The accompanying soundtrack
featured unreleased songs from Dylan's early career.
Dylan earned yet another distinction in a 2007 study of US legal opinions and briefs that found his lyrics were quoted by judges and lawyers more than those of any other songwriter, 186 times versus 74 by The Beatles
, who were second. Among those quoting Dylan were US Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Antonin Scalia
, both conservatives. The most widely cited lines included "you don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows" from "Subterranean Homesick Blues
" and "when you ain't got nothing, you got nothing to lose" from "Like a Rolling Stone
".
, for XM Satellite Radio
, with song selections revolving around a chosen theme. 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 sardonic humor, while achieving a thematic beauty with his musical choices. In April 2009, Dylan broadcast the 100th show in his radio series; the theme was "Goodbye" and the final record 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.
On August 29, 2006, Dylan released his Modern Times
album. Despite some coarsening of Dylan's voice (a critic for The Guardian
characterised his singing on the album as "a catarrhal death rattle") most reviewers praised the album, and many described it as the final installment of a successful trilogy, embracing Time Out of Mind and "Love and Theft". Modern Times entered the U.S. charts at number one, making it Dylan's first album to reach that position since 1976's Desire. The New York Times published an article exploring similarities between some of Dylan's lyrics in Modern Times and the work of the Civil War
poet Henry Timrod
.
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, and by Uncut
in the UK. On the same day that Modern Times was released the iTunes Music Store released Bob Dylan: The Collection
, a digital box set containing all of his albums (773 tracks in total), along with 42 rare and unreleased tracks.
In August 2007, the award-winning film biography of Dylan I'm Not There
, written and directed by Todd Haynes
, was released—bearing the tagline "inspired by the music and many lives of Bob Dylan". The movie uses six distinct characters to represent different aspects of Dylan's life, played by Christian Bale
, Cate Blanchett
, Marcus Carl Franklin
, Richard Gere
, Heath Ledger
and Ben Whishaw
. Dylan's previously unreleased 1967 recording from which the film takes its name was released for the first time on the film's original soundtrack
; all other tracks are covers of Dylan songs, specially recorded for the movie by a diverse range of artists, including Eddie Vedder
, Mason Jennings
, Stephen Malkmus
, Jeff Tweedy
, Karen O
, Willie Nelson
, Cat Power
, Richie Havens
, and Tom Verlaine
.
On October 1, 2007, Columbia Records
released the triple CD retrospective album Dylan
, anthologising his entire career under the Dylan 07 logo. As part of this campaign, 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.
The sophistication of the Dylan 07 marketing 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 advertisement for Victoria's Secret
lingerie. Three years later, in October 2007, he participated in a multi-media campaign for the 2008 Cadillac Escalade
. Then, in 2009, he gave the highest profile endorsement of his career, appearing with rapper Will.i.am
in a Pepsi
ad that debuted during the telecast of Super Bowl XLIII
. 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.
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
. The pricing of the album—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. The release was widely acclaimed by critics. The plethora of alternative takes and unreleased material suggested to Uncut
s reviewer: "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."
on April 28, 2009. 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
; initially only intending to record a single track, "Life Is Hard," "the record sort of took its own direction". Nine of the ten songs on the album are credited as co-written by Bob Dylan and Robert Hunter
.
The album received largely favorable reviews, although several critics described it as a minor addition to Dylan's canon of work. Andy Gill wrote in The Independent
that the record "features Dylan in fairly relaxed, spontaneous mood, content to grab such grooves and sentiments as flit momentarily 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."
In its first week of release, the album reached number one in the Billboard 200
chart in the U.S., making Bob Dylan (67 years of age) the oldest artist to ever debut at number one on that chart. It also reached number one on the UK album chart, 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.
On October 13, 2009, Dylan released a Christmas album, Christmas in the Heart
, comprising such Christmas standards as "Little Drummer Boy
", "Winter Wonderland
" and "Here Comes Santa Claus
". Dylan's royalties from the sale of this album will benefit the charities Feeding America in the USA, Crisis
in the UK, and the World Food Programme
.
The album received generally favorable reviews. The New Yorker
commented that Dylan had welded a pre-rock musical sound to "some of his croakiest vocals in a while", and speculated that Dylan's intentions might be ironic: "Dylan has a long and highly publicized history with Christianity; to claim there's not a wink in the childish optimism of 'Here Comes Santa Claus' or 'Winter Wonderland' is to ignore a half-century of biting satire." In USA Today
, Edna Gundersen
pointed out that Dylan was "revisiting yuletide styles popularized by Nat King Cole
, Mel Tormé
, and the Ray Conniff Singers." Gundersen concluded that Dylan "couldn't sound more sentimental or sincere".
In an interview published by Street News Service
, journalist Bill Flanagan asked Dylan why he had performed the songs in a straightforward style, and Dylan responded: "There wasn't any other way to play it. These songs are part of my life, just like folk songs. You have to play them straight too."
of songs taped between 1962 and 1964 for Dylan's earliest music publishers: Leeds Music in 1962, and Witmark Music
from 1962 to 1964. One reviewer described the set as "a kind of alternate early history of Dylan's songwriting process, 'writing five new songs before breakfast,' as he once famously quipped". The critical aggregator website Metacritic awarded the album a Metascore of 86, indicating "universal acclaim". In the same week, Sony Legacy
released Bob Dylan: The Original Mono Recordings
, a box set which for the first time presented Dylan's eight earliest albums, from Bob Dylan (1962) to John Wesley Harding (1967), in their original mono mix in the CD format, accompanied by new liner notes by Dylan critic Greil Marcus
.
On April 12, 2011, Legacy Recordings
released Bob Dylan in Concert – Brandeis University 1963 . The recording was taped at Brandeis University
on May 10, 1963, two weeks prior to the release of The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan. The tape had been discovered in the archive of music writer Ralph J. Gleason
, and had previously been available as a limited edition supplement to The Bootleg Series Vol. 9. The recording carries liner notes by Dylan scholar Michael Gray
. Gray writes, "(The) Dylan performance it captured, from way back when Kennedy
was President and the Beatles
hadn't yet reached America, wasn't even on fans' radar.... It reveals him not at any Big Moment but giving a performance like his folk club sets of the period... This is the last live performance we have of Bob Dylan before he becomes a star."
The extent to which his work was studied at an academic level was demonstrated on Dylan's 70th birthday on May 24, 2011, when three universities organised symposia on his work. The University of Mainz, the University of Vienna
, and the University of Bristol
invited literary critics and cultural historians from Europe and the US to give papers on aspects of Dylan's work. Other events, including tribute bands, intellectual debates and simple singalongs, took place around the world, as reported in The Guardian
: "From Moscow to Madrid, Norway to Northampton and Malaysia to his home state of Minnesota, self-confessed "Bobcats" will gather today to celebrate the 70th birthday of a giant of popular music."
On October 4, 2011, Dylan's label, Egyptian Records, released an album of previously unheard Hank Williams songs, The Lost Notebooks of Hank Williams
. Dylan had helped to curate this project, in which songs unfinished when Williams died in 1953 were completed and recorded by a variety of artists, including Dylan himself, his son Jakob Dylan
, Levon Helm
, Norah Jones
, Jack White
, and others.
The Never Ending Tour commenced on June 7, 1988, and Dylan has played roughly 100 dates a year for the entirety of the 1990s and the first decade of the 21st century—a heavier schedule than most performers who started out in the 1960s. By the end of 2010, Dylan and his band had played more than 2300 shows, anchored by long-time bassist Tony Garnier
, multi-instrumentalist Donnie Herron and guitarist Charlie Sexton
. To the dismay of some of his audience, Dylan's performances remain unpredictable as he alters his arrangements and changes his vocal approach night after night. 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 material. 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", and his lack of interest in bonding with his audience.
Dylan's performances in China
in April 2011 generated controversy. Some criticised him for not making any explicit comment on the political situation in China, and for, allegedly, allowing the Chinese authorities to censor his set-list. Others defended Dylan's performances, arguing that such criticism represented a misunderstanding of Dylan's art, and that no evidence for the censorship of Dylan's set-list existed.
Dylan responded to these allegations of censorship by posting a statement on his website: "As far as censorship goes, the Chinese government had asked for the names of the songs that I would be playing. There's no logical answer to that, so we sent them the set lists from the previous 3 months. If there were any songs, verses or lines censored, nobody ever told me about it and we played all the songs that we intended to play."
In April 2011, Dylan performed concerts in Taiwan, China, Singapore, Vietnam and Australia. He toured Europe, Israel and the US from June to August 2011, commencing in Cork, Ireland
, and concluding in Boston, Massachusetts. Accompanied by Mark Knopfler
as a supporting act, Dylan undertook a second European tour in October and November, which began in Dublin and ended in London
.
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
, Germany. This first public exhibition of Dylan's paintings showcased more than 200 watercolors and gouache
s made earlier in 2007 from the original drawings. The exhibition coincided with the publication of the book Bob Dylan: The Drawn Blank Series, which includes 170 reproductions from the series. From September 2010 until April 2011, the National Gallery of Denmark
exhibited 40 large-scale acrylic paintings by Dylan, The Brazil Series.
In July 2011, a leading contemporary art gallery, Gagosian Gallery
, announced their representation of Dylan's paintings. An exhibition of Dylan's art, The Asia Series, opened at the Gagosian Madison Avenue Gallery on September 20, displaying Dylan's paintings of scenes in China and the Far East. The New York Times
reported that "some fans and Dylanologists have raised questions about whether some of these paintings are based on the singer’s own experiences and observations, or on photographs that are widely available and were not taken by Mr. Dylan." The Times pointed to close resemblances between Dylan's paintings and six historic photos of Japan and China which had been posted on the Flickr
website. Dylan's paintings also appeared to be based on photographs taken by Dmitri Kessel, Henri Cartier-Bresson
, and Jacob Aue Sobol
. The Magnum photo agency
confirmed that Dylan had licensed the reproduction rights of these photographs.
on November 22, 1965. Their first child, Jesse Byron Dylan
, was born on January 6, 1966, and they had three more children: Anna Lea (born July 11, 1967), Samuel Isaac Abraham (born July 30, 1968), and Jakob Luke
(born December 9, 1969). Dylan also adopted Sara's daughter from a prior marriage, Maria Lownds (later Dylan, born October 21, 1961). Maria married musician Peter Himmelman
, an Orthodox Jew, in 1988. In the 1990s, Dylan's son Jakob 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.
In June 1986, Dylan married his longtime backup singer Carolyn Dennis
(often professionally known as Carol Dennis). Their daughter, Desiree Gabrielle Dennis-Dylan, was born on January 31, 1986. The couple divorced in October 1992. Their marriage and child remained a closely guarded secret until the publication of Howard Sounes
' Dylan biography, Down the Highway: The Life Of Bob Dylan in 2001. Dylan now lives in Malibu, California, when not on the road.
In total, Bob Dylan has six children (five biological and one adopted) and eleven grandchildren as of 2011.
, Minnesota, Dylan and his family were part of the area's small but close-knit Jewish community, and in May 1954 Dylan had his Bar Mitzvah. Around the time of his 30th birthday, in 1971, Dylan visited Israel
, and also met Rabbi Meir Kahane
, founder of the New York-based Jewish Defense League
. Time Magazine quoted Dylan saying about Kahane, "He's a really sincere guy. He's really put it all together." Subsequently, Dylan downplayed the extent of his contact with Kahane.
For a period during the late 1970s and early 1980s, Dylan was a public convert to Christianity. From January to April 1979, he participated in Bible study classes at the Vineyard School of Discipleship
in Reseda, California. Pastor Kenn Gulliksen has recalled: "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."
By 1984, Dylan was distancing himself from the "born-again" label. He told Kurt Loder
of Rolling Stone magazine: "I've never said I'm born again. That's just a media term. I don't think I've been an agnostic
. I've always thought there's a superior power, that this is not the real world and that there's a world to come." In response to Loder's asking whether he belonged to any Church or synagogue, Dylan laughingly replied, "Not really. Uh, the Church of the Poison Mind." In 1997 he told David Gates
of Newsweek
:
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."
Dylan has been described, in the last 20 years, as a supporter of the Chabad Lubavitch movement and has privately participated in Jewish religious events, including the bar mitzvahs of his sons and attending Hadar Hatorah
, a Chabad Lubavitch yeshiva
. In September 1989 and September 1991, Dylan appeared on the Chabad telethon. Jewish news services have reported that Dylan has visited Chabad synagogues
; on September 22, 2007 (Yom Kippur
), he attended Congregation Beth Tefillah, in Atlanta, Georgia, where he was called to the Torah
for the sixth aliyah.
Dylan has continued to perform songs from his gospel albums in concert, occasionally covering traditional religious songs. He has also made passing references to his religious 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 schedule 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."
In a 2009 interview with Bill Flanagan promoting his Christmas LP, Christmas in the Heart
, Flanagan commented on the "heroic performance" Dylan gave of "O Little Town of Bethlehem
" and that Dylan "delivered the song like a true believer". Dylan replied: "Well, I am a true believer."
where he was called "master poet, caustic social critic and intrepid, guiding spirit of the counterculture generation". Biographer Howard Sounes
placed him among the most 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."
Initially modeling his writing style on the songs of Woody Guthrie
, and lessons learned from the blues of Robert Johnson, Dylan added increasingly sophisticated lyrical techniques to the folk music of the early 60s, infusing it "with the intellectualism of classic literature and poetry". 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 the Wind
' has a really strong melody. He so enlarged himself through the folk background that he incorporated it for a while. He defined the genre for a while."
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 synthesis 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, British beat, symbolist, modernist
and Beat poetry, 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 console."
One legacy of Dylan's verbal sophistication was the increasing attention paid by literary critics to his lyrics. Professor Christopher Ricks
published a 500-page analysis of Dylan's work, placing him in the context of Eliot
, Keats
and Tennyson, and claiming that Dylan was a poet worthy of the same close and painstaking analysis. Former British poet laureate
, Andrew Motion
, argued that Bob Dylan's lyrics should be studied in schools. Since 1996, academics have lobbied the Swedish Academy
to award Dylan the Nobel Prize in Literature
.
Dylan's voice was, in some ways, as startling 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
." David Bowie
, in his tribute, "Song for Bob Dylan
", described Dylan's singing as "a voice like sand and glue". Dylan's voice continued to develop as he began to work with rock'n'roll backing bands; critic Michael Gray described the sound of Dylan's vocal on his hit single, "Like a Rolling Stone", as "at once young and jeeringly cynical". As Dylan's voice aged during the 1980s, for some critics, it became more expressive. Christophe Lebold writes in the journal Oral Tradition
, "Dylan's more recent broken voice enables him to present a world view at the sonic surface of the songs—this voice carries us across the landscape of a broken, fallen world. The anatomy of a broken world in "Everything is Broken" (on the album Oh Mercy
) is but an example of how the thematic concern with all things broken is grounded in a concrete sonic reality."
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." Many musicians have testified to Dylan's influence, such as Joe Strummer
, who praised Dylan as having "laid down the template for lyric, tune, seriousness, spirituality, depth of rock music." Other major musicians to have acknowledged Dylan's importance include John Lennon
, Paul McCartney
, Pete Townshend
, Neil Young
, Bruce Springsteen
, David Bowie
, Bryan Ferry
, Nick Cave
, Patti Smith
, Syd Barrett
, Cat Stevens
,Joni Mitchell
, and Tom Waits
. More directly, both The Byrds
and The Band
, two 1960s contemporary groups with some measure of influence on popular music themselves, largely owed their initial success to Dylan: the Byrds with their hit of "Mr. Tambourine Man" and subsequent album
; and the Band for their association with him on tour in 1966
, on retreat in Woodstock
, and on their debut album
featuring three previously unreleased Dylan songs.
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 major gift for self-hype." Similarly, Australian critic Jack Marx
credited Dylan with changing the persona of the rock star: "What cannot 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
educating themselves from the Dylan handbook." Joni Mitchell
described Dylan as a "plagiarist" and his voice as "fake" in a 2010 interview in the Los Angeles Times
, in response to a suggestion that she and Dylan were similar since they had both changed their birthnames. Mitchell's comment led to discussions of Dylan's use of other people's material, both supporting and criticizing Dylan.
If Bob Dylan's legacy in the 1960s was seen as bringing intellectual ambition to popular music, now that he has reached the age of 70, he has been described as a figure who has greatly expanded the folk culture from which he initially 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 history 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."
1960s in music
For music from a year in the 1960s, go to 60 | 61 | 62 | 63 | 64 | 65 | 66 | 67 | 68 | 69This article includes an overview of the major events and trends in popular music in the 1960s....
when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly reluctant figurehead of social unrest. A number of his early songs such as "Blowin' in the Wind
Blowin' in the Wind
"Blowin' in the Wind" is a song written by Bob Dylan and released on his album The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan in 1963. Although it has been described as a protest song, it poses a series of questions about peace, war and freedom...
" and "The Times They Are a-Changin'
The Times They Are a-Changin' (song)
"The Times They Are a-Changin" is a song written by Bob Dylan and released as the title track of his 1964 album, The Times They Are a-Changin. The song was ranked #59 on Rolling Stones 2004 list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time....
" became anthems for the US civil rights and anti-war
Opposition to the Vietnam War
The movement against US involvment in the in Vietnam War began in the United States with demonstrations in 1964 and grew in strength in later years. The US became polarized between those who advocated continued involvement in Vietnam, and those who wanted peace. Peace movements consisted largely of...
movements. Leaving his initial base in the culture of folk music
American folk music revival
The American folk music revival was a phenomenon in the United States that began during the 1940s and peaked in popularity in the mid-1960s. Its roots went earlier, and performers like Josh White, Burl Ives, Woody Guthrie, Lead Belly, Richard Dyer-Bennett, Oscar Brand, Jean Ritchie, John Jacob...
behind, Dylan proceeded to revolutionize perceptions of the limits of popular music in 1965 with the six-minute single "Like a Rolling Stone
Like a Rolling Stone
"Like a Rolling Stone" is a 1965 song by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan. Its confrontational lyrics originate in an extended piece of verse Dylan wrote in June 1965, when he returned exhausted from a grueling tour of England...
".
His lyrics incorporated a variety of political, social, philosophical, and literary influences. They defied existing pop music conventions and appealed hugely to the then burgeoning counterculture
Counterculture of the 1960s
The counterculture of the 1960s refers to a cultural movement that mainly developed in the United States and spread throughout much of the western world between 1960 and 1973. The movement gained momentum during the U.S. government's extensive military intervention in Vietnam...
. Initially inspired by the songs of Woody Guthrie
Woody Guthrie
Woodrow Wilson "Woody" Guthrie is best known as an American singer-songwriter and folk musician, whose musical legacy includes hundreds of political, traditional and children's songs, ballads and improvised works. He frequently performed with the slogan This Machine Kills Fascists displayed on his...
, Robert Johnson
Robert Johnson
Robert Leroy Johnson was an American blues singer and musician. His landmark recordings from 1936–37 display a combination of singing, guitar skills, and songwriting talent that have influenced later generations of musicians. Johnson's shadowy, poorly documented life and death at age 27 have given...
, Hank Williams, and the performance styles of Buddy Holly
Buddy Holly
Charles Hardin Holley , known professionally as Buddy Holly, was an American singer-songwriter and a pioneer of rock and roll...
and Little Richard
Little Richard
Richard Wayne Penniman , known by the stage name Little Richard, is an American singer, songwriter, musician, recording artist, and actor, considered key in the transition from rhythm and blues to rock and roll in the 1950s. He was also the first artist to put the funk in the rock and roll beat and...
, Dylan has both amplified and personalized musical genres
Music genre
A music genre is a categorical and typological construct that identifies musical sounds as belonging to a particular category and type of music that can be distinguished from other types of music...
. His recording career, spanning fifty years, has explored numerous distinct traditions in American song—from folk
Folk music
Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....
, blues
Blues
Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...
and country
Country music
Country music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music...
to gospel
Gospel music
Gospel music is music that is written to express either personal, spiritual or a communal belief regarding Christian life, as well as to give a Christian alternative to mainstream secular music....
, rock and roll
Rock and roll
Rock and roll is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, primarily from a combination of African American blues, country, jazz, and gospel music...
, and rockabilly
Rockabilly
Rockabilly is one of the earliest styles of rock and roll music, dating to the early 1950s.The term rockabilly is a portmanteau of rock and hillbilly, the latter a reference to the country music that contributed strongly to the style's development...
, to English
Folk music of England
Folk music of England refers to various types of traditionally based music, often contrasted with courtly, classical and later commercial music, for which evidence exists from the later medieval period. It has been preserved and transmitted orally, through print and later through recordings...
, Scottish, and Irish folk music
Folk music of Ireland
The folk music of Ireland is the generic term for music that has been created in various genres in Ireland.-History:...
, embracing even jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
and swing.
Dylan performs with guitar, keyboards, 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
Never Ending Tour
The Never Ending Tour is the popular name for Bob Dylan’s endless touring schedule since June 7, 1988. During the past 23+ years, musicians have come and gone and the band has continued to evolve...
. His accomplishments as a recording artist and performer have been central to his career, but his greatest contribution is generally considered to be his songwriting.
Since 1994, Dylan has published three books of drawings and paintings, and his work has been exhibited in major art galleries. As a songwriter and musician, Dylan has received numerous awards over the years including Grammy, Golden Globe, and Academy Awards; he has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum is a museum located on the shore of Lake Erie in downtown Cleveland, Ohio, United States. It is dedicated to archiving the history of some of the best-known and most influential artists, producers, engineers and others who have, in some major way,...
, Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame
Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame
The Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame was established by the Nashville Songwriters Foundation, Inc. in Nashville, Tennessee, United States. A non-profit organization, its objective is to honor and preserve the songwriting legacy that is uniquely associated with music community in the city of...
, and Songwriters Hall of Fame
Songwriters Hall of Fame
The Songwriters Hall of Fame is an arm of the National Academy of Popular Music. It was founded in 1969 by songwriter Johnny Mercer and music publishers Abe Olman and Howie Richmond. The goal is to create a museum but as of April, 2008, the means do not yet exist and so instead it is an online...
. In 2008, a road called the Bob Dylan Pathway was opened in the singer's honor in his birthplace of Duluth
Duluth, Minnesota
Duluth is a port city in the U.S. state of Minnesota and is the county seat of Saint Louis County. The fourth largest city in Minnesota, Duluth had a total population of 86,265 in the 2010 census. Duluth is also the second largest city that is located on Lake Superior after Thunder Bay, Ontario,...
, Minnesota. The Pulitzer Prize
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...
jury in 2008 awarded him a special citation
Pulitzer Prize Special Citations and Awards
The Pulitzer Prize jury has the option of awarding special citations where they consider necessary.-Journalism awards:* 1924: A special prize of $1000 was awarded to the widow of Frank I. Cobb, New York World, in recognition of the distinction of her husband's editorial writing and service.* 1930:...
for "his profound impact on popular music and American culture, marked by lyrical compositions of extraordinary poetic power."
Origins and musical beginnings
Robert Allen Zimmerman (Hebrew name שבתי זסאל בן אברהם [Shabtai Zisel ben Avraham]) was born in St. Mary's Hospital on May 24, 1941, in DuluthDuluth, Minnesota
Duluth is a port city in the U.S. state of Minnesota and is the county seat of Saint Louis County. The fourth largest city in Minnesota, Duluth had a total population of 86,265 in the 2010 census. Duluth is also the second largest city that is located on Lake Superior after Thunder Bay, Ontario,...
, Minnesota, and raised in Hibbing, Minnesota, on the Mesabi Iron Range west of Lake Superior
Lake Superior
Lake Superior is the largest of the five traditionally-demarcated Great Lakes of North America. It is bounded to the north by the Canadian province of Ontario and the U.S. state of Minnesota, and to the south by the U.S. states of Wisconsin and Michigan. It is the largest freshwater lake in the...
. His paternal grandparents, Zigman and Anna Zimmerman, emigrated from Odessa
Odessa
Odessa or Odesa is the administrative center of the Odessa Oblast located in southern Ukraine. The city is a major seaport located on the northwest shore of the Black Sea and the fourth largest city in Ukraine with a population of 1,029,000 .The predecessor of Odessa, a small Tatar settlement,...
in the Russian Empire
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
(now Ukraine
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
) to the United States following the anti-Semitic pogrom
Pogrom
A pogrom is a form of violent riot, a mob attack directed against a minority group, and characterized by killings and destruction of their homes and properties, businesses, and religious centres...
s of 1905. His maternal grandparents, Benjamin and Lybba Edelstein, were Lithuanian Jews
Lithuanian Jews
Lithuanian Jews or Litvaks are Jews with roots in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania:...
who arrived in the United States in 1902. In his autobiography Chronicles: Volume One
Chronicles: Volume One
Chronicles, Volume One is the first part of Bob Dylan's planned 3-volume memoir. Published on October 5, 2004, by Simon & Schuster, the 304-page volume covers selected points from Dylan's long career. The book spent 19 weeks on the New York Times best-seller list for hardcover nonfiction books...
, Dylan writes that his paternal grandmother's maiden name was Kyrgyz and her family originated from Kars
Kars Province
Kars Province is a province of Turkey, located in the northeastern part of the country. It shares part of its border with the Republic of Armenia.The provinces of Ardahan and Iğdır were until the 1990s part of Kars Province.-History:...
, Turkey.
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 radio—first to blues
Blues
Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...
and country stations broadcasting from Shreveport
Shreveport, Louisiana
Shreveport is the third largest city in Louisiana. It is the principal city of the fourth largest metropolitan area in the state of Louisiana and is the 109th-largest city in the United States....
, Louisiana and, later, to early rock and roll
Rock and roll
Rock and roll is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, primarily from a combination of African American blues, country, jazz, and gospel music...
. He formed several bands while he attended Hibbing High School
Hibbing High School
Hibbing High School in Hibbing, Minnesota is a building listed on the National Register of Historic Places. As the Hull-Rust-Mahoning Mine expanded, iron ore was discovered under the existing town of Hibbing around 1918. The entire town of Hibbing was moved two miles south to make way for the...
. The Shadow Blasters was short-lived, but his next, The Golden Chords, lasted longer and played covers
Cover version
In popular music, a cover version or cover song, or simply cover, is a new performance or recording of a contemporary or previously recorded, commercially released song or popular song...
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 microphone off. In his 1959 school yearbook, Robert Zimmerman listed as his ambition "To follow Little Richard
Little Richard
Richard Wayne Penniman , known by the stage name Little Richard, is an American singer, songwriter, musician, recording artist, and actor, considered key in the transition from rhythm and blues to rock and roll in the 1950s. He was also the first artist to put the funk in the rock and roll beat and...
." The same year, using the name Elston Gunnn , he performed two dates with Bobby Vee
Bobby Vee
Robert Thomas Velline , known as Bobby Vee, is an American pop music singer. According to Billboard magazine, Vee has had 38 Hot 100 chart hits, 10 of which hit the Top 20.-Career:...
, playing piano and providing handclaps.
Zimmerman moved to Minneapolis in September 1959 and enrolled at the University of Minnesota
University of Minnesota
The University of Minnesota, Twin Cities is a public research university located in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, United States. It is the oldest and largest part of the University of Minnesota system and has the fourth-largest main campus student body in the United States, with 52,557...
, where his early focus on rock and roll gave way to an interest in American folk music. In 1985, Dylan explained the attraction that folk music had exerted on him:
He soon began to perform at the 10 O'clock Scholar, a coffee house a few blocks from campus, and became actively involved in the local Dinkytown folk music
Folk music
Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....
circuit.
During his Dinkytown days, Zimmerman began introducing himself as "Bob Dylan". In his autobiography, Dylan acknowledged that he had been influenced by the poetry of Dylan Thomas
Dylan Thomas
Dylan Marlais Thomas was a Welsh poet and writer, Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 11 January 2008. who wrote exclusively in English. In addition to poetry, he wrote short stories and scripts for film and radio, which he often performed himself...
. Explaining his change of name in a 2004 interview, Dylan remarked: "You're born, you know, the wrong names, wrong parents. I mean, that happens. You call yourself what you want to call yourself. This is the land of the free."
Relocation to New York and record deal
Dylan dropped out of college at the end of his freshman year. In January 1961, he travelled to New York City, hoping to perform there and visit his musical idol Woody GuthrieWoody Guthrie
Woodrow Wilson "Woody" Guthrie is best known as an American singer-songwriter and folk musician, whose musical legacy includes hundreds of political, traditional and children's songs, ballads and improvised works. He frequently performed with the slogan This Machine Kills Fascists displayed on his...
, who was seriously ill with Huntington's Disease
Huntington's disease
Huntington's disease, chorea, or disorder , is a neurodegenerative genetic disorder that affects muscle coordination and leads to cognitive decline and dementia. It typically becomes noticeable in middle age. HD is the most common genetic cause of abnormal involuntary writhing movements called chorea...
in Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital
Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital
Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital refers to both the former psychiatric hospital and the historic building that it occupied in Parsippany-Troy Hills Township .A new facility was built on the large Greystone campus and bears...
. Guthrie had been a revelation to Dylan and was the biggest influence on his early performances. Describing Guthrie's impact on him, Dylan later wrote: "The songs themselves had the infinite sweep of humanity in them ... [He] was the true voice of the American spirit. I said to myself I was going to be Guthrie's greatest disciple." As well as visiting Guthrie in the hospital, Dylan befriended Guthrie's acolyte Ramblin' Jack Elliott
Ramblin' Jack Elliott
Ramblin' Jack Elliott is an American folk singer and performer.-Life and career:Elliot Charles Adnopoz was born in Brooklyn, New York to Jewish parents in 1931. Elliott grew up inspired by the rodeos at Madison Square Garden, and wanted to be a cowboy...
. Much of Guthrie's repertoire was actually channeled through Elliott, and Dylan paid tribute to Elliott in Chronicles (2004).
From February 1961, Dylan played at various clubs around Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village, , , , .in New York often simply called "the Village", is a largely residential neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City. A large majority of the district is home to upper middle class families...
. In September, he gained some public recognition when Robert Shelton wrote a positive review in The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
of a show at Gerde's Folk City
Gerde's Folk City
Gerdes Folk City was a music venue in the West Village in New York City. Initially opened as a restaurant called Gerdes, by owner Mike Porco, it eventually began to present occasional incidental music. It was located at 11 West 4th Street , having moved in 1970 to 130 West 3rd Street before finally...
. The same month Dylan played harmonica on folk singer Carolyn Hester
Carolyn Hester
Carolyn Hester is an American folk singer and songwriter. She was a figure in the early 1960s folk music revival.-Biography:...
's eponymous third album, which brought his talents to the attention of the album's producer John Hammond
John H. Hammond
John Henry Hammond II was an American record producer, musician and music critic from the 1930s to the early 1980s...
. Hammond signed Dylan to Columbia Records
Columbia Records
Columbia Records is an American record label, owned by Japan's Sony Music Entertainment, operating under the Columbia Music Group with Aware Records. It was founded in 1888, evolving from an earlier enterprise, the American Graphophone Company — successor to the Volta Graphophone Company...
in October. The performances on his first Columbia album, Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan (album)
Bob Dylan is the debut album by the American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, released in March 1962 on Columbia Records. It features two original compositions, the rest being old folk standards, and was produced by Columbia's legendary talent scout John H...
(1962), consisted of familiar folk, blues and gospel
Gospel music
Gospel music is music that is written to express either personal, spiritual or a communal belief regarding Christian life, as well as to give a Christian alternative to mainstream secular music....
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. Within Columbia Records, some referred to the singer as "Hammond's Folly" and suggested dropping his contract. Hammond defended Dylan vigorously. In March 1962, Dylan contributed harmonica and back-up vocals to the album Three Kings and the Queen, accompanying Victoria Spivey
Victoria Spivey
Victoria Spivey was an American blues singer and songwriter. She is best known for her recordings of "Dope Head Blues" and "Organ Grinder Blues", and Spivey variously worked with her sister, Addie "Sweet Pease" Spivey, and with Bob Dylan, Lonnie Johnson, Louis Armstrong, King Oliver, Clarence...
and Big Joe Williams
Big Joe Williams
Joseph Lee Williams , billed throughout his career as Big Joe Williams, was an American Delta blues guitarist, singer and songwriter, notable for the distinctive sound of his nine-string guitar...
on a recording for Spivey Records
Spivey Records
Spivey Records was a specialist blues record label founded by blues singer Victoria Spivey and jazz historian Len Kunstadt in 1961. Spivey Records released a series of blues and jazz albums between 1961 and 1985.- History of Spivey Records :...
. While working for Columbia, Dylan also recorded several songs under the pseudonym Blind Boy Grunt, for Broadside Magazine
Broadside Magazine
Broadside Magazine was a small mimeographed publication founded in 1962 by Agnes "Sis" Cunningham and her husband, Gordon Friesen. Hugely influential in the folk-revival, it was often controversial. Issues of what is folk music, what is folk rock, and who is folk were roundly discussed and debated...
, a folk music magazine and record label. Dylan used the pseudonym Bob Landy to record as a piano player on the 1964 anthology album, The Blues Project, issued by Elektra Records
Elektra Records
Elektra Records is an American record label owned by Warner Music Group. In 2004, it was consolidated into WMG's Atlantic Records Group. After five years of dormancy, the label was revived by Atlantic in 2009....
. Under the pseudonym Tedham Porterhouse, Dylan contributed harmonica to Ramblin' Jack Elliott's
Ramblin' Jack Elliott
Ramblin' Jack Elliott is an American folk singer and performer.-Life and career:Elliot Charles Adnopoz was born in Brooklyn, New York to Jewish parents in 1931. Elliott grew up inspired by the rodeos at Madison Square Garden, and wanted to be a cowboy...
1964 album Jack Elliott
Jack Elliott (Ramblin' Jack Elliott album)
Jack Elliott is an album by American folk musician Ramblin' Jack Elliott, released in 1964. It was his only principal release on the Vanguard label.Bob Dylan appears playing harmonica as "Tedham Porterhouse"....
.
Albert Grossman
Albert Bernard Grossman was an American entrepreneur and manager in the American folk music scene and rock and roll. He was most famous as the manager of Bob Dylan between 1962 and 1970.-Biography:...
. Grossman remained Dylan's manager until 1970, and was notable both for his sometimes confrontational personality, and for the fiercely protective loyalty he displayed towards his principal client. Dylan subsequently said of Grossman, "He was kind of like a Colonel Tom Parker
Colonel Tom Parker
"Colonel" Thomas Andrew "Tom" Parker born Andreas Cornelis van Kuijk, was a Dutch-born entertainment impresario known best as the manager of Elvis Presley...
figure ... you could smell him coming." Tensions between Grossman and John Hammond
John H. Hammond
John Henry Hammond II was an American record producer, musician and music critic from the 1930s to the early 1980s...
led to Hammond being replaced as the producer of Dylan's second album by the young African American jazz producer Tom Wilson.
From December 1962 to January 1963, Dylan made his first trip to the United Kingdom. He had been invited by TV director Philip Saville
Philip Saville
Philip Saville is a British television direction and screenwriting from the late 1950s...
to appear in a drama, The Madhouse on Castle Street
The Madhouse on Castle Street
Madhouse on Castle Street is a British television play, broadcast by BBC Television on the evening of 13 January 1963, as part of the Sunday Night Play strand. It was written by Evan Jones and directed by Philip Saville...
, which Saville was directing for BBC Television
BBC Television
BBC Television is a service of the British Broadcasting Corporation. The corporation, which has operated in the United Kingdom under the terms of a Royal Charter since 1927, has produced television programmes from its own studios since 1932, although the start of its regular service of television...
. At the end of the play, Dylan performed "Blowin' in the Wind", one of the first major public performances of the song. The recording of The Madhouse on Castle Street was wiped
Wiping
Wiping or junking is a colloquial term for action taken by radio and television production and broadcasting companies, in which old audiotapes, videotapes, and telerecordings , are erased, reused, or destroyed after several uses...
by the BBC in 1968. While in London, Dylan performed at several London folk clubs, including Les Cousins
Les Cousins (music club)
Les Cousins was a folk and blues club in the basement of a restaurant in Greek Street, in the Soho district of London. It had its heyday during the British folk music revival of the mid-1960s and was notable as a venue in which musicians of that period met and learnt from each other...
, The Pinder of Wakefield
Monto Water Rats
Monto Water Rats, also known as The Monto and Water Rats, is a music venue at 328 Grays Inn Road, Kings Cross, London. Until 1992 it was known as The Pinder of Wakefield....
, and Bunjies
Bunjies
Opened in 1953 or 1954, and one of the original folk cafés of the 1950s/1960s, Bunjies Coffee House & Folk Cellar was situated at 27 Litchfield Street , London WC2. Below the café, in a 400 years old wine cellar, was an influential music venue which changed little until its closure in 1999...
. He also learned new songs from several UK performers, including Martin Carthy
Martin Carthy
Martin Carthy MBE is an English folk singer and guitarist who has remained one of the most influential figures in British traditional music, inspiring contemporaries such as Bob Dylan and Paul Simon and later artists such as Richard Thompson since he emerged as a young musician in the early days...
.
By the time Dylan's second album, The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan
The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan
The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan is the second studio album by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, released in May 1963 by Columbia Records. Whereas his debut album Bob Dylan had contained only two original songs, Freewheelin initiated the process of writing contemporary words to traditional melodies....
, 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 labeled protest song
Protest song
A protest song is a song which is associated with a movement for social change and hence part of the broader category of topical songs . It may be folk, classical, or commercial in genre...
s, inspired partly by Guthrie and influenced by Pete Seeger
Pete Seeger
Peter "Pete" Seeger is an American folk singer and was an iconic figure in the mid-twentieth century American folk music revival. A fixture on nationwide radio in the 1940s, he also had a string of hit records during the early 1950s as a member of The Weavers, most notably their recording of Lead...
's passion for topical songs. "Oxford Town", for example, was a sardonic account of James Meredith
James Meredith
James H. Meredith is an American civil rights movement figure, a writer, and a political adviser. In 1962, he was the first African American student admitted to the segregated University of Mississippi, an event that was a flashpoint in the American civil rights movement. Motivated by President...
's ordeal as the first black student to risk enrollment at the University of Mississippi
University of Mississippi
The University of Mississippi, also known as Ole Miss, is a public, coeducational research university located in Oxford, Mississippi. Founded in 1844, the school is composed of the main campus in Oxford, four branch campuses located in Booneville, Grenada, Tupelo, and Southaven as well as the...
.
Blowin' in the Wind
"Blowin' in the Wind" is a song written by Bob Dylan and released on his album The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan in 1963. Although it has been described as a protest song, it poses a series of questions about peace, war and freedom...
", partially derived its melody from the traditional slave song "No More Auction Block", while its lyrics questioned the social and political status quo. The song was widely recorded and became an international hit for Peter, Paul and Mary
Peter, Paul and Mary
Peter, Paul and Mary were an American folk-singing trio whose nearly 50-year career began with their rise to become a paradigm for 1960s folk music. The trio was composed of Peter Yarrow, Paul Stookey and Mary Travers...
, setting a precedent for many other artists who had hits with Dylan's songs. "A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall
A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall
"A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall" is a song written by Bob Dylan in the summer of 1962. It was first recorded in Columbia Records' Studio A on 6 December 1962 for his second album The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan. The lyric structure is based on the question and answer form of the traditional ballad "Lord...
" was based on the tune of the folk ballad "Lord Randall
Lord Randall
"Lord Randall", or "Lord Randal", is an Anglo-Scottish border ballad, a traditional ballad consisting of dialogue. The different versions follow the same general lines: the primary character is poisoned, usually by his sweetheart; this is revealed through a conversation where he reports on the...
". With its veiled references to nuclear apocalypse, it gained even more resonance when the Cuban missile crisis
Cuban Missile Crisis
The Cuban Missile Crisis was a confrontation among the Soviet Union, Cuba and the United States in October 1962, during the Cold War...
developed only a few weeks after Dylan began performing it. Like "Blowin' in the Wind", "A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall" marked an important new direction in modern songwriting, blending a stream-of-consciousness, imagist lyrical attack with a traditional folk form.
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, and the range of material on the album impressed many listeners, including The Beatles
The Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...
. George Harrison
George Harrison
George Harrison, MBE was an English musician, guitarist, singer-songwriter, actor and film producer who achieved international fame as lead guitarist of The Beatles. Often referred to as "the quiet Beatle", Harrison became over time an admirer of Indian mysticism, and introduced it to the other...
said, "We just played it, just wore it out. The content of the song lyrics and just the attitude—it was incredibly original and wonderful."
The rough edge of Dylan's singing was unsettling to some early listeners but an attraction to others. Describing the impact that Dylan had on her and her husband, Joyce Carol Oates
Joyce Carol Oates
Joyce Carol Oates is an American author. Oates published her first book in 1963 and has since published over fifty novels, as well as many volumes of short stories, poetry, and nonfiction...
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 electrifying." Many of his most famous early songs first reached the public through more immediately palatable versions by other performers, such as Joan Baez
Joan Baez
Joan Chandos Baez is an American folk singer, songwriter, musician and a prominent activist in the fields of human rights, peace and environmental justice....
, who became Dylan's advocate, as well as his lover. Baez was influential in bringing Dylan to national and international prominence by recording several of his early songs and inviting him onstage during her own concerts.
Others who recorded and had hits with Dylan's songs in the early and mid-1960s included The Byrds
The Byrds
The Byrds were an American rock band, formed in Los Angeles, California in 1964. The band underwent multiple line-up changes throughout its existence, with frontman Roger McGuinn remaining the sole consistent member until the group disbanded in 1973...
; Sonny and Cher; The Hollies
The Hollies
The Hollies are an English pop and rock group, formed in Manchester in the early 1960s, though most of the band members are from throughout East Lancashire. Known for their distinctive vocal harmony style, they became one of the leading British groups of the 1960s and 1970s...
; Peter, Paul and Mary
Peter, Paul and Mary
Peter, Paul and Mary were an American folk-singing trio whose nearly 50-year career began with their rise to become a paradigm for 1960s folk music. The trio was composed of Peter Yarrow, Paul Stookey and Mary Travers...
; The Association
The Association
The Association is a pop music band from California in the folk rock or soft rock genre. During the 1960s, they had numerous hits at or near the top of the Billboard charts and were the lead-off band at 1967's Monterey Pop Festival...
; Manfred Mann
Manfred Mann
Manfred Mann was a British beat, rhythm and blues and pop band of the 1960s, named after their South African keyboardist, Manfred Mann, who later led the successful 1970s group Manfred Mann's Earth Band...
; and The Turtles
The Turtles
The Turtles are an American rock group led by vocalists Howard Kaylan and Mark Volman. The band became notable for several Top 40 hits beginning with its cover version of Bob Dylan's "It Ain't Me Babe" in 1965...
. 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 became so ubiquitous that CBS
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
started to promote him with the tag "Nobody Sings Dylan Like Dylan."
"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
Rockabilly
Rockabilly is one of the earliest styles of rock and roll music, dating to the early 1950s.The term rockabilly is a portmanteau of rock and hillbilly, the latter a reference to the country music that contributed strongly to the style's development...
sound. Cameron Crowe
Cameron Crowe
Cameron Bruce Crowe is an American screenwriter and film director. Before moving into the film industry, Crowe was a contributing editor at Rolling Stone magazine, for which he still frequently writes....
described it as "a fascinating look at a folk artist with his mind wandering towards Elvis Presley
Elvis Presley
Elvis Aaron Presley was one of the most popular American singers of the 20th century. A cultural icon, he is widely known by the single name Elvis. He is often referred to as the "King of Rock and Roll" or simply "the King"....
and Sun Records
Sun Records
Sun Records is a record label founded in Memphis, Tennessee, starting operations on March 27, 1952.Founded by Sam Phillips, Sun Records was known for giving notable musicians such as Elvis Presley , Carl Perkins, Roy Orbison, and Johnny Cash...
."
Protest and Another Side
In May 1963, Dylan's political profile was raised when he walked out of The Ed Sullivan ShowThe Ed Sullivan Show
The Ed Sullivan Show is an American TV variety show that originally ran on CBS from Sunday June 20, 1948 to Sunday June 6, 1971, and was hosted by New York entertainment columnist Ed Sullivan....
. During rehearsals, Dylan had been informed by CBS Television's "head of program practices" that the song he was planning to perform, "Talkin' John Birch Paranoid Blues
Talkin' John Birch Paranoid Blues
Talkin' John Birch Paranoid Blues, also known as Talkin' John Birch Society Blues and Talkin' John Birch Blues, is a talking blues song written by singer-songwriter Bob Dylan in 1962. It is a satirical song, in which a paranoid narrator is convinced that communists, or "Reds" as he calls them, are...
", was potentially libelous to the John Birch Society
John Birch Society
The John Birch Society is an American political advocacy group that supports anti-communism, limited government, a Constitutional Republic and personal freedom. It has been described as radical right-wing....
. Rather than comply with the censorship, Dylan refused to appear on the program.
By this time, Dylan and Baez were both prominent in the civil rights movement
Civil rights movement
The civil rights movement was a worldwide political movement for equality before the law occurring between approximately 1950 and 1980. In many situations it took the form of campaigns of civil resistance aimed at achieving change by nonviolent forms of resistance. In some situations it was...
, singing together at the March on Washington
March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom
The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom was the largest political rally for human rights in United States history and called for civil and economic rights for African Americans. It took place in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday, August 28, 1963. Martin Luther King, Jr...
on August 28, 1963. Dylan's third album, The Times They Are a-Changin'
The Times They Are a-Changin'
The Times They Are a-Changin opens with the title track, one of Dylan's most famous songs. Dylan's friend, Tony Glover, recalls visiting Dylan's apartment in September 1963, where he saw a number of song manuscripts and poems lying on a table. "The Times They Are a-Changin'" had yet to be recorded,...
, reflected a more politicized and cynical Dylan. The songs often took as their subject matter contemporary, real life stories, with "Only A Pawn In Their Game" addressing the murder of civil rights worker Medgar Evers
Medgar Evers
Medgar Wiley Evers was an African American civil rights activist from Mississippi involved in efforts to overturn segregation at the University of Mississippi...
; and the Brechtian
Bertolt Brecht
Bertolt Brecht was a German poet, playwright, and theatre director.An influential theatre practitioner of the 20th century, Brecht made equally significant contributions to dramaturgy and theatrical production, the latter particularly through the seismic impact of the tours undertaken by the...
"The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll
The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll
"The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll" is a topical song written by the American musician Bob Dylan. Recorded on October 23, 1963, the song was released on Dylan's 1964 album The Times They Are a-Changin and gives a generally factual account of the killing of 51-year-old barmaid Hattie Carroll by...
" the death of black hotel barmaid Hattie Carroll, at the hands of young white socialite William Zantzinger. On a more general theme, "Ballad of Hollis Brown
Ballad of Hollis Brown
"Ballad of Hollis Brown" is a blues song written by Bob Dylan, released in 1964 on his third album The Times They Are A-Changin. The song tells the story of a South Dakota farmer, who overwhelmed by the desperation of poverty, kills his wife, children and then himself.- Structure :Musically, this...
" and "North Country Blues
North Country Blues
"North Country Blues" is a song by Bob Dylan, released on his third studio album The Times They Are a-Changin in 1964. He also performed it at the 1963 Newport Folk Festival....
" 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".
By the end of 1963, Dylan felt both manipulated and constrained by the folk and protest movements. These tensions were publicly displayed when, accepting the "Tom Paine
Thomas Paine
Thomas "Tom" Paine was an English author, pamphleteer, radical, inventor, intellectual, revolutionary, and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States...
Award" from the National Emergency Civil Liberties Committee
National Emergency Civil Liberties Committee
The National Emergency Civil Liberties Committee was an organization formed in 1951 to "to reestablish the freedoms guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution and The Bill of Rights", and was called the Emergency Civil Liberties Committee until 1968...
shortly after the assassination of John F. Kennedy
John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....
, an intoxicated Dylan brashly questioned the role of the committee, characterized the members as old and balding, and claimed to see something of himself (and of every man) in Kennedy's alleged assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald
Lee Harvey Oswald
Lee Harvey Oswald was, according to four government investigations,These were investigations by: the Federal Bureau of Investigation , the Warren Commission , the House Select Committee on Assassinations , and the Dallas Police Department. the sniper who assassinated John F...
.
Another Side of Bob Dylan
Another Side of Bob Dylan
Another Side of Bob Dylan is the fourth studio album by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan. It was released August 8, 1964 by Columbia Records....
, recorded on a single June evening in 1964, had a lighter mood than its predecessor. The surreal, humorous Dylan reemerged on "I Shall Be Free #10" and "Motorpsycho Nightmare". "Spanish Harlem Incident
Spanish Harlem Incident
"Spanish Harlem Incident" is a song written and performed by Bob Dylan and was released on his 1964 album, Another Side of Bob Dylan, on August 8, 1964 . The song has been described as a "a gorgeous vignette" by critics and been praised for its multilayered, poetic dimensions...
" and "To Ramona
To Ramona
"To Ramona" is a folk waltz written by Bob Dylan for his fourth studio album, Another Side of Bob Dylan. The song is one of the many on the album to highlight the more personal, and less political, side of Dylan's songwriting that would become evermore prominent in the future...
" are romantic and passionate love songs, while "Black Crow Blues
Black Crow Blues
"Black Crow Blues" is a song written by Bob Dylan, released on his 1964 album Another Side of Bob Dylan.Usually considered a minor work in Dylan's oeuvre, "Black Crow Blues" is the first song he released in which he plays the piano. In fact, that is the only accompaniment for his voice, as he is...
" and "I Don't Believe You (She Acts Like We Never Have Met)
I Don't Believe You (She Acts Like We Never Have Met)
"I Don't Believe You " is a 1964 song by Bob Dylan, from his fourth studio album, Another Side of Bob Dylan....
" suggest the rock and roll soon to dominate Dylan's music. "It Ain't Me Babe
It Ain't Me Babe
"It Ain't Me Babe" is the title of a 1964 song by Bob Dylan, first included on his album Another Side of Bob Dylan. The song's opening line is allegedly influenced by musicologist/folk-singer John Jacob Niles' composition "Go 'Way From My Window." Niles is referred to by Dylan as an early...
", on the surface a song about spurned love, has been described as a rejection of the role his reputation had thrust at him. His newest direction was signaled by two lengthy songs: the impressionistic
Impressionism
Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement that originated with a group of Paris-based artists whose independent exhibitions brought them to prominence during the 1870s and 1880s...
"Chimes of Freedom
Chimes of Freedom
"Chimes of Freedom" is a song written and performed by Bob Dylan and featured on his 1964 album Another Side of Bob Dylan , produced by Tom Wilson. It was written in early 1964 and was influenced by the symbolist poetry of Arthur Rimbaud. The song depicts the feelings and thoughts of the singer...
," which sets elements of social commentary
Social commentary
Social commentary is the act of rebelling against an individual, or a group of people by rhetorical means, or commentary on social issues or society...
against a denser metaphorical landscape in a style later characterized by Allen Ginsberg
Allen Ginsberg
Irwin Allen Ginsberg was an American poet and one of the leading figures of the Beat Generation in the 1950s. He vigorously opposed militarism, materialism and sexual repression...
as "chains of flashing images," and "My Back Pages
My Back Pages
"My Back Pages" is a song written by Bob Dylan and included on his 1964 album, Another Side of Bob Dylan. It is stylistically similar to his earlier folk protest songs and features Dylan's voice with an acoustic guitar accompaniment...
," 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 champions as he took a new direction.
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 by a Carnaby Street
Carnaby Street
Carnaby Street is a pedestrianised shopping street in London, United Kingdom, located in the Soho district, near Oxford Street and Regent Street. It is home to numerous fashion and lifestyle retailers, including a large number of independent fashion boutiques...
wardrobe, sunglasses day or night, and pointy "Beatle boots
Beatle boots
Beatle boots are a style of boot that have been worn since the 1960s. The boots are tight-fitting, Cuban-heeled, ankle-high boots with a sharp pointed toe, made popular by the English rock group The Beatles, for whom they were originally made. The style can feature either zipped or elastic sides...
". 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
Leicester Square
Leicester Square is a pedestrianised square in the West End of London, England. The Square lies within an area bound by Lisle Street, to the north; Charing Cross Road, to the east; Orange Street, to the south; and Whitcomb Street, to the west...
. He looks like an undernourished cockatoo
Cockatoo
A cockatoo is any of the 21 species belonging to the bird family Cacatuidae. Along with the Psittacidae and the Strigopidae , they make up the parrot order Psittaciformes . Placement of the cockatoos as a separate family is fairly undisputed, although many aspects of the other living lineages of...
." Dylan also began to spar in increasingly surreal ways with his interviewers. Appearing on the Les Crane
Les Crane
Les Crane , born Lesley Stein, was a radio announcer and television talk show host, a pioneer in interactive broadcasting who also scored a spoken word hit with his 1971 recording of the poem Desiderata, winning a "Best Spoken Word" Grammy.Born in Long Beach, New York , 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."
Going electric
Dylan's April 1965 album Bringing It All Back HomeBringing It All Back Home
Bringing It All Back Home is singer-songwriter Bob Dylan's fifth studio album, released in March 1965 by Columbia Records. The album is divided into an electric and an acoustic side. On side one of the original LP, Dylan is backed by an electric rock and roll band - a move that further alienated...
was yet another stylistic leap, featuring his first recordings made with electric instruments. The first single, "Subterranean Homesick Blues
Subterranean Homesick Blues
"Subterranean Homesick Blues" is a song by Bob Dylan, originally released in 1965 as a single on Columbia Records, catalogue 43242. It appeared 19 days later as the lead track to the album Bringing It All Back Home. It was Dylan's first Top 40 hit, peaking at #39 on the Billboard Hot 100. It also...
", owed much to Chuck Berry
Chuck Berry
Charles Edward Anderson "Chuck" Berry is an American guitarist, singer, and songwriter, and one of the pioneers of rock and roll music. With songs such as "Maybellene" , "Roll Over Beethoven" , "Rock and Roll Music" and "Johnny B...
's "Too Much Monkey Business
Too Much Monkey Business
"Too Much Monkey Business" is a song written and performed by rock and roll pioneer Chuck Berry. It was released as Chuck's fifth single in September 1956 for Chess Records, and appeared as the third track on Chuck's first solo LP, After School Session in May 1957, as well as the EP of the same name...
"; its free association lyrics have been described as both harkening back to the manic energy of Beat poetry and as a forerunner of rap
Rapping
Rapping refers to "spoken or chanted rhyming lyrics". The art form can be broken down into different components, as in the book How to Rap where it is separated into “content”, “flow” , and “delivery”...
and hip-hop. The song was provided with an early music video which opened D. A. Pennebaker
D. A. Pennebaker
Donn Alan Pennebaker is an American documentary filmmaker and one of the pioneers of Direct Cinema/Cinéma vérité. Performing arts and politics are his primary subjects.-Biography:...
's cinéma vérité
Cinéma vérité
Cinéma vérité is a style of documentary filmmaking, combining naturalistic techniques with stylized cinematic devices of editing and camerawork, staged set-ups, and the use of the camera to provoke subjects. It is also known for taking a provocative stance toward its topics.There are subtle yet...
presentation of Dylan's 1965 tour of England, Dont Look Back
Dont Look Back
Dont Look Back is a 1967 documentary film by D.A. Pennebaker that covers Bob Dylan's 1965 concert tour in the United Kingdom.In 1998, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically...
. Instead of miming to the recording, Dylan illustrated the lyrics by throwing cue cards containing key words from the song on the ground. Pennebaker has said the sequence was Dylan's idea, and it has been widely imitated in both music videos and advertisements.
The B side
A-side and B-side
A-side and B-side originally referred to the two sides of gramophone records on which singles were released beginning in the 1950s. The terms have come to refer to the types of song conventionally placed on each side of the record, with the A-side being the featured song , while the B-side, or...
of Bringing It All Back Home consisted of four long songs on which Dylan accompanied himself on acoustic guitar and harmonica. "Mr. Tambourine Man
Mr. Tambourine Man
"Mr. Tambourine Man" is a song written and performed by Bob Dylan, which was released on his 1965 album Bringing It All Back Home. The Byrds also recorded a version of the song that was released as their first single on Columbia Records, reaching number 1 on both the Billboard Hot 100 chart and...
" quickly became one of Dylan's best known songs when The Byrds
The Byrds
The Byrds were an American rock band, formed in Los Angeles, California in 1964. The band underwent multiple line-up changes throughout its existence, with frontman Roger McGuinn remaining the sole consistent member until the group disbanded in 1973...
recorded an electric version that reached number one in both the U.S. and the U.K. charts. "It's All Over Now Baby Blue" and "It's Alright Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)" were acclaimed as two of Dylan's most important compositions.
In the summer of 1965, as the headliner at the Newport Folk Festival
Newport Folk Festival
The Newport Folk Festival is an American annual folk-oriented music festival in Newport, Rhode Island, which began in 1959 as a counterpart to the previously established Newport Jazz Festival...
, Dylan performed his first electric set since his high school days with a pickup group drawn mostly from the Paul Butterfield Blues Band
Paul Butterfield
Paul Butterfield was an American blues vocalist and harmonica player, who founded the Paul Butterfield Blues Band in the early 1960s and performed at the original Woodstock Festival...
, featuring Mike Bloomfield
Mike Bloomfield
Michael Bernard "Mike" Bloomfield was an American musician, guitarist, and composer, born in Chicago, Illinois, who became one of the first popular music superstars of the 1960s to earn his reputation almost entirely on his instrumental prowess, since he rarely sang before 1969–70...
(guitar), Sam Lay
Sam Lay
Sam Lay is an American drummer and vocalist, who has been performing since the late 1950s.-Life and career:...
(drums) and Jerome Arnold (bass), plus Al Kooper
Al Kooper
Al Kooper is an American songwriter, record producer and musician, known for organizing Blood, Sweat & Tears , providing studio support for Bob Dylan when he went electric in 1965, and also bringing together guitarists Mike Bloomfield and Stephen Stills to...
(organ) and Barry Goldberg
Barry Goldberg
Barry Goldberg is a blues and rock keyboardist, songwriter and record producer.-Career:As a teenager in Chicago, Goldberg sat in with Muddy Waters, Otis Rush, and Howlin' Wolf. He played keyboards in the band supporting Bob Dylan during his 1965 'electrified' appearance at the Newport Folk Festival...
(piano). Dylan had appeared 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. One version of the legend has it that the boos were from the outraged folk fans whom Dylan had alienated by appearing, unexpectedly, with an electric guitar. Murray Lerner
Murray Lerner
Murray Lerner is an Academy Award-winning American documentary and experimental film director and producer.1967 saw the release of the film Festival...
, who filmed the performance, said: "I absolutely think that they were booing Dylan going electric." An alternative account claims audience members were merely upset by poor sound quality and a surprisingly short set. This account is supported by Kooper and one of the directors of the festival, who reports his audio recording of the concert proves that the only boos were in reaction to the emcee's announcement that there was only enough time for a short set.
Nevertheless, Dylan's 1965 Newport performance provoked a hostile response from the folk music establishment. In the September issue of Sing Out!
Sing Out!
Sing Out! is a quarterly journal of folk music and folk songs that has been published since May 1950.-Background:Sing Out! is the primary publication of the tax exempt, not-for-profit, educational corporation of the same name...
, singer Ewan MacColl
Ewan MacColl
Ewan MacColl was an English folk singer, songwriter, socialist, actor, poet, playwright, and record producer. He was married to theatre director Joan Littlewood, and later to American folksinger Peggy Seeger. He collaborated with Littlewood in the theatre and with Seeger in folk music...
wrote: "Our traditional songs and ballads are the creations of extraordinarily talented artists working inside disciplines formulated over time... 'But what of Bobby Dylan?' scream the outraged teenagers... Only a completely non-critical audience, nourished on the watery pap of pop music, could have fallen for such tenth-rate drivel." 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
Positively 4th Street
"Positively 4th Street" is a song written and performed by Bob Dylan, first recorded by Dylan in New York City on July 29, 1965. It was released as a single by Columbia Records on September 7, 1965, reaching #1 on Canada's RPM chart, #7 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100, and #8 on the UK Singles Chart...
". The lyrics teemed with images of vengeance and paranoia, and it was widely interpreted as Dylan's put-down of former friends from the folk community—friends he had known in the clubs along West 4th Street.
Highway 61 Revisited and Blonde on Blonde
In July 1965, Dylan released the single "Like a Rolling StoneLike a Rolling Stone
"Like a Rolling Stone" is a 1965 song by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan. Its confrontational lyrics originate in an extended piece of verse Dylan wrote in June 1965, when he returned exhausted from a grueling tour of England...
", which peaked at No.2 in the U.S. and at No.4 in the UK charts. At over six minutes, the song has been widely credited with altering attitudes about what a pop single could convey. Bruce Springsteen
Bruce Springsteen
Bruce Frederick Joseph Springsteen , nicknamed "The Boss," is an American singer-songwriter who records and tours with the E Street Band...
, in his speech during Dylan's inauguration into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum is a museum located on the shore of Lake Erie in downtown Cleveland, Ohio, United States. It is dedicated to archiving the history of some of the best-known and most influential artists, producers, engineers and others who have, in some major way,...
said that on first hearing the single, "that snare shot sounded like somebody'd kicked open the door to your mind". In 2004, and again in 2011, Rolling Stone Magazine listed it as number one on its list of "The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time
The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time
"The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time" was the cover story of a special issue of Rolling Stone, issue number 963, published December 9, 2004, a year after the magazine published its list of "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time"....
". The song also opened Dylan's next album, Highway 61 Revisited
Highway 61 Revisited
Highway 61 Revisited is the sixth studio album by singer-songwriter Bob Dylan. It was released in August 1965 by Columbia Records. On his previous album, Bringing It All Back Home, Dylan devoted Side One of the album to songs accompanied by an electric rock band, and Side Two to solo acoustic numbers...
, titled after the road that led from Dylan's Minnesota
Minnesota
Minnesota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. The twelfth largest state of the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.3 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state...
to the musical hotbed of New Orleans. The songs were in the same vein as the hit single, flavored by Mike Bloomfield
Mike Bloomfield
Michael Bernard "Mike" Bloomfield was an American musician, guitarist, and composer, born in Chicago, Illinois, who became one of the first popular music superstars of the 1960s to earn his reputation almost entirely on his instrumental prowess, since he rarely sang before 1969–70...
's blues guitar and Al Kooper
Al Kooper
Al Kooper is an American songwriter, record producer and musician, known for organizing Blood, Sweat & Tears , providing studio support for Bob Dylan when he went electric in 1965, and also bringing together guitarists Mike Bloomfield and Stephen Stills to...
's organ riffs. "Desolation Row
Desolation Row
"Desolation Row" is a 1965 song written and sung by Bob Dylan. It was recorded on August 4, 1965, and was released as the closing track of Dylan's sixth studio album, Highway 61 Revisited...
" offers the sole acoustic
Acoustic guitar
An acoustic guitar is a guitar that uses only an acoustic sound board. The air in this cavity resonates with the vibrational modes of the string and at low frequencies, which depend on the size of the box, the chamber acts like a Helmholtz resonator, increasing or decreasing the volume of the sound...
exception, with Dylan making surreal allusions to a variety of figures in Western culture during this epic song, which was described by Andy Gill as "an 11-minute epic of entropy, which takes the form of a Fellini-esque parade of grotesques and oddities featuring a huge cast of celebrated characters, some historical (Einstein, Nero
Nero
Nero , was Roman Emperor from 54 to 68, and the last in the Julio-Claudian dynasty. Nero was adopted by his great-uncle Claudius to become his heir and successor, and succeeded to the throne in 54 following Claudius' death....
), some biblical (Noah, Cain and Abel), some fictional (Ophelia, Romeo, Cinderella), some literary (T.S. Eliot and Ezra Pound
Ezra Pound
Ezra Weston Loomis Pound was an American expatriate poet and critic and a major figure in the early modernist movement in poetry...
), and some who fit into none of the above categories, notably Dr. Filth and his dubious nurse."
In support of the record, Dylan was booked for two U.S. concerts and set about assembling a band. Mike Bloomfield
Mike Bloomfield
Michael Bernard "Mike" Bloomfield was an American musician, guitarist, and composer, born in Chicago, Illinois, who became one of the first popular music superstars of the 1960s to earn his reputation almost entirely on his instrumental prowess, since he rarely sang before 1969–70...
was unwilling to leave the Butterfield Band, so Dylan mixed Al Kooper and Harvey Brooks
Harvey Brooks
Harvey Brooks is an American bassist. He has played in many styles of music...
from his studio crew with bar-band stalwarts Robbie Robertson
Robbie Robertson
Robbie Robertson, OC; is a Canadian singer-songwriter, and guitarist. He is best known for his membership as the guitarist and primary songwriter within The Band. He was ranked 59th in Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time...
and Levon Helm
Levon Helm
Mark Lavon "Levon" Helm , is an American rock multi-instrumentalist and actor who achieved fame as the drummer and frequent lead and backing vocalist for The Band....
, best known at the time for being part of Ronnie Hawkins
Ronnie Hawkins
Ronald "Ronnie" Hawkins is a Juno Award-winning rockabilly musician whose career has spanned more than half a century. Though his career began in Arkansas, USA, where he'd been born and raised, it was in Ontario, Canada where he found success and settled for most of his life...
's backing band The Hawks (later to become The Band
The Band
The Band was an acclaimed and influential roots rock group. The original group consisted of Rick Danko , Garth Hudson , Richard Manuel , and Robbie Robertson , and Levon Helm...
). On August 28 at Forest Hills Tennis Stadium, the group was heckled by an audience still annoyed by Dylan's electric sound. The band's reception on September 3 at the Hollywood Bowl
Hollywood Bowl
The Hollywood Bowl is a modern amphitheater in the Hollywood area of Los Angeles, California, United States that is used primarily for music performances...
was more favorable.
While Dylan and the Hawks met increasingly receptive audiences on tour, their studio efforts floundered. Producer Bob Johnston
Bob Johnston
Donald William Robert 'Bob' Johnston is a noted American record producer, best known for his work with Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, Leonard Cohen, Willie Nelson and many Nashville recording artists, as well as Simon and Garfunkel.-Early days:Johnston was born into a professional musical family...
persuaded Dylan to record in Nashville
Nashville, Tennessee
Nashville is the capital of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the county seat of Davidson County. It is located on the Cumberland River in Davidson County, in the north-central part of the state. The city is a center for the health care, publishing, banking and transportation industries, and is home...
in February 1966, and surrounded him with a cadre of top-notch session men. At Dylan's insistence, Robertson and Kooper came down from New York City to play on the sessions. The Nashville sessions produced the double-album Blonde on Blonde
Blonde on Blonde
Blonde on Blonde is American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan's seventh studio album, released in May or June 1966 on Columbia Records and produced by Bob Johnston. Recording sessions commenced in New York in October 1965, with a plethora of backing musicians, including members of Dylan's live backing...
(1966), featuring what Dylan later called "that thin wild mercury sound". Al Kooper described the album as "taking two cultures and smashing them together with a huge explosion": the musical world of Nashville and the world of the "quintessential New York hipster" Bob Dylan.
On November 22, 1965, Dylan secretly married 25-year-old former model Sara Lownds
Sara Dylan
Sara Dylan , born Shirley Marlin Noznisky and later known as Sara Lownds, was the first wife of singer-songwriter Bob Dylan and mother of singer Jakob Dylan. She was married to Bob Dylan from November 1965 until June 1977.-Early life:Little is known about Sara Dylan's early life or family...
. Some of Dylan's friends (including Ramblin' Jack Elliott
Ramblin' Jack Elliott
Ramblin' Jack Elliott is an American folk singer and performer.-Life and career:Elliot Charles Adnopoz was born in Brooklyn, New York to Jewish parents in 1931. Elliott grew up inspired by the rodeos at Madison Square Garden, and wanted to be a cowboy...
) claim that, in conversation immediately after the event, Dylan denied that he was married. Journalist Nora Ephron
Nora Ephron
Nora Ephron is an American film director, producer, screenwriter, novelist, playwright, journalist, author, and blogger.She is best known for her romantic comedies and is a triple nominee for the Academy Award for Writing Original Screenplay; for Silkwood, When Harry Met Sally... and Sleepless in...
first made the news public in the New York Post
New York Post
The New York Post is the 13th-oldest newspaper published in the United States and is generally acknowledged as the oldest to have been published continuously as a daily, although – as is the case with most other papers – its publication has been periodically interrupted by labor actions...
in February 1966 with the headline "Hush! Bob Dylan is wed."
Dylan undertook a world tour
Bob Dylan World Tour 1966
The Bob Dylan World Tour 1966 was a concert tour undertaken by American musician Bob Dylan, from February to May 1966. Dylan's 1966 World Tour was notable as the first tour where Dylan employed an electric band backing him, following his "going electric" at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival...
of Australia and Europe in the spring of 1966. Each show was split into two parts. Dylan performed solo during the first half, accompanying himself 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. The tour culminated in a famously raucous confrontation between Dylan and his audience at the Manchester Free Trade Hall
Free Trade Hall
The Free Trade Hall, Peter Street, Manchester, was a public hall constructed in 1853–6 on St Peter's Fields, the site of the Peterloo Massacre and is now a hotel. The hall was built to commemorate the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846. The architect was Edward Walters The hall subsequently was...
in England on May 17, 1966. An official recording of this concert was finally released in 1998: The Bootleg Series Vol. 4: Bob Dylan Live 1966. At the climax of the evening, a member of the audience, angered by Dylan's electric backing, shouted: "Judas
Judas Iscariot
Judas Iscariot was, according to the New Testament, one of the twelve disciples of Jesus. He is best known for his betrayal of Jesus to the hands of the chief priests for 30 pieces of silver.-Etymology:...
!" to which Dylan responded, "I don't believe you ... You're a liar!" Dylan turned to his band and said, "Play it fucking loud!" as they launched into the final song of the night—"Like a Rolling Stone."
During his 1966 tour, Dylan was frequently described as exhausted and acting "as if on a death trip". D. A. Pennebaker
D. A. Pennebaker
Donn Alan Pennebaker is an American documentary filmmaker and one of the pioneers of Direct Cinema/Cinéma vérité. Performing arts and politics are his primary subjects.-Biography:...
, the film maker accompanying the tour, described Dylan as "taking a lot of amphetamine and who-knows-what-else." In a 1969 interview with Jann Wenner
Jann Wenner
Jann Simon Wenner is the co-founder and publisher of the music and politics biweekly Rolling Stone, as well as the owner of Men's Journal and Us Weekly magazines.-Childhood:...
, Dylan said, "I was on the road for almost five years. It wore me down. I was on drugs, a lot of things... just to keep going, you know?" In 2011, BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4 is a British domestic radio station, operated and owned by the BBC, that broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history. It replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. The station controller is currently Gwyneth Williams, and the...
reported that, in an interview which Robert Shelton had taped in 1966, Dylan claimed that he had kicked a heroin habit in New York City: "I got very, very strung out for a while... I had about a $25-a-day habit and I kicked it." Some journalists questioned the validity of this confession, pointing out that Dylan had "been telling journalists wild lies about his past since the earliest days of his career."
Motorcycle accident and reclusion
After his European tour, Dylan returned to New York, but the pressures on him increased. ABC TelevisionAmerican Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
had paid an advance for a TV show they could screen. His publisher, Macmillan
Macmillan Publishers
Macmillan Publishers Ltd, also known as The Macmillan Group, is a privately held international publishing company owned by Georg von Holtzbrinck Publishing Group. It has offices in 41 countries worldwide and operates in more than thirty others.-History:...
, was demanding a finished manuscript of the poem/novel Tarantula
Tarantula (book)
Tarantula is an experimental novel by Bob Dylan, written between 1965 and 1966. It employs stream of consciousness writing, somewhat in the style of Jack Kerouac, William S. Burroughs, and Allen Ginsberg. One section of the book parodies the Leadbelly song "Black Betty"...
. Manager Albert Grossman
Albert Grossman
Albert Bernard Grossman was an American entrepreneur and manager in the American folk music scene and rock and roll. He was most famous as the manager of Bob Dylan between 1962 and 1970.-Biography:...
had already scheduled an extensive concert tour for that summer and fall.
On July 29, 1966, Dylan crashed his 500cc Triumph Tiger 100
Triumph Tiger 100
The Triumph Tiger 100 was a British motorcycle first made by Triumph at their Coventry factory for 1939.With the runaway sales success of the Triumph Speed Twin, Edward Turner's mind turned to further developing the potential of his new parallel twin motor...
motorcycle on a road near his home in Woodstock
Woodstock, New York
Woodstock is a town in Ulster County, New York, United States. The population was 5,884 at the 2010 census, down from 6,241 at the 2000 census.The Town of Woodstock is in the northern part of the county...
, New York, throwing him to the ground. Though the extent of his injuries were never fully disclosed, Dylan said that he broke several vertebrae in his neck. Mystery still surrounds the circumstances of the accident since no ambulance was called to the scene and Dylan was not hospitalized. Dylan's biographers have written that the crash offered Dylan the much-needed chance to escape from the pressures that had built up around him. Dylan confirmed this interpretation of the crash when he stated in his autobiography, "I had been in a motorcycle accident and I'd been hurt, but I recovered. Truth was that I wanted to get out of the rat race." In the wake of his accident, Dylan withdrew from the public and, apart from a few select appearances, did not tour again for eight years.
Once Dylan was well enough to resume creative work, he began editing film footage of his 1966 tour for Eat the Document
Eat the Document
Eat the Document is a documentary of Bob Dylan's 1966 tour of the United Kingdom with the Hawks. It was shot under Dylan's direction by D. A. Pennebaker, whose groundbreaking documentary Dont Look Back [sic] chronicled Dylan's 1965 British tour...
, a rarely exhibited follow-up to Dont Look Back
Dont Look Back
Dont Look Back is a 1967 documentary film by D.A. Pennebaker that covers Bob Dylan's 1965 concert tour in the United Kingdom.In 1998, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically...
. A rough-cut was shown to ABC Television
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
and was promptly rejected as incomprehensible to a mainstream audience. In 1967 he began recording music with the Hawks at his home and in the basement of the Hawks' nearby house, called "Big Pink". These songs, initially compiled as demos for other artists to record, provided hit singles for Julie Driscoll
Julie Driscoll
Julie Tippetts is an English singer and actress, known for her 1960s versions of Bob Dylan's "This Wheel's on Fire", and Donovan's "Season of the Witch", both with Brian Auger & The Trinity...
("This Wheel's on Fire
This Wheel's on Fire (song)
"This Wheel's on Fire" is a song written by Bob Dylan and Rick Danko. It was originally recorded by Dylan and The Band during their legendary 1967 sessions, portions of which comprised the 1975 album, The Basement Tapes...
"), The Byrds
The Byrds
The Byrds were an American rock band, formed in Los Angeles, California in 1964. The band underwent multiple line-up changes throughout its existence, with frontman Roger McGuinn remaining the sole consistent member until the group disbanded in 1973...
("You Ain't Goin' Nowhere
You Ain't Goin' Nowhere
"You Ain't Goin' Nowhere" is a song written by Bob Dylan in 1967 in Woodstock, New York, during the self-imposed exile from public appearances that followed his July 29, 1966 motorcycle accident. A recording of Dylan performing the song was first officially released on the Bob Dylan's Greatest...
", "Nothing Was Delivered"), and Manfred Mann
Manfred Mann
Manfred Mann was a British beat, rhythm and blues and pop band of the 1960s, named after their South African keyboardist, Manfred Mann, who later led the successful 1970s group Manfred Mann's Earth Band...
("Mighty Quinn"). Columbia belatedly released selections from them in 1975 as The Basement Tapes
The Basement Tapes
The Basement Tapes is a 1975 studio album by Bob Dylan and The Band. The songs featuring Dylan's vocals were recorded in 1967, eight years before the album's release, at houses in and around Woodstock, New York, where Dylan and the Band lived...
. Over the years, more and more of the songs recorded by Dylan and his band in 1967 appeared on various bootleg recording
Bootleg recording
A bootleg recording is an audio or video recording of a performance that was not officially released by the artist or under other legal authority. The process of making and distributing such recordings is known as bootlegging...
s, culminating in a five-CD bootleg set titled The Genuine Basement Tapes, containing 107 songs and alternate takes. In the coming months, the Hawks recorded the album Music from Big Pink
Music from Big Pink
Music from Big Pink is the 1968 debut album by rock band The Band. It features the well-known song, "The Weight". The music was composed partly in 'Big Pink', a house shared by Rick Danko, Richard Manuel, and Garth Hudson in West Saugerties, in upstate New York...
using songs they first worked on in their basement in Woodstock, and renamed themselves The Band
The Band
The Band was an acclaimed and influential roots rock group. The original group consisted of Rick Danko , Garth Hudson , Richard Manuel , and Robbie Robertson , and Levon Helm...
, thus beginning a long and successful recording and performing career of their own.
In October and November 1967, Dylan returned to Nashville
Nashville, Tennessee
Nashville is the capital of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the county seat of Davidson County. It is located on the Cumberland River in Davidson County, in the north-central part of the state. The city is a center for the health care, publishing, banking and transportation industries, and is home...
. Back in the recording studio after a 19-month break, he was accompanied only by Charlie McCoy
Charlie McCoy
Charles "Charlie" Ray McCoy is an American musician noted for his harmonica playing. In his career, McCoy has backed several notable musicians including Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, Tom Astor, Elvis Presley and Ween. He has also recorded thirty-seven studio albums, including fourteen for Monument Records...
on bass, Kenny Buttrey
Kenny Buttrey
Aaron Kenneth Buttrey was an American drummer and arranger. According to CMT, he was "one of the most influential session musicians in Nashville history"....
on drums, and Pete Drake
Pete Drake
Pete Drake , born Roddis Franklin Drake, was a major Nashville, Tennessee-based record producer and pedal steel guitar player....
on steel guitar. The result was John Wesley Harding
John Wesley Harding (album)
John Wesley Harding is singer-songwriter Bob Dylan's eighth studio album, released by Columbia Records in December 1967.Produced by Bob Johnston, the album marked Dylan's return to acoustic music and traditional roots, after three albums of electric rock music...
, 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-Christian
Judeo-Christian
Judeo-Christian is a term used in the United States since the 1940s to refer to standards of ethics said to be held in common by Judaism and Christianity, for example the Ten Commandments...
tradition seriously, marked a departure not only from Dylan's own work but from the escalating psychedelic fervor of the 1960s musical culture. It included "All Along the Watchtower
All Along the Watchtower
"All Along the Watchtower" is a song written and recorded by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan. The song, which has been included on most of Dylan's greatest hits compilations, initially appeared on his 1967 album John Wesley Harding. Over the past 35 years, he has performed it in concert more...
", with lyrics derived from the Book of Isaiah
Book of Isaiah
The Book of Isaiah is the first of the Latter Prophets in the Hebrew Bible, preceding the books of Ezekiel, Jeremiah and the Book of the Twelve...
(21:5–9). The song was later recorded by Jimi Hendrix
Jimi Hendrix
James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix was an American guitarist and singer-songwriter...
, whose version Dylan later acknowledged as definitive. Woody Guthrie
Woody Guthrie
Woodrow Wilson "Woody" Guthrie is best known as an American singer-songwriter and folk musician, whose musical legacy includes hundreds of political, traditional and children's songs, ballads and improvised works. He frequently performed with the slogan This Machine Kills Fascists displayed on his...
died on October 3, 1967, and Dylan made his first live appearance in twenty months at a Guthrie memorial concert held at Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States, located at 881 Seventh Avenue, occupying the east stretch of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street and West 57th Street, two blocks south of Central Park....
on January 20, 1968, where he was backed by The Band.
Dylan's next release, Nashville Skyline
Nashville Skyline
Nashville Skyline is singer-songwriter Bob Dylan's ninth studio album, released by Columbia Records in April 1969.The album marked a dramatic departure for Dylan, previously known for his groundbreaking, poetic folk music and rock and roll...
(1969), was virtually a mainstream country record featuring instrumental backing by Nashville
Nashville, Tennessee
Nashville is the capital of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the county seat of Davidson County. It is located on the Cumberland River in Davidson County, in the north-central part of the state. The city is a center for the health care, publishing, banking and transportation industries, and is home...
musicians, a mellow-voiced Dylan, a duet with Johnny Cash
Johnny Cash
John R. "Johnny" Cash was an American singer-songwriter, actor, and author, who has been called one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century...
, and the hit single "Lay Lady Lay
Lay Lady Lay
"Lay Lady Lay" is a song written by Bob Dylan and originally released in 1969 on his Nashville Skyline album. Like many of the tracks on the album, Dylan sings the song in a low croon, rather than in the high nasal singing style associated with his earlier recordings...
." Dylan and Cash also recorded a series of duets, including Dylan's "One Too Many Mornings
One Too Many Mornings
"One Too Many Mornings" is a song by Bob Dylan, released on his third studio album The Times They Are a-Changin in 1964. The chords and vocal melody are in some places very similar to the song "The Times They Are A-Changin'". "One Too Many Mornings" is in the key of C Major and is fingerpicked...
," but they were not used on the album.
In May 1969, Dylan appeared on the first episode of Johnny Cash
Johnny Cash
John R. "Johnny" Cash was an American singer-songwriter, actor, and author, who has been called one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century...
's new television show, duetting with Cash on "Girl from the North Country
Girl from the North Country
"Girl from the North Country" is a song written by Bob Dylan. It was first released in 1963 as the second track on Dylan's second studio album, The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan. Dylan re-recorded the song as a duet with Johnny Cash in 1969. That recording became the first track on Nashville Skyline,...
", "I Threw It All Away" and "Living the Blues". Dylan next travelled to England to top the bill at the Isle of Wight
Isle of Wight
The Isle of Wight is a county and the largest island of England, located in the English Channel, on average about 2–4 miles off the south coast of the county of Hampshire, separated from the mainland by a strait called the Solent...
rock festival on August 31, 1969, after rejecting overtures to appear at the Woodstock Festival
Woodstock Festival
Woodstock Music & Art Fair was a music festival, billed as "An Aquarian Exposition: 3 Days of Peace & Music". It was held at Max Yasgur's 600-acre dairy farm in the Catskills near the hamlet of White Lake in the town of Bethel, New York, from August 15 to August 18, 1969...
far closer to his home.
1970s
In the early 1970s, critics charged that Dylan's output was of varied and unpredictable quality. Rolling Stone magazine writer and Dylan loyalist Greil MarcusGreil Marcus
Greil Marcus is an American author, music journalist and cultural critic. He is notable for producing scholarly and literary essays that place rock music in a much broader framework of culture and politics than is customary in pop music journalism.-Life and career:Marcus was born in San Francisco...
notoriously asked "What is this shit?" upon first listening to 1970's Self Portrait
Self Portrait (Bob Dylan album)
Self Portrait is singer-songwriter Bob Dylan's tenth studio album, released by Columbia Records in June 1970.Self Portrait was Dylan's second double album, and features mostly cover versions of well-known pop and folk songs. Also included are a handful of instrumentals and original compositions...
. In general, Self Portrait, a double LP including few original songs, was poorly received. Later that year, Dylan released New Morning
New Morning
New Morning is singer-songwriter Bob Dylan's 11th studio album, released by Columbia Records in October 1970.Coming only four months after the controversial Self Portrait, the more concise and immediate New Morning won a much warmer reception from fans and critics. Most welcome was the return of...
, which some considered a return to form. In November 1968, Dylan had co-written "I'd Have You Anytime" with George Harrison
George Harrison
George Harrison, MBE was an English musician, guitarist, singer-songwriter, actor and film producer who achieved international fame as lead guitarist of The Beatles. Often referred to as "the quiet Beatle", Harrison became over time an admirer of Indian mysticism, and introduced it to the other...
; 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
All Things Must Pass
All Things Must Pass is a triple album by George Harrison, recorded and released in 1970. The original vinyl release featured two LPs of rock songs as well as Apple Jam, a third LP of informal jams...
. Dylan's surprise appearance at Harrison's 1971 Concert for Bangladesh attracted much media coverage, reflecting that Dylan's live appearances had become rare.
Between March 16 and 19, 1971, Dylan reserved three days at Blue Rock Studios, a small studio in New York's Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village, , , , .in New York often simply called "the Village", is a largely residential neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City. A large majority of the district is home to upper middle class families...
. These sessions resulted in one single, "Watching the River Flow
Watching the River Flow
"Watching the River Flow" is a blues song by Bob Dylan that was first released as an independent single. It was recorded during the March 16–18 sessions at the Blue Rock Studios in New York City, and was produced by Leon Russell. The recording was first issued as a single on June 3, 1971, backed...
", and a new recording of "When I Paint My Masterpiece
When I Paint My Masterpiece
"When I Paint My Masterpiece" is a song written by Bob Dylan and first featured on the Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits Vol. II compilation in 1971. The song is segued back-to-back with "Tomorrow is a Long Time" . Even though there is applause at the beginning of the song, it is in fact a studio recording...
". On November 4, 1971 Dylan recorded "George Jackson
George Jackson (song)
"George Jackson" is a song by Bob Dylan, written in 1971, in tribute to the Black Panther leader, George Jackson, who had been recently shot and killed by guards at San Quentin Prison on August 21, 1971, an event that indirectly provoked the Attica Prison riot...
", which he released a week later. For many, the single was a surprising return to protest material, mourning the killing of Black Panther
Black Panther Party
The Black Panther Party wasan African-American revolutionary leftist organization. It was active in the United States from 1966 until 1982....
George Jackson
George Jackson (Black Panther)
George Lester Jackson was an American convict who became a left-wing activist, Marxist, author, a member of the Black Panther Party, and co-founder of the Black Guerrilla Family prison gang...
in San Quentin Prison that summer. Dylan contributed piano and harmony vocals to Steve Goodman
Steve Goodman
Steve Goodman was an American folk music singer-songwriter from Chicago, Illinois. The writer of "City of New Orleans", made popular by Arlo Guthrie, Goodman won two Grammy Awards.-Personal life:...
's album, Somebody Else's Troubles, under the pseudonym Robert Milkwood Thomas in September 1972.
In 1972, Dylan signed onto Sam Peckinpah
Sam Peckinpah
David Samuel "Sam" Peckinpah was an American filmmaker and screenwriter who achieved prominence following the release of the Western epic The Wild Bunch...
's film Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid
Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid
Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid is a 1973 Western film directed by Sam Peckinpah and starring James Coburn and Kris Kristofferson. Co-star Bob Dylan composed multiple songs for the movie's score and the album Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid was released the same year.The film was noted for...
, providing songs and backing music for the movie, and playing the role of "Alias", a member of Billy's gang with some historical basis. 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.
Return to touring
David Geffen
David Geffen is an American record executive, film producer, theatrical producer and philanthropist. Geffen is noted for creating Asylum Records in 1970, Geffen Records in 1980, and DGC Records in 1990...
's Asylum Records
Asylum Records
Asylum Records is an American record label founded in 1971 by David Geffen, and partner Elliot Roberts, who had previously worked as agents at the William Morris Agency. Founded specifically to provide a record contract for Jackson Browne, the label signed Tom Waits, Linda Ronstadt, Joni Mitchell...
, when his contract with Columbia Records
Columbia Records
Columbia Records is an American record label, owned by Japan's Sony Music Entertainment, operating under the Columbia Music Group with Aware Records. It was founded in 1888, evolving from an earlier enterprise, the American Graphophone Company — successor to the Volta Graphophone Company...
expired. On his next album, Planet Waves
Planet Waves
Planet Waves is singer-songwriter Bob Dylan's 14th studio album, released by Asylum Records in January 1974....
, he used The Band
The Band
The Band was an acclaimed and influential roots rock group. The original group consisted of Rick Danko , Garth Hudson , Richard Manuel , and Robbie Robertson , and Levon Helm...
as backing group, while rehearsing for a major tour. The album included two versions of "Forever Young", which became one of his most popular songs. As one critic described it, the song projected "something hymnal and heartfelt that spoke of the father in Dylan", and Dylan himself commented: "I wrote it thinking about one of my boys and not wanting to be too sentimental." Biographer Howard Sounes
Howard Sounes
Howard Sounes is a British author, journalist and biographer.Howard Sounes began his career as a newspaper journalist as a staff reporter for the Sunday Mirror. He broke major stories concerning one of the most notorious murder cases in British criminal history, that of Fred West and Rosemary West...
noted that Jakob Dylan
Jakob Dylan
Jakob Luke Dylan is the lead singer and songwriter of the rock band The Wallflowers and is a son of singer-songwriter Bob Dylan and Sara Dylan. He has also recorded two solo albums.-Personal life:...
believed the song was about him.
Columbia Records simultaneously released Dylan, a haphazard collection of studio outtakes (almost exclusively cover songs), which was widely interpreted as a churlish response to Dylan's signing with a rival record label. In January 1974, Dylan returned to live touring after a break of seven years; backed by The Band, he embarked on a high-profile, coast-to-coast North American tour
Bob Dylan and The Band 1974 Tour
The Bob Dylan and The Band 1974 Tour was a two-month concert tour in early 1974 that featured Bob Dylan, in his first real tour in eight years, performing with The Band, who as The Hawks had once been his little-known backing band...
, playing 40 concerts. A live double album of the tour, Before the Flood
Before the Flood
Side threeSide four-Personnel:* Bob Dylan – vocal, guitars, harmonica, piano* Robbie Robertson – electric guitar, backing vocal* Richard Manuel – vocal, piano, electric piano, organ, drums* Garth Hudson – Lowrey organ, clavinet, piano, synthesizer, saxophone...
, was released on Asylum Records. Soon, Columbia Records sent word that they "will spare nothing to bring Dylan back into the fold". Dylan had second thoughts about Asylum, apparently miffed that while there had been millions of unfulfilled ticket requests for the 1974 tour, Geffen had managed to sell only 700,000 copies of Planet Waves. Dylan returned to Columbia Records, which subsequently reissued his two Asylum albums on their imprint.
After the tour, Dylan and his wife became publicly estranged. He filled a small red notebook with songs about relationships and ruptures, and quickly recorded a new album entitled Blood on the Tracks
Blood on the Tracks
Blood on the Tracks is Bob Dylan's 15th studio album, released by Columbia Records in January 1975. The album marked Dylan's return to Columbia after a two-album stint with Asylum Records....
in September 1974. Dylan delayed the album's release, however, and re-recorded half of the songs at Sound 80
Sound 80
Sound80 was a recording studio in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States founded by Tom Jung and Herb Pilhofer in 1969. Largely involved with local artists, the studio is best known for recording portions of Bob Dylan's Blood on the Tracks in 1974, but also made what is believed to be the first...
Studios in Minneapolis with production assistance from his brother David Zimmerman.
Released in early 1975, Blood on the Tracks
Blood on the Tracks
Blood on the Tracks is Bob Dylan's 15th studio album, released by Columbia Records in January 1975. The album marked Dylan's return to Columbia after a two-album stint with Asylum Records....
received mixed reviews. In the NME
NME
The New Musical Express is a popular music publication in the United Kingdom, published weekly since March 1952. It started as a music newspaper, and gradually moved toward a magazine format during the 1980s, changing from newsprint in 1998. It was the first British paper to include a singles...
, Nick Kent
Nick Kent
Nick Kent is a British rock critic and musician.-Career:Along with writers including Paul Morley, Charles Shaar Murray and Danny Baker, Nick Kent is seen as one of the most important and influential UK music journalists of the 1970s. He wrote for the British music publication New Musical Express,...
described "the accompaniments [as] often so trashy they sound like mere practice takes." In Rolling Stone, reviewer Jon Landau
Jon Landau
Jon Landau is an American music critic, manager and record producer, most known for his association in all three capacities with Bruce Springsteen.He is currently the head of the nominating committee for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame....
wrote that "the record has been made with typical shoddiness." However, over the years critics have come to see it as one of Dylan's greatest achievements, perhaps the only serious rival to his mid-60s trilogy of albums. In Salon.com
Salon.com
Salon.com, part of Salon Media Group , often just called Salon, is an online liberal magazine, with content updated each weekday. Salon was founded by David Talbot and launched on November 20, 1995. It was the internet's first online-only commercial publication. The magazine focuses on U.S...
, 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." Novelist Rick Moody
Rick Moody
Rick Moody is an American novelist and short story writer best known for the 1994 novel The Ice Storm, a chronicle of the dissolution of two suburban Connecticut families over Thanksgiving weekend in 1973, which brought widespread acclaim, became a bestseller, and was made into a feature film of...
called it "the truest, most honest account of a love affair from tip to stern ever put down on magnetic tape."
Rubin Carter
Rubin "Hurricane" Carter fought professionally as a middleweight boxer from 1961 to 1966. In 1966, he was arrested for a triple homicide in the Lafayette Bar and Grill in Paterson, New Jersey...
, who had been imprisoned for a triple murder committed in Paterson
Paterson, New Jersey
Paterson is a city serving as the county seat of Passaic County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, its population was 146,199, rendering it New Jersey's third largest city and one of the largest cities in the New York City Metropolitan Area, despite a decrease of 3,023...
, New Jersey, in 1966. After visiting Carter in jail, Dylan wrote "Hurricane
Hurricane (song)
"Hurricane" is a protest song by Bob Dylan co-written with Jacques Levy, about the imprisonment of Rubin "Hurricane" Carter. It compiles alleged acts of racism and profiling against Carter, which Dylan describes as leading to a false trial and conviction....
", presenting the case for Carter's innocence. Despite its 8:32 minute length, the song was released as a single, peaking at No.33 on the U.S. Billboard Chart
Billboard Hot 100
The Billboard Hot 100 is the United States music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on radio play and sales; the tracking-week for sales begins on Monday and ends on Sunday, while the radio play tracking-week runs from Wednesday...
, and performed at every 1975 date of Dylan's next tour, the Rolling Thunder Revue
Rolling Thunder Revue
The Rolling Thunder Revue was a famed U.S. concert tour consisting of a traveling caravan of musicians, headed by Bob Dylan, that took place in late 1975 and early 1976; the prevailing theory was that the tour was named after the Native American shaman Rolling Thunder. Others maintained that tour...
, named after the Shoshone
Shoshone
The Shoshone or Shoshoni are a Native American tribe in the United States with three large divisions: the Northern, the Western and the Eastern....
medicine man, shaman, teacher, and activist Rolling Thunder
Rolling Thunder (person)
Rolling Thunder was a Native American medicine man. He was born into the Cherokee nation and later moved to Nevada and lived with the Western Shoshone...
. The tour was a varied evening of entertainment featuring about one hundred performers and supporters drawn from the resurgent Greenwich Village folk scene, including T-Bone Burnett
T-Bone Burnett
Joseph Henry Burnett , widely known as T-Bone Burnett, is an American musician, songwriter, and soundtrack and record producer.He was a guitarist in Bob Dylan's band on the Rolling Thunder Revue...
, Ramblin' Jack Elliott
Ramblin' Jack Elliott
Ramblin' Jack Elliott is an American folk singer and performer.-Life and career:Elliot Charles Adnopoz was born in Brooklyn, New York to Jewish parents in 1931. Elliott grew up inspired by the rodeos at Madison Square Garden, and wanted to be a cowboy...
, Joni Mitchell
Joni Mitchell
Joni Mitchell, CC is a Canadian musician, singer songwriter, and painter. Mitchell began singing in small nightclubs in her native Saskatchewan and Western Canada and then busking in the streets and dives of Toronto...
, David Mansfield
David Mansfield
David Mansfield is an American violinist, mandolin player, guitarist, pedal steel guitar player, and composer....
, Roger McGuinn
Roger McGuinn
James Roger McGuinn is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist. He is best known for being the lead singer and lead guitarist on many of The Byrds' records...
, Mick Ronson
Mick Ronson
Michael "Mick" Ronson was an English guitarist, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, arranger and producer. He is best known for his work with David Bowie, as one of The Spiders from Mars...
, Joan Baez
Joan Baez
Joan Chandos Baez is an American folk singer, songwriter, musician and a prominent activist in the fields of human rights, peace and environmental justice....
, and violinist Scarlet Rivera
Scarlet Rivera
Scarlet Rivera is an American violinist. She is best known for her work with Bob Dylan, in particular on his album Desire and as part of the Rolling Thunder Revue.-Early career:...
, whom Dylan discovered while she was walking down the street, her violin case hanging on her back. Allen Ginsberg
Allen Ginsberg
Irwin Allen Ginsberg was an American poet and one of the leading figures of the Beat Generation in the 1950s. He vigorously opposed militarism, materialism and sexual repression...
accompanied the troupe, staging scenes for the film Dylan was simultaneously shooting. Sam Shepard
Sam Shepard
Sam Shepard is an American playwright, actor, and television and film director. He is the author of several books of short stories, essays, and memoirs, and received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1979 for his play Buried Child...
was initially hired to write the film's screenplay, but ended up accompanying the tour as informal chronicler.
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
Travel literature
Travel literature is travel writing of literary value. Travel literature typically records the experiences of an author touring a place for the pleasure of travel. An individual work is sometimes called a travelogue or itinerary. Travel literature may be cross-cultural or transnational in focus, or...
-like narrative style, showing the influence of his new collaborator, playwright Jacques Levy
Jacques Levy
Jacques Levy was an American songwriter, theatre director, and clinical psychologist.Levy was born in New York City in 1935, and attended its City College. He received a doctorate in psychology from Michigan State University. Levy was a trained psychoanalyst, certified by the Menninger Institute...
. 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 released until 2002's Live 1975
The Bootleg Series Vol. 5: Bob Dylan Live 1975, The Rolling Thunder Revue
The Bootleg Series Vol. 5: Bob Dylan Live 1975, The Rolling Thunder Revue is a live album by Bob Dylan released by Columbia Records in 2002. It documents the Rolling Thunder Revue, led by Bob Dylan prior to the release of the album Desire...
.
The fall 1975 tour with the Revue also provided the backdrop to Dylan's nearly four-hour film Renaldo and Clara
Renaldo and Clara
Renaldo and Clara is a surrealist movie, directed by and starring Bob Dylan. Filmed in 1975, during Dylan's Rolling Thunder Revue tour, it was released in 1978...
, a sprawling and improvised narrative, mixed with concert footage and reminiscences. Released in 1978, the movie received generally poor, sometimes scathing, reviews and had a very brief theatrical run. Later in that year, Dylan allowed a two-hour edit, dominated by the concert performances, to be more widely released.
In November 1976, Dylan appeared at The Band's "farewell" concert, along with other guests including Joni Mitchell
Joni Mitchell
Joni Mitchell, CC is a Canadian musician, singer songwriter, and painter. Mitchell began singing in small nightclubs in her native Saskatchewan and Western Canada and then busking in the streets and dives of Toronto...
, Muddy Waters
Muddy Waters
McKinley Morganfield , known as Muddy Waters, was an American blues musician, generally considered the "father of modern Chicago blues"...
, Van Morrison
Van Morrison
Van Morrison, OBE is a Northern Irish singer-songwriter and musician. His live performances at their best are regarded as transcendental and inspired; while some of his recordings, such as the studio albums Astral Weeks and Moondance, and the live album It's Too Late to Stop Now, are widely...
and Neil Young
Neil Young
Neil Percival Young, OC, OM is a Canadian singer-songwriter who is widely regarded as one of the most influential musicians of his generation...
. Martin Scorsese
Martin Scorsese
Martin Charles Scorsese is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, actor, and film historian. In 1990 he founded The Film Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to film preservation, and in 2007 he founded the World Cinema Foundation...
's acclaimed cinematic chronicle of this show, The Last Waltz
The Last Waltz
The Last Waltz was a concert by the rock group The Band, held on American Thanksgiving Day, November 25, 1976, at Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco...
, was released in 1978 and included about half of Dylan's set. In 1976, Dylan also wrote and duetted on the song "Sign Language" for Eric Clapton
Eric Clapton
Eric Patrick Clapton, CBE, is an English guitarist and singer-songwriter. Clapton is the only three-time inductee to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: once as a solo artist, and separately as a member of The Yardbirds and Cream. Clapton has been referred to as one of the most important and...
's No Reason To Cry
No Reason to Cry
No Reason to Cry is an album by Eric Clapton, released in 1976. No Reason to Cry was released in CD format on October 25, 1990. The album is notable for containing a duet with Bob Dylan on his otherwise unreleased song "Sign Language."...
.
In 1978, Dylan embarked on a year-long world tour
1978 Tour
The 1978 Tour was a concert tour by Bob Dylan. In 1978, Dylan embarked on a year-long world tour, performing 114 shows in Japan, the Far East, Europe and the US, to a total audience of two million people. For the tour, Dylan assembled an eight piece band, and was also accompanied by three backing...
, performing 114 shows in Japan, the Far East, Europe and the US, to a total audience of two million people. For the tour, Dylan assembled an eight piece band, and was also accompanied by three backing singers. Concerts in Tokyo in February and March were recorded and released as the live double album, Bob Dylan At Budokan
Bob Dylan at Budokan
Bob Dylan at Budokan is a live album by Bob Dylan, released in 1979 by Columbia Records. It was recorded during his 1978 world tour and is composed mostly of the artist's "greatest hits"...
. Reviews were mixed. Robert Christgau
Robert Christgau
Robert Christgau is an American essayist, music journalist, and self-proclaimed "Dean of American Rock Critics".One of the earliest professional rock critics, Christgau is known for his terse capsule reviews, published since 1969 in his Consumer Guide columns...
awarded the album a C+ rating, giving the album a derisory review, while Janet Maslin
Janet Maslin
Janet Maslin is an American journalist, best known as a film and literary critic for The New York Times. She served as the Times film critic from 1977–1999.- Biography :...
defended it in Rolling Stone, writing: "These latest live versions of his old songs have the effect of liberating Bob Dylan from the originals." When Dylan brought the tour to the US in September 1978, he was dismayed the press described the look and sound of the show as a 'Las Vegas Tour'. The 1978 tour grossed more than $20 million, and Dylan acknowledged to the Los Angeles Times that he had some debts to pay off because "I had a couple of bad years. I put a lot of money into the movie, built a big house ... and it costs a lot to get divorced in California."
In April and May 1978, Dylan went into the studio in Santa Monica
Santa Mônica
Santa Mônica is a town and municipality in the state of Paraná in the Southern Region of Brazil.-References:...
, California, to record an album of new material with the same large band and backing vocalists: Street-Legal. It was described by Michael Gray as, "after Blood On The Tracks, arguably Dylan's best record of the 1970s: a crucial album documenting a crucial period in Dylan's own life". However, it suffered from poor sound recording and mixing (attributed to Dylan's studio practices), muddying the instrumental detail until a remastered CD release in 1999 restored some of the songs' strengths.
Born-again period
In the late 1970s, Dylan became a born-again Christian and released two albums of Christian gospel music. Slow Train ComingSlow Train Coming
Slow Train Coming is singer-songwriter Bob Dylan's 19th studio album, released by Columbia Records in August 1979.It was the artist's first effort since becoming a born-again Christian, and all of the songs either express his strong personal faith, or stress the importance of Christian teachings...
(1979) featured the guitar accompaniment of Mark Knopfler
Mark Knopfler
Mark Freuder Knopfler, OBE is a Scottish-born British guitarist, singer, songwriter, record producer and film score composer. He is best known as the lead guitarist, vocalist, and songwriter for the British rock band Dire Straits, which he co-founded in 1977...
(of Dire Straits
Dire Straits
Dire Straits were a British rock band active from 1977 to 1995, composed of Mark Knopfler , his younger brother David Knopfler , John Illsley , and Pick Withers .Dire Straits' sound drew from a variety of musical influences, including jazz, folk, blues, and came closest...
) and was produced by veteran R&B producer, Jerry Wexler
Jerry Wexler
Gerald "Jerry" Wexler was a music journalist turned music producer, and was regarded as one of the major record industry players behind music from the 1950s through the 1980s...
. Wexler recalled that when Dylan had tried to evangelize him during the recording, he replied: "Bob, you're dealing with a sixty-two-year old Jewish atheist. Let's just make an album." The album won Dylan a Grammy Award
Grammy Award
A Grammy Award — or Grammy — is an accolade by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States to recognize outstanding achievement in the music industry...
as "Best Male Vocalist" for the song "Gotta Serve Somebody
Gotta Serve Somebody
"Gotta Serve Somebody" is a song by Bob Dylan from his 1979 studio album Slow Train Coming. It won the Grammy Award for Best Rock Vocal Performance by a Male in 1980. The song was recorded at Muscle Shoals Sound Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama. It stands as Dylan's last hit single, peaking at #24...
". The second evangelical album, Saved
Saved (album)
Saved is singer-songwriter Bob Dylan's 20th studio album, released by Columbia Records in June 1980.Saved was the second album of Dylan's "Christian trilogy," following his conversion to born-again Christianity. It expanded on themes explored on its predecessor, Slow Train Coming, with gospel...
(1980), received mixed reviews, and was described by Dylan critic Michael Gray as "the nearest thing to a follow-up album Dylan has ever made, Slow Train Coming II and inferior." 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:
Dylan's embrace of born-again Christianity was unpopular with some of his fans and fellow musicians. Shortly before his murder, John Lennon
John Lennon
John Winston Lennon, MBE was an English musician and singer-songwriter who rose to worldwide fame as one of the founding members of The Beatles, one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music...
recorded "Serve Yourself" in response to Dylan's "Gotta Serve Somebody". By 1981, Stephen Holden
Stephen Holden
Stephen Holden is an American writer, music critic, film critic, and poet.Holden earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from Yale University in 1963...
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 essentially iconoclastic temperament."
1980s
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 repertoire. Shot of LoveShot of Love
Shot of Love is singer-songwriter Bob Dylan's 21st studio album, released by Columbia Records in August 1981.It is generally considered to be Dylan's last of a trilogy of overtly religious, Christian albums. Also, it was his first since becoming born-again to focus on secular themes, from...
, recorded the next spring, featured Dylan's first secular compositions in more than two years, mixed with explicitly Christian songs; the song "Every Grain of Sand" reminded some critics of William Blake
William Blake
William Blake was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his lifetime, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of both the poetry and visual arts of the Romantic Age...
's verses.
In the 1980s the quality of Dylan's recorded work varied, from the well-regarded Infidels
Infidels
Infidels is singer-songwriter Bob Dylan's 22nd studio album, released by Columbia Records in October 1983.Produced by Mark Knopfler and Dylan himself, Infidels is seen as his return to secular music, following a conversion to Christianity and three evangelical, gospel records...
in 1983 to the panned Down in the Groove
Down in the Groove
Down in the Groove is singer-songwriter Bob Dylan's 25th studio album, released by Columbia Records in May 1988.A highly collaborative effort, it was Dylan's second consecutive album to receive almost unanimous negative reviews...
in 1988. Critics such as Michael Gray
Michael Gray (author)
Michael Gray is a British author who has written extensively about popular music.Gray grew up on Merseyside, attended Birkenhead School, and read History and English Literature at the University of York. Gray subsequently lived and worked in North Devon, Birmingham, West Malvern, London and North...
condemned Dylan's 1980s albums both for showing an extraordinary carelessness in the studio and for failing to release his best songs. The Infidels recording sessions, for example, produced several notable songs that Dylan left off the album. Most well regarded of these were "Blind Willie McTell
Blind Willie McTell (song)
"Blind Willie McTell" is a song by Bob Dylan, titled after the blues singer Blind Willie McTell. It was recorded in 1983 but left off Dylan's album Infidels and officially released in 1991 on the The Bootleg Series Volumes 1-3 1961-1991. The melody is loosely based on "St. James Infirmary Blues"...
", a tribute to the dead blues musician and an evocation of African American history
African American history
African-American history is the portion of American history that specifically discusses the African American or Black American ethnic group in the United States. Most African Americans are the descendants of captive Africans held in the United States from 1619 to 1865...
, "Foot of Pride" and "Lord Protect My Child". These three songs were later released on The Bootleg Series Volumes 1–3 (Rare & Unreleased) 1961–1991.
Between July 1984 and March 1985, Dylan recorded his next studio album, Empire Burlesque
Empire Burlesque
Empire Burlesque is singer-songwriter Bob Dylan's 23rd studio album, released by Columbia Records in June 1985. The album peaked at #33 in the US and #11 in the UK....
. Arthur Baker
Arthur Baker (musician)
Arthur Baker is an American record producer and DJ best known for his work with hip hop artists like Afrika Bambaataa, Planet Patrol, and the British group New Order.-Early career:...
, who had remixed hits for Bruce Springsteen
Bruce Springsteen
Bruce Frederick Joseph Springsteen , nicknamed "The Boss," is an American singer-songwriter who records and tours with the E Street Band...
and Cyndi Lauper
Cyndi Lauper
Cynthia Ann Stephanie "Cyndi" Lauper is an American singer, songwriter, actress and LGBT rights activist. She achieved success in the mid-1980s with the release of the album She's So Unusual and became the first female singer to have four top-five singles released from one album...
, 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 contemporary".
Dylan sang on USA for Africa
USA for Africa
USA for Africa was the name under which forty-seven predominantly U.S. artists, led by Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie, recorded the hit single "We Are the World" in 1985. The song was a US and UK Number One for the collective in April of that year...
's famine relief fundraising single "We Are the World
We Are the World
"We Are the World" is a song and charity single originally recorded by the supergroup USA for Africa in 1985. It was written by Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie, and produced by Quincy Jones and Michael Omartian for the album We Are the World...
". On July 13, 1985, he appeared at the climax at the Live Aid
Live Aid
Live Aid was a dual-venue concert that was held on 13 July 1985. The event was organized by Bob Geldof and Midge Ure to raise funds for relief of the ongoing Ethiopian famine. Billed as the "global jukebox", the event was held simultaneously in Wembley Stadium in London, England, United Kingdom ...
concert at JFK Stadium, Philadelphia. Backed by Keith Richards
Keith Richards
Keith Richards is an English musician, songwriter, and founding member of the Rolling Stones. Rolling Stone magazine said Richards had created "rock's greatest single body of riffs", and placed him as the "10th greatest guitarist of all time." Fourteen songs written by Richards and songwriting...
and Ronnie Wood, Dylan performed a ragged version of "Hollis Brown", his ballad of rural poverty, and then said to the worldwide audience exceeding 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." His remarks were widely criticized as inappropriate, but they did inspire Willie Nelson
Willie Nelson
Willie Hugh Nelson is an American country music singer-songwriter, as well as an author, poet, actor, and activist. The critical success of the album Shotgun Willie , combined with the critical and commercial success of Red Headed Stranger and Stardust , made Nelson one of the most recognized...
to organize a series of events, Farm Aid
Farm Aid
Farm Aid started as a benefit concert on September 22, 1985, in Champaign, Illinois, held to raise money for family farmers in the United States...
, to benefit debt-ridden American farmers.
In April 1986, Dylan made a brief foray into the world of rap music when he added vocals to the opening verse of "Street Rock", a song featured on Kurtis Blow
Kurtis Blow
Kurt Walker , better known by his stage name Kurtis Blow, is an American rapper and record producer. He is one of the first commercially successful rappers and the first to sign with a major record label...
's album Kingdom Blow. Dylan's next studio album, Knocked Out Loaded
Knocked Out Loaded
Knocked Out Loaded is singer-songwriter Bob Dylan's 24th studio album, released by Columbia Records in July 1986.The album was received poorly upon release, and is still considered by some critics to be one of Dylan's least-engaging efforts...
, was released in July 1986 and contained three cover songs (by Little Junior Parker
Junior Parker
Junior Parker was an American Memphis blues singer and musician. He is best remembered for his unique voice which has been described as "honeyed," and "velvet-smooth"...
, Kris Kristofferson
Kris Kristofferson
Kristoffer "Kris" Kristofferson is an American musician, actor, and writer. He is known for hits such as "Me and Bobby McGee", "For the Good Times", "Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down", and "Help Me Make It Through the Night"...
and the traditional gospel hymn "Precious Memories"), plus three collaborations with other writers (Tom Petty
Tom Petty
Thomas Earl "Tom" Petty is an American singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. He is the frontman of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers and was a founding member of the late 1980s supergroup Traveling Wilburys and Mudcrutch. He has also performed under the pseudonyms of Charlie T...
, Sam Shepard
Sam Shepard
Sam Shepard is an American playwright, actor, and television and film director. He is the author of several books of short stories, essays, and memoirs, and received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1979 for his play Buried Child...
and Carole Bayer Sager
Carole Bayer Sager
Carole Bayer Sager is an American lyricist, songwriter, singer, and painter.-Introduction:Born in New York City, Sager graduated from New York University, where she majored in English, dramatic arts and speech...
), and two solo compositions by Dylan. One reviewer commented that "the record follows too many detours to be consistently compelling, and some of those detours wind down roads that are indisputably dead ends. By 1986, such uneven records weren't entirely unexpected by Dylan, but that didn't make them any less frustrating." It was the first Dylan album since Freewheelin'
The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan
The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan is the second studio album by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, released in May 1963 by Columbia Records. Whereas his debut album Bob Dylan had contained only two original songs, Freewheelin initiated the process of writing contemporary words to traditional melodies....
(1963) to fail to make the Top 50. Since then, some critics have called the 11-minute epic that Dylan co-wrote with Sam Shepard, 'Brownsville Girl
Brownsville Girl
"Brownsville Girl" is a song from Bob Dylan's 1986 album, Knocked Out Loaded. It is notable for its eleven-minute and 5 second length and for being co-written by playwright Sam Shepard...
', a work of genius.
In 1986 and 1987, Dylan toured extensively with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers are an American rock band from Gainesville, Florida. They were formed in 1976 by Tom Petty , Mike Campbell , Benmont Tench , , Ron Blair and Stan Lynch...
, sharing vocals with Petty on several songs each night. Dylan also toured with The Grateful Dead
Grateful Dead
The Grateful Dead was an American rock band formed in 1965 in the San Francisco Bay Area. The band was known for its unique and eclectic style, which fused elements of rock, folk, bluegrass, blues, reggae, country, improvisational jazz, psychedelia, and space rock, and for live performances of long...
in 1987, resulting in a live album Dylan & The Dead
Dylan & The Dead
Dylan & the Dead is a collaborative live album by Bob Dylan and the Grateful Dead, released in 1989 by Columbia Records. It consists of seven songs written and sung by Dylan, with the Dead providing accompaniment. The album was produced by Jerry Garcia and John Cutler.Dylan & the Dead was...
. This album received some very negative reviews: Allmusic said, "Quite possibly the worst album by either Bob Dylan or the Grateful Dead." After performing with these musical permutations, Dylan initiated what came to be called The Never Ending Tour
Never Ending Tour
The Never Ending Tour is the popular name for Bob Dylan’s endless touring schedule since June 7, 1988. During the past 23+ years, musicians have come and gone and the band has continued to evolve...
on June 7, 1988, performing with a tight back-up band featuring guitarist G. E. Smith
G. E. Smith
George Edward "G. E." Smith is an American guitarist. He was the lead guitarist in the band Hall & Oates and the musical director of Saturday Night Live. Smith was lead guitarist of Bob Dylan's touring band from June 7, 1988 to October 19, 1990...
. Dylan continued to tour with this small but constantly evolving band for the next 20 years.
In 1987, Dylan starred in Richard Marquand
Richard Marquand
Richard Marquand was a Welsh film director best known for directing the 1983 blockbuster Star Wars film, Return of the Jedi.-Early life:...
's movie Hearts of Fire
Hearts of Fire
Hearts of Fire is a 1987 American musical drama film starring Bob Dylan, Fiona Flanagan and Rupert Everett. The film was essentially a vehicle for Dylan based on his success as a rock musician...
, in which he played Billy Parker, a washed-up-rock-star-turned-chicken farmer whose teenage lover (Fiona
Fiona (singer)
Fiona is an American rock music singer and actress best known as the love interest in the 1987 Bob Dylan vehicle, Hearts of Fire.-Life and career:...
) leaves him for a jaded English synth-pop sensation (played by Rupert Everett
Rupert Everett
Rupert James Hector Everett is an English actor. He first came to public attention in 1981, when he was cast in Julian Mitchell's play and subsequent film Another Country as an openly gay student at an English public school, set in the 1930s...
). 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
John Hiatt
John Hiatt is an American rock guitarist, pianist, singer, and songwriter. He has played a variety of musical styles on his albums, including New Wave, blues and country. Hiatt has been nominated for several Grammy Awards - although he has never won- and has been awarded a variety of other...
's "The Usual". The film was a critical and commercial flop.
Dylan was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum is a museum located on the shore of Lake Erie in downtown Cleveland, Ohio, United States. It is dedicated to archiving the history of some of the best-known and most influential artists, producers, engineers and others who have, in some major way,...
in January 1988, with Bruce Springsteen
Bruce Springsteen
Bruce Frederick Joseph Springsteen , nicknamed "The Boss," is an American singer-songwriter who records and tours with the E Street Band...
's introductory speech declaring, "Bob freed your mind the way Elvis freed your body. He showed us that just because music was innately physical did not mean that it was anti-intellectual.
When Dylan released the album Down in the Groove
Down in the Groove
Down in the Groove is singer-songwriter Bob Dylan's 25th studio album, released by Columbia Records in May 1988.A highly collaborative effort, it was Dylan's second consecutive album to receive almost unanimous negative reviews...
in May 1988, it was even more unsuccessful in its sales than his previous studio album. Michael Gray wrote: "The very title undercuts any idea that inspired work may lie within. Here was a further devaluing of the notion of a new Bob Dylan album as something significant." The critical and commercial disappointment of that album was swiftly followed by the success of the Traveling Wilburys
Traveling Wilburys
The Traveling Wilburys were an English–American supergroup consisting of Bob Dylan, George Harrison, Jeff Lynne, Roy Orbison and Tom Petty, accompanied by drummer Jim Keltner...
. Dylan co-founded the band with George Harrison
George Harrison
George Harrison, MBE was an English musician, guitarist, singer-songwriter, actor and film producer who achieved international fame as lead guitarist of The Beatles. Often referred to as "the quiet Beatle", Harrison became over time an admirer of Indian mysticism, and introduced it to the other...
, Jeff Lynne
Jeff Lynne
Jeffrey "Jeff" Lynne is an English songwriter, composer, arranger, singer, multi-instrumentalist, and record producer who gained fame as the leader and sole constant member of Electric Light Orchestra and was a co-founder and member of The Traveling Wilburys together with George Harrison, Bob...
, Roy Orbison
Roy Orbison
Roy Kelton Orbison was an American singer-songwriter, well known for his distinctive, powerful voice, complex compositions, and dark emotional ballads. Orbison grew up in Texas and began singing in a rockabilly/country & western band in high school until he was signed by Sun Records in Memphis...
, and Tom Petty
Tom Petty
Thomas Earl "Tom" Petty is an American singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. He is the frontman of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers and was a founding member of the late 1980s supergroup Traveling Wilburys and Mudcrutch. He has also performed under the pseudonyms of Charlie T...
, and in the fall of 1988 their multi-platinum Traveling Wilburys Vol. 1
Traveling Wilburys Vol. 1
Traveling Wilburys Vol. 1 is the debut album by the supergroup Traveling Wilburys and was recorded and released in 1988 to commercial success and critical acclaim.- Background :...
reached number three on the US album chart, featuring songs that were described as Dylan's most accessible compositions in years. Despite Orbison's death in December 1988, the remaining four recorded a second album in May 1990, which they released with the unexpected title Traveling Wilburys Vol. 3
Traveling Wilburys Vol. 3
Traveling Wilburys Vol. 3 is the 1990 follow-up album by the supergroup Traveling Wilburys to their 1988 debut Traveling Wilburys Vol. 1.-History:...
.
Dylan finished the decade on a critical high note with Oh Mercy
Oh Mercy
Oh Mercy is singer-songwriter Bob Dylan's 26th studio album, released by Columbia Records in September 1989.Produced by Daniel Lanois, it was hailed by critics as a triumph for Dylan, after a string of weaker-reviewed albums...
produced by Daniel Lanois
Daniel Lanois
Daniel Lanois born September 19, 1951 in Hull, Quebec) is a Canadian record producer, guitarist, vocalist, and songwriter. He has released a number of albums of his own work and has produced albums for a wide variety of artists, including Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Peter Gabriel, Emmylou Harris, Willie...
. Dylan critic Michael Gray wrote that the album was: "Attentively written, vocally distinctive, musically warm, and uncompromisingly professional, this cohesive whole is the nearest thing to a great Bob Dylan album in the 1980s." The track "Most of the Time", a lost love composition, was later prominently featured in the film High Fidelity
High Fidelity (film)
High Fidelity is a 2000 American comedy-drama film directed by Stephen Frears and starring John Cusack and the Danish actress Iben Hjejle. The film is based on the 1995 British novel of the same name by Nick Hornby, with the setting moved from London to Chicago and the name of the lead character...
, while "What Was It You Wanted?" has been interpreted both as a catechism and a wry comment on the expectations of critics and fans. The religious imagery of "Ring Them Bells" struck some critics as a re-affirmation of faith.
1990s
Dylan's 1990s began with Under the Red SkyUnder the Red Sky
Under the Red Sky is singer-songwriter Bob Dylan's 27th studio album, released by Columbia Records in September 1990.The album was largely greeted as a strange and disappointing follow-up to 1989's critically acclaimed Oh Mercy...
(1990), an about-face from the serious Oh Mercy. The album contained several apparently 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
Carolyn Dennis
Carolyn Dennis , sometimes known professionally as Carol Dennis or Carol Dennis-Dylan, is an American singer and actor best known for her work with and marriage to Bob Dylan.-Early life:...
, Desiree Gabrielle Dennis-Dylan, who was four at that time. Sidemen on the album included George Harrison
George Harrison
George Harrison, MBE was an English musician, guitarist, singer-songwriter, actor and film producer who achieved international fame as lead guitarist of The Beatles. Often referred to as "the quiet Beatle", Harrison became over time an admirer of Indian mysticism, and introduced it to the other...
, Slash
Slash (musician)
Saul Hudson , known by his stage name Slash, is a British-American musician and songwriter. He is best known as the former lead guitarist of the American hard rock band Guns N' Roses, with whom he achieved worldwide success in the late 1980s and early 1990s. During his later years with Guns N'...
from Guns N' Roses
Guns N' Roses
Guns N' Roses is an American hard rock band, formed in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, in 1985. The band has released six studio albums, three EPs, and one live album...
, David Crosby
David Crosby
David Van Cortlandt Crosby is an American guitarist, singer, and songwriter. In addition to his solo career, he was a founding member of three bands: The Byrds, Crosby, Stills & Nash , and CPR...
, Bruce Hornsby
Bruce Hornsby
Bruce Randall Hornsby is an American singer, pianist, accordion player, and songwriter. Known for the spontaneity and creativity of his live performances, Hornsby draws frequently from classical, jazz, bluegrass, folk, Motown, rock, blues, and jam band musical traditions with his songwriting and...
, Stevie Ray Vaughan
Stevie Ray Vaughan
Stephen Ray "Stevie Ray" Vaughan was an American electric blues guitarist and singer. He was the younger brother of Jimmie Vaughan and frontman for Double Trouble, a band that included bassist Tommy Shannon and drummer Chris Layton. Born in Dallas, Vaughan moved to Austin at the age of 17 and...
, and Elton John
Elton John
Sir Elton Hercules John, CBE, Hon DMus is an English rock singer-songwriter, composer, pianist and occasional actor...
. Despite the stellar line-up, the record received bad reviews and sold poorly.
In 1991, Dylan was honored by the recording industry with a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award
Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award
The Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award is awarded by the Recording Academy to "performers who, during their lifetimes, have made creative contributions of outstanding artistic significance to the field of recording."...
from American actor Jack Nicholson
Jack Nicholson
John Joseph "Jack" Nicholson is an American actor, film director, producer and writer. He is renowned for his often dark portrayals of neurotic characters. Nicholson has been nominated for an Academy Award twelve times, and has won the Academy Award for Best Actor twice: for One Flew Over the...
. The event coincided with the start of the Gulf War
Gulf War
The Persian Gulf War , commonly referred to as simply the Gulf War, was a war waged by a U.N.-authorized coalition force from 34 nations led by the United States, against Iraq in response to Iraq's invasion and annexation of Kuwait.The war is also known under other names, such as the First Gulf...
against Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti was the fifth President of Iraq, serving in this capacity from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003...
, and Dylan performed his song "Masters of War
Masters of War
"Masters of War" is a song by Bob Dylan, written over the winter of 1962-63 and released on the album The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan in the spring of 1963. The song's melody was adapted from the traditional "Nottamun Town"...
". Dylan then made a short speech that startled some of the audience.
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
Good as I Been to You
Good as I Been to You is singer-songwriter Bob Dylan's 28th studio album, released by Columbia Records in November 1992.It is composed entirely of traditional folk songs and covers, and is Dylan's first entirely solo, acoustic album since Another Side of Bob Dylan in 1964...
(1992) and World Gone Wrong
World Gone Wrong
World Gone Wrong is singer-songwriter Bob Dylan's 29th studio album, released by Columbia Records in October 1993.It was Dylan's second consecutive collection of only traditional folk songs, performed acoustically with guitar and harmonica...
(1993), featuring interpretations and acoustic guitar work. Many critics and fans commented on the quiet beauty of the song "Lone Pilgrim", penned by a 19th century teacher and sung by Dylan with a haunting reverence. In November 1994 Dylan recorded two live shows for MTV Unplugged
MTV Unplugged
MTV Unplugged is a TV series showcasing many popular musical artists usually playing acoustic instruments. The show has received the George Foster Peabody Award and 3 Primetime Emmy nominations among many accolades.-Unplugged:...
. He claimed his wish to perform a set of traditional songs for the show was overruled by Sony
Sony
, commonly referred to as Sony, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan and the world's fifth largest media conglomerate measured by revenues....
executives who insisted on a greatest hits package. The album produced from it, MTV Unplugged
MTV Unplugged (Bob Dylan album)
MTV Unplugged is a live album by Bob Dylan, released in 1995 by Columbia Records . It documents Dylan's appearance on the then-highly popular MTV Unplugged television series, recorded at Sony Music Studios in New York on November 17, 1994 and November 18, 1994...
, included "John Brown", an unreleased 1963 song detailing the ravages of both war and jingoism
Jingoism
Jingoism is defined in the Oxford English Dictionary as extreme patriotism in the form of aggressive foreign policy. In practice, it is a country's advocation of the use of threats or actual force against other countries in order to safeguard what it perceives as its national interests...
.
Daniel Lanois
Daniel Lanois born September 19, 1951 in Hull, Quebec) is a Canadian record producer, guitarist, vocalist, and songwriter. He has released a number of albums of his own work and has produced albums for a wide variety of artists, including Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Peter Gabriel, Emmylou Harris, Willie...
at Miami's Criteria Studios
Criteria Studios
Criteria Studios is a music-recording studio in Miami, Florida, started in 1958 by Mack Emerman.In 1999, The Hit Factory purchased Criteria Studios, revamping and reopening the studios under the new name The Hit Factory Criteria Miami.-Notable artists:...
in January 1997. The subsequent recording sessions were, by some accounts, fraught with musical tension. Late that spring, before the album's release, Dylan was hospitalized with a life-threatening heart infection, pericarditis
Pericarditis
Pericarditis is an inflammation of the pericardium . A characteristic chest pain is often present.The causes of pericarditis are varied, including viral infections of the pericardium, idiopathic causes, uremic pericarditis, bacterial infections of the precardium Pericarditis is an inflammation of...
, brought on by histoplasmosis
Histoplasmosis
Histoplasmosis is a disease caused by the fungus Histoplasma capsulatum. Symptoms of this infection vary greatly, but the disease primarily affects the lungs...
. His scheduled European tour was cancelled, but Dylan made a speedy recovery and left the hospital saying, "I really thought I'd be seeing Elvis
Elvis Presley
Elvis Aaron Presley was one of the most popular American singers of the 20th century. A cultural icon, he is widely known by the single name Elvis. He is often referred to as the "King of Rock and Roll" or simply "the King"....
soon." He was back on the road by midsummer, and in early fall performed before Pope John Paul II
Pope John Paul II
Blessed Pope John Paul II , born Karol Józef Wojtyła , reigned as Pope of the Catholic Church and Sovereign of Vatican City from 16 October 1978 until his death on 2 April 2005, at of age. His was the second-longest documented pontificate, which lasted ; only Pope Pius IX ...
at the World Eucharistic Conference in Bologna
Bologna
Bologna is the capital city of Emilia-Romagna, in the Po Valley of Northern Italy. The city lies between the Po River and the Apennine Mountains, more specifically, between the Reno River and the Savena River. Bologna is a lively and cosmopolitan Italian college city, with spectacular history,...
, Italy. The Pope treated the audience of 200,000 people to a homily based on Dylan's lyric "Blowin' in the Wind
Blowin' in the Wind
"Blowin' in the Wind" is a song written by Bob Dylan and released on his album The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan in 1963. Although it has been described as a protest song, it poses a series of questions about peace, war and freedom...
".
September saw the release of the new Lanois-produced album, Time Out of Mind
Time out of Mind
Time Out of Mind is the 30th studio album by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, released on September 30, 1997 on Columbia Records. It is his first double studio album since 1970's Self Portrait...
. With its bitter assessment of love and morbid ruminations, Dylan's first collection of original songs in seven years was highly acclaimed. One critic wrote: "the songs themselves are uniformly powerful, adding up to Dylan's best overall collection in years." This collection of complex songs won him his first solo "Album of the Year" Grammy Award
Grammy Award
A Grammy Award — or Grammy — is an accolade by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States to recognize outstanding achievement in the music industry...
.
In December 1997, U.S. President Bill Clinton
Bill Clinton
William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation...
presented Dylan with a Kennedy Center Honor in the East Room of the White House
White House
The White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., the house was designed by Irish-born James Hoban, and built between 1792 and 1800 of white-painted Aquia sandstone in the Neoclassical...
, 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."
2000s
Dylan commenced the new millennium by winning his first Oscar; his song "Things Have ChangedThings Have Changed
"Things Have Changed" is a song from the film Wonder Boys, written and performed by Bob Dylan. The song was released as a single on May 1, 2000...
", penned for the film Wonder Boys
Wonder Boys (film)
Wonder Boys is a dark comedy film based on the 1995 novel of the same title by Michael Chabon. Directed by Curtis Hanson, it stars Michael Douglas as professor Grady Tripp, a novelist who teaches creative writing at an unnamed Pittsburgh university...
, won an Academy Award in March 2001. The Oscar (by some reports a facsimile) tours with him, presiding over shows perched atop an amplifier.
"Love and Theft" was released on September 11, 2001. Recorded with his touring band, Dylan produced the album himself under the pseudonym Jack Frost. The album was critically well-received and earned nominations for several Grammy awards. Critics noted that Dylan was widening his musical palette to include rockabilly
Rockabilly
Rockabilly is one of the earliest styles of rock and roll music, dating to the early 1950s.The term rockabilly is a portmanteau of rock and hillbilly, the latter a reference to the country music that contributed strongly to the style's development...
, Western swing, jazz, and even lounge ballads. "Love and Theft" generated controversy when The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal is an American English-language international daily newspaper. It is published in New York City by Dow Jones & Company, a division of News Corporation, along with the Asian and European editions of the Journal....
pointed out similarities between the album's lyrics and Japanese author Junichi Saga's book Confessions of a Yakuza
Confessions of a Yakuza
is a book by Japanese doctor and author Junichi Saga . It recounts a series of stories from the life of Eiji Ijichi, a former Yakuza boss, as told to his doctor in the last months of his life...
.
In 2003, Dylan revisited the evangelical songs from his "born again" period and participated in the CD project Gotta Serve Somebody: The Gospel Songs of Bob Dylan
Gotta Serve Somebody: The Gospel Songs of Bob Dylan
Gotta Serve Somebody: The Gospel Songs of Bob Dylan is a tribute album released on the Sony/Columbia label in 2003, which features traditional and contemporary gospel singers performing songs written by Bob Dylan during his "born again" period...
. That year also saw the release of the film Masked & Anonymous, which Dylan co-wrote with director Larry Charles
Larry Charles
Larry Charles is an American writer, director, and producer. He is best known as a staff writer for the American sitcom Seinfeld for its first 5 seasons, contributing some of the show's darkest and most absurd storylines...
under the alias Sergei Petrov. Dylan played the central character in the film, Jack Fate, alongside a cast which included Jeff Bridges
Jeff Bridges
Jeffrey Leon "Jeff" Bridges is an American actor and musician. He won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his role as Otis "Bad" Blake in the 2009 film Crazy Heart....
, Penelope Cruz
Penélope Cruz
Penélope Cruz Sánchez is a Spanish actress. Signed by an agent at age 15, she made her acting debut at 16 on television and her feature film debut the following year in Jamón, jamón , to critical acclaim...
and John Goodman
John Goodman
John Stephen Goodman is an American film, television, and stage actor. He is best known for his role as Dan Conner on the television series Roseanne for which he won a Best Actor Golden Globe Award in 1993, and for appearances in the films of the Coen brothers, with prominent roles in Raising...
. The film polarised critics: many dismissed it as an "incoherent mess"; a few treated it as a serious work of art.
In October 2004, Dylan published the first part of his autobiography, Chronicles: Volume One
Chronicles: Volume One
Chronicles, Volume One is the first part of Bob Dylan's planned 3-volume memoir. Published on October 5, 2004, by Simon & Schuster, the 304-page volume covers selected points from Dylan's long career. The book spent 19 weeks on the New York Times best-seller list for hardcover nonfiction books...
. The book confounded expectations. Dylan devoted three chapters to his first year in New York City in 1961–1962, virtually ignoring the mid-'60s when his fame was at its height. He also devoted chapters to the albums New Morning
New Morning
New Morning is singer-songwriter Bob Dylan's 11th studio album, released by Columbia Records in October 1970.Coming only four months after the controversial Self Portrait, the more concise and immediate New Morning won a much warmer reception from fans and critics. Most welcome was the return of...
(1970) and Oh Mercy
Oh Mercy
Oh Mercy is singer-songwriter Bob Dylan's 26th studio album, released by Columbia Records in September 1989.Produced by Daniel Lanois, it was hailed by critics as a triumph for Dylan, after a string of weaker-reviewed albums...
(1989). The book reached number two on The New York Times Hardcover Non-Fiction best seller list in December 2004 and was nominated for a National Book Award
National Book Award
The National Book Awards are a set of American literary awards. Started in 1950, the Awards are presented annually to American authors for literature published in the current year. In 1989 the National Book Foundation, a nonprofit organization which now oversees and manages the National Book...
.
Martin Scorsese
Martin Scorsese
Martin Charles Scorsese is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, actor, and film historian. In 1990 he founded The Film Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to film preservation, and in 2007 he founded the World Cinema Foundation...
's acclaimed film biography No Direction Home
No Direction Home
No Direction Home is a documentary film by Martin Scorsese that traces the life of Bob Dylan, and his impact on 20th century American popular music and culture. The film does not cover Dylan's entire career; it concentrates on the period between Dylan's arrival in New York in January 1961 and his...
was broadcast in September 2005. It was shown on September 26–27, 2005, on BBC Two
BBC Two
BBC Two is the second television channel operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It covers a wide range of subject matter, but tending towards more 'highbrow' programmes than the more mainstream and popular BBC One. Like the BBC's other domestic TV and radio...
in the UK and PBS
Public Broadcasting Service
The Public Broadcasting Service is an American non-profit public broadcasting television network with 354 member TV stations in the United States which hold collective ownership. Its headquarters is in Arlington, Virginia....
in the US. The documentary focuses on the period from Dylan's arrival in New York in 1961 to his motorcycle crash in 1966, featuring interviews with Suze Rotolo
Suze Rotolo
Susan Elizabeth Rotolo , known as Suze Rotolo , was an American artist, but is perhaps best known as Bob Dylan's girlfriend between 1961 and 1964 and a strong influence on his music...
, Liam Clancy
Liam Clancy
William "Liam" Clancy was an Irish folk singer and actor from Carrick-on-Suir, County Tipperary. He was the youngest and last surviving member of performing group The Clancy Brothers. The group were regarded as Ireland's first pop stars...
, Joan Baez
Joan Baez
Joan Chandos Baez is an American folk singer, songwriter, musician and a prominent activist in the fields of human rights, peace and environmental justice....
, Allen Ginsberg
Allen Ginsberg
Irwin Allen Ginsberg was an American poet and one of the leading figures of the Beat Generation in the 1950s. He vigorously opposed militarism, materialism and sexual repression...
, Pete Seeger
Pete Seeger
Peter "Pete" Seeger is an American folk singer and was an iconic figure in the mid-twentieth century American folk music revival. A fixture on nationwide radio in the 1940s, he also had a string of hit records during the early 1950s as a member of The Weavers, most notably their recording of Lead...
, Mavis Staples
Mavis Staples
Mavis Staples is an American rhythm and blues and gospel singer, actress and civil rights activist who recorded with The Staple Singers, her family's band.-Biography:...
, and Dylan himself. The film received a Peabody Award
Peabody Award
The George Foster Peabody Awards recognize distinguished and meritorious public service by radio and television stations, networks, producing organizations and individuals. In 1939, the National Association of Broadcasters formed a committee to recognize outstanding achievement in radio broadcasting...
in April 2006 and a Columbia-duPont Award in January 2007. The accompanying soundtrack
The Bootleg Series Vol. 7: No Direction Home: The Soundtrack
The Bootleg Series Vol. 7: No Direction Home: The Soundtrack is the third most recent installment in the Bob Dylan "Bootleg Series" of rare and/or officially unissued recordings....
featured unreleased songs from Dylan's early career.
Dylan earned yet another distinction in a 2007 study of US legal opinions and briefs that found his lyrics were quoted by judges and lawyers more than those of any other songwriter, 186 times versus 74 by The Beatles
The Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...
, who were second. Among those quoting Dylan were US Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Antonin Scalia
Antonin Scalia
Antonin Gregory Scalia is an American jurist who serves as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. As the longest-serving justice on the Court, Scalia is the Senior Associate Justice...
, both conservatives. The most widely cited lines included "you don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows" from "Subterranean Homesick Blues
Subterranean Homesick Blues
"Subterranean Homesick Blues" is a song by Bob Dylan, originally released in 1965 as a single on Columbia Records, catalogue 43242. It appeared 19 days later as the lead track to the album Bringing It All Back Home. It was Dylan's first Top 40 hit, peaking at #39 on the Billboard Hot 100. It also...
" and "when you ain't got nothing, you got nothing to lose" from "Like a Rolling Stone
Like a Rolling Stone
"Like a Rolling Stone" is a 1965 song by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan. Its confrontational lyrics originate in an extended piece of verse Dylan wrote in June 1965, when he returned exhausted from a grueling tour of England...
".
Modern Times (2006–08)
May 3, 2006, was the premiere of Dylan's DJ career, hosting a weekly radio program, Theme Time Radio HourTheme Time Radio Hour
Theme Time Radio Hour was a weekly, one-hour satellite radio show hosted by Bob Dylan originally airing from May 2006 to April 2009...
, for XM Satellite Radio
XM Satellite Radio
XM Satellite Radio is one of two satellite radio services in the United States and Canada, operated by Sirius XM Radio. It provides pay-for-service radio, analogous to cable television. Its service includes 73 different music channels, 39 news, sports, talk and entertainment channels, 21 regional...
, with song selections revolving around a chosen theme. Dylan played classic and obscure records from the 1930s to the present day, including contemporary artists as diverse as Blur
Blur (band)
Blur is an English alternative rock band. Formed in London in 1989 as Seymour, the group consists of singer Damon Albarn, guitarist Graham Coxon, bassist Alex James and drummer Dave Rowntree. Blur's debut album Leisure incorporated the sounds of Madchester and shoegazing...
, Prince
Prince (musician)
Prince Rogers Nelson , often known simply as Prince, is an American singer, songwriter, musician, and actor. Prince has produced ten platinum albums and thirty Top 40 singles during his career. Prince founded his own recording studio and label; writing, self-producing and playing most, or all, of...
, L.L. Cool J and The Streets
The Streets
The Streets were a British rap/garage project from Birmingham, United Kingdom, led by vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Mike Skinner and has included a myriad of other contributors most notably drummer Johnny Drum Machine, vocalist Kevin Mark Trail and the Italian-American beatmaker Leroy.The...
. The show was praised by fans and critics as "great radio," as Dylan told stories and made eclectic references with his sardonic humor, while achieving a thematic beauty with his musical choices. In April 2009, Dylan broadcast the 100th show in his radio series; the theme was "Goodbye" and the final record played was Woody Guthrie's
Woody Guthrie
Woodrow Wilson "Woody" Guthrie is best known as an American singer-songwriter and folk musician, whose musical legacy includes hundreds of political, traditional and children's songs, ballads and improvised works. He frequently performed with the slogan This Machine Kills Fascists displayed on his...
"So Long, It's Been Good To Know Yuh". This has led to speculation that Dylan's radio series may have ended.
Modern Times (Bob Dylan album)
Modern Times is singer-songwriter Bob Dylan's 32nd studio album, released by Columbia Records in August 2006. The album was Dylan's third straight to be met with nearly universal praise from fans and critics...
album. Despite some coarsening of Dylan's voice (a critic for The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
characterised his singing on the album as "a catarrhal death rattle") most reviewers praised the album, and many described it as the final installment of a successful trilogy, embracing Time Out of Mind and "Love and Theft". Modern Times entered the U.S. charts at number one, making it Dylan's first album to reach that position since 1976's Desire. The New York Times published an article exploring similarities between some of Dylan's lyrics in Modern Times and the work of the Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
poet Henry Timrod
Henry Timrod
Henry Timrod was an American poet, often called the poet laureate of the Confederacy.-Biography:Timrod was born on December 8, 1828, in Charleston, South Carolina, to a family of German descent. His grandfather Heinrich Dimroth emigrated to the United States in 1765 and Anglicized his name...
.
Nominated for three Grammy Awards, Modern Times won Best Contemporary Folk/Americana Album
Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Folk Album
The Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Folk Album was awarded from 1987 to 2011. Until 1993 the award was known as the Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Folk Recording. In 2007, this category was renamed Best Contemporary Folk/Americana Album...
and Bob Dylan also won Best Solo Rock Vocal Performance
Grammy Award for Best Rock Vocal Performance, Solo
The Grammy Award for Best Solo Rock Vocal Performance was an award presented at the Grammy Awards, a ceremony that was established in 1958 and originally called the Gramophone Awards, to recording artists for works containing quality vocal performances in the rock music genre...
for "Someday Baby". Modern Times was named Album of the Year, 2006, by Rolling Stone magazine, and by Uncut
UNCUT (magazine)
Uncut magazine, trademarked as UNCUT, is a monthly publication based in London. It is available across the English-speaking world, and focuses on music, but also includes film and books sections...
in the UK. On the same day that Modern Times was released the iTunes Music Store released Bob Dylan: The Collection
Bob Dylan: The Collection
Bob Dylan: the Collection was the fourth iTunes complete digital album, following The Complete U2, The Complete Stevie Wonder, and The Complete Depeche Mode. It came with 763 songs and a 100-page digital booklet. The price was only $199.99, although iTunes usually charges $0.99 per song. This...
, a digital box set containing all of his albums (773 tracks in total), along with 42 rare and unreleased tracks.
In August 2007, the award-winning film biography of Dylan I'm Not There
I'm Not There
I'm Not There is a 2007 biographical musical film directed by Todd Haynes, inspired by iconic American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan. Six actors depict different facets of Dylan's life and public persona: Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett, Marcus Carl Franklin, Richard Gere, Heath Ledger, and Ben Whishaw...
, written and directed by Todd Haynes
Todd Haynes
Todd Haynes is an American independent film director and screenwriter. He is best known for his feature films Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story, Poison, Velvet Goldmine, Safe, and the Academy Award-nominated Far from Heaven and I'm Not There.- Style and themes :The writes that "Haynes is...
, was released—bearing the tagline "inspired by the music and many lives of Bob Dylan". The movie uses six distinct characters to represent different aspects of Dylan's life, played by Christian Bale
Christian Bale
Christian Charles Philip Bale is an English actor. Best known for his roles in American films, Bale has starred in both big budget Hollywood films and the smaller projects from independent producers and art houses....
, Cate Blanchett
Cate Blanchett
Catherine Élise "Cate" Blanchett is an Australian actress. She came to international attention for her role as Elizabeth I of England in the 1998 biopic film Elizabeth, for which she won British Academy of Film and Television Arts and Golden Globe Awards, and earned her first Academy Award...
, Marcus Carl Franklin
Marcus Carl Franklin
Marcus Carl Franklin is an American actor. He is best known for portraying an incarnation of Bob Dylan who calls himself "Woody Guthrie" in the Bob Dylan biopic I'm Not There, written and directed by Todd Haynes...
, Richard Gere
Richard Gere
Richard Tiffany Gere is an American actor. He began acting in the 1970s, playing a supporting role in Looking for Mr. Goodbar, and a starring role in Days of Heaven. He came to prominence in 1980 for his role in the film American Gigolo, which established him as a leading man and a sex symbol...
, Heath Ledger
Heath Ledger
Heath Andrew Ledger was an Australian television and film actor. After performing roles in Australian television and film during the 1990s, Ledger moved to the United States in 1998 to develop his film career...
and Ben Whishaw
Ben Whishaw
Benjamin John "Ben" Whishaw is an English actor who trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. Whishaw is perhaps best known for his breakthrough role as Hamlet, and his role as the lead character in Tom Tykwer's film Perfume: The Story of a Murderer.-Early life:Whishaw was born and raised in...
. Dylan's previously unreleased 1967 recording from which the film takes its name was released for the first time on the film's original soundtrack
I'm Not There (soundtrack)
The soundtrack album for the Bob Dylan biopic I'm Not There was released as a double CD on October 30, 2007. It features only one recording by Dylan himself—his previously unreleased recording of the title song "I'm Not There" recorded during The Basement Tapes' sessions in 1967—plus...
; all other tracks are covers of Dylan songs, specially recorded for the movie by a diverse range of artists, including Eddie Vedder
Eddie Vedder
Eddie Vedder is an American musician and singer-songwriter who is best known for being the lead singer and one of three guitarists of the alternative rock band Pearl Jam. He is widely considered a cultural icon of alternative rock.He is also involved in soundtrack work and contributes to albums...
, Mason Jennings
Mason Jennings
Mason Jennings is an American pop-folk singer-songwriter. He is well known for his simple yet catchy melodies, intimate lyrics, literary and historical themes, and distinctive voice...
, Stephen Malkmus
Stephen Malkmus
Stephen Joseph Malkmus is an indie rock musician and icon, and a member of the band Pavement. He currently performs with Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks.-Early years:...
, Jeff Tweedy
Jeff Tweedy
Jeffrey Scot "Jeff" Tweedy is an American songwriter, musician and leader of the band Wilco. Tweedy joined rockabilly band The Plebes with high school friend Jay Farrar in the early 1980s, but Tweedy's musical interests caused one of Farrar's brothers to quit...
, Karen O
Karen O
Karen Lee Orzolek , better known by her stage name Karen O, is the vocalist for New York rock band Yeah Yeah Yeahs.-Early life:...
, Willie Nelson
Willie Nelson
Willie Hugh Nelson is an American country music singer-songwriter, as well as an author, poet, actor, and activist. The critical success of the album Shotgun Willie , combined with the critical and commercial success of Red Headed Stranger and Stardust , made Nelson one of the most recognized...
, Cat Power
Cat Power
Charlyn Marie Marshall , also known as Chan Marshall or by her stage name Cat Power, is an American singer/songwriter and occasional actress and model. Cat Power was originally the name of Marshall's first band, but has come to refer to her musical projects with various backing bands...
, Richie Havens
Richie Havens
Richard P. "Richie" Havens is an African American folk singer and guitarist. He is best known for his intense, rhythmic guitar style , soulful covers of pop and folk songs, and his opening performance at the 1969 Woodstock Festival.-Career:Born in Brooklyn, Havens was the eldest of nine children...
, and Tom Verlaine
Tom Verlaine
Tom Verlaine is a singer, songwriter and guitarist, best known as the frontman for the New York rock band Television.-Biography:...
.
Columbia Records
Columbia Records is an American record label, owned by Japan's Sony Music Entertainment, operating under the Columbia Music Group with Aware Records. It was founded in 1888, evolving from an earlier enterprise, the American Graphophone Company — successor to the Volta Graphophone Company...
released the triple CD retrospective album Dylan
Dylan (2007 album)
Dylan is a greatest hits collection by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan. The collection was released on October 2, 2007 by Columbia Records and Legacy Recordings with worldwide distribution through Sony BMG...
, anthologising his entire career under the Dylan 07 logo. As part of this campaign, Mark Ronson
Mark Ronson
Mark Daniel Ronson is an English DJ, guitarist, music producer, artist and co-founder of Allido Records. He currently works with his band under the music alias of Mark Ronson & The Business Intl....
produced a re-mix of Dylan's 1966 tune "Most Likely You Go Your Way (And I'll Go Mine)
Most Likely You Go Your Way (And I'll Go Mine)
"Most Likely You Go Your Way " is the first track of the second disc of the 1966 album Blonde on Blonde, the seventh album from singer-songwriter Bob Dylan...
," which was released as a maxi-single. This was the first time Dylan had sanctioned a re-mix of one of his classic recordings.
The sophistication of the Dylan 07 marketing 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 advertisement for Victoria's Secret
Victoria's Secret
Victoria's Secret is an American retailer of women's wear, lingerie and beauty products. It is the largest segment of publicly-traded Limited Brands with sales of over US$5 billion and an operating income of $1 billion in 2006...
lingerie. Three years later, in October 2007, he participated in a multi-media campaign for the 2008 Cadillac Escalade
Cadillac Escalade
The Cadillac Escalade is a full-size luxury sport utility vehicle sold by the General Motors luxury brand, Cadillac. It was the division's first major entry into the popular SUV market. The Escalade was introduced for the 1999 model year in response to German and Japanese competitors and to Ford's...
. Then, in 2009, he gave the highest profile endorsement of his career, appearing with rapper Will.i.am
Will.i.am
William James Adams, Jr. , better known by his stage name will.i.am and occasionally by his other stage name Zuper Blahq, is an American rapper, musician, songwriter, singer, actor and producer...
in a Pepsi
Pepsi
Pepsi is a carbonated soft drink that is produced and manufactured by PepsiCo...
ad that debuted during the telecast of Super Bowl XLIII
Super Bowl XLIII
Super Bowl XLIII was an American football game pitting the American Football Conference champion Pittsburgh Steelers against the National Football Conference champion Arizona Cardinals to decide the National Football League champion for the 2008 season. The game was played on February 1, 2009,...
. 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
Hip hop
Hip hop is a form of musical expression and artistic culture that originated in African-American and Latino communities during the 1970s in New York City, specifically the Bronx. DJ Afrika Bambaataa outlined the four pillars of hip hop culture: MCing, DJing, breaking and graffiti writing...
version of the song's third and final verse.
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
Oh Mercy
Oh Mercy is singer-songwriter Bob Dylan's 26th studio album, released by Columbia Records in September 1989.Produced by Daniel Lanois, it was hailed by critics as a triumph for Dylan, after a string of weaker-reviewed albums...
to Modern Times
Modern Times (Bob Dylan album)
Modern Times is singer-songwriter Bob Dylan's 32nd studio album, released by Columbia Records in August 2006. The album was Dylan's third straight to be met with nearly universal praise from fans and critics...
, as well as soundtrack contributions and collaborations with David Bromberg
David Bromberg
David Bromberg is an American multi-instrumentalist, singer, and songwriter. Bromberg has an eclectic style, playing bluegrass, blues, folk, jazz, country and western, and rock and roll equally well. He is known for his quirky, humorous lyrics, and the ability to play rhythm and lead guitar at the...
and Ralph Stanley
Ralph Stanley
Ralph Stanley , also known as Dr. Ralph Stanley, is an American bluegrass artist, known for his distinctive singing and banjo playing.-Biography:...
. The pricing of the album—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. The release was widely acclaimed by critics. The plethora of alternative takes and unreleased material suggested to Uncut
UNCUT (magazine)
Uncut magazine, trademarked as UNCUT, is a monthly publication based in London. It is available across the English-speaking world, and focuses on music, but also includes film and books sections...
s reviewer: "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."
Together Through Life, Christmas in the Heart (2009)
Bob Dylan released his album Together Through LifeTogether Through Life
Together Through Life is the 33rd studio album by Bob Dylan, released on April 28, 2009, on Columbia Records. The album debuted at number one in several countries, including the U.S. and the UK...
on April 28, 2009. 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
Olivier Dahan
Olivier Dahan is a French film director and screenwriter. His third directed film, La Vie En Rose, was the first French cinema film ever to win two Academy Awards, including its first acting Oscar in the French language.-Biography:...
asked him to supply a song for his new road movie
Road movie
A road movie is a film genre in which the main character or characters leave home to travel from place to place. They usually leave home to escape their current lives.-History:...
, My Own Love Song
My Own Love Song
My Own Love Song is a 2010 road movie directed and written by Olivier Dahan and starring Renée Zellweger, Forest Whitaker, Madeline Zima and Nick Nolte...
; initially only intending to record a single track, "Life Is Hard," "the record sort of took its own direction". Nine of the ten songs on the album are credited as co-written by Bob Dylan and Robert Hunter
Robert Hunter (lyricist)
Robert C. Hunter is an American lyricist, singer-songwriter, translator, and poet, best known for his association with Jerry Garcia and the Grateful Dead.-Biography:He was born Robert Burns in San Luis Obispo, California...
.
The album received largely favorable reviews, although several critics described it as a minor addition to Dylan's canon of work. Andy Gill wrote in The Independent
The Independent
The Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...
that the record "features Dylan in fairly relaxed, spontaneous mood, content to grab such grooves and sentiments as flit momentarily 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."
In its first week of release, the album reached number one in the Billboard 200
Billboard 200
The Billboard 200 is a ranking of the 200 highest-selling music albums and EPs in the United States, published weekly by Billboard magazine. It is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists...
chart in the U.S., making Bob Dylan (67 years of age) the oldest artist to ever debut at number one on that chart. It also reached number one on the UK album chart, 39 years after Dylan's previous UK album chart topper New Morning
New Morning
New Morning is singer-songwriter Bob Dylan's 11th studio album, released by Columbia Records in October 1970.Coming only four months after the controversial Self Portrait, the more concise and immediate New Morning won a much warmer reception from fans and critics. Most welcome was the return of...
. This meant that Dylan currently holds the record for the longest gap between solo number one albums in the UK chart.
On October 13, 2009, Dylan released a Christmas album, Christmas in the Heart
Christmas in the Heart
Christmas in the Heart is Bob Dylan's 34th studio album and first Christmas album, released on October 13, 2009 on Columbia. The album comprises a collection of hymns, carols, and popular Christmas songs...
, comprising such Christmas standards as "Little Drummer Boy
Little Drummer Boy
"The Little Drummer Boy," originally known as "Carol of the Drum," is a popular Christmas song written by the American classical music composer/teacher Katherine Kennicott Davis in 1941. It was recorded 1955 by the Trapp Family Singers and further popularized by a 1958 recording by the Harry...
", "Winter Wonderland
Winter Wonderland
"Winter Wonderland" is a winter song, popularly treated as a Christmastime pop standard, written in 1934 by Felix Bernard and Richard B. Smith . Through the decades it has been recorded by over 150 different artists.-History:...
" and "Here Comes Santa Claus
Here Comes Santa Claus
"Here Comes Santa Claus " is a Christmas song written by Gene Autry and Oakley Haldeman.Autry got the idea for the song after riding his horse in the 1946 Santa Claus Lane Parade in Los Angeles, during which crowds of spectators chanted, "Here comes Santa Claus". This inspired him to write a song...
". Dylan's royalties from the sale of this album will benefit the charities Feeding America in the USA, Crisis
Crisis (charity)
Crisis is is the UK national charity for single homeless people. The charity offers year-round education, employment, housing and well-being services from centres in London, Newcastle, Oxford, Edinburgh and Merseyside, called Crisis Skylight Centres....
in the UK, and the World Food Programme
World Food Programme
The World Food Programme is the food aid branch of the United Nations, and the world's largest humanitarian organization addressing hunger worldwide. WFP provides food, on average, to 90 million people per year, 58 million of whom are children...
.
The album received generally favorable reviews. The New Yorker
The New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
commented that Dylan had welded a pre-rock musical sound to "some of his croakiest vocals in a while", and speculated that Dylan's intentions might be ironic: "Dylan has a long and highly publicized history with Christianity; to claim there's not a wink in the childish optimism of 'Here Comes Santa Claus' or 'Winter Wonderland' is to ignore a half-century of biting satire." In USA Today
USA Today
USA Today is a national American daily newspaper published by the Gannett Company. It was founded by Al Neuharth. The newspaper vies with The Wall Street Journal for the position of having the widest circulation of any newspaper in the United States, something it previously held since 2003...
, Edna Gundersen
Edna Gundersen
Edna Gundersen is an American journalist who is a longtime music writer and critic for USA Today.Gundersen grew up in El Paso, Texas. She attained a degree in journalism from the University of Texas at El Paso and then wrote features and entertainment news for the El Paso Times from 1977 to 1987...
pointed out that Dylan was "revisiting yuletide styles popularized by Nat King Cole
Nat King Cole
Nathaniel Adams Coles , known professionally as Nat King Cole, was an American musician who first came to prominence as a leading jazz pianist. Although an accomplished pianist, he owes most of his popular musical fame to his soft baritone voice, which he used to perform in big band and jazz genres...
, Mel Tormé
Mel Tormé
Melvin Howard Tormé , nicknamed The Velvet Fog, was an American musician, known for his jazz singing. He was also a jazz composer and arranger, a drummer, an actor in radio, film, and television, and the author of five books...
, and the Ray Conniff Singers." Gundersen concluded that Dylan "couldn't sound more sentimental or sincere".
In an interview published by Street News Service
Street News Service
Street News Service is a news agency for street newspapers run by the International Network of Street Papers . It carries articles, essays and news from newspapers sold and sometimes written by homeless and poor people. It helps street papers worldwide to share stories with each other with other...
, journalist Bill Flanagan asked Dylan why he had performed the songs in a straightforward style, and Dylan responded: "There wasn't any other way to play it. These songs are part of my life, just like folk songs. You have to play them straight too."
2010s
On October 18, 2010, Dylan released Volume 9 of his Bootleg Series, The Witmark Demos. This comprised 47 demo recordingsDemo (music)
A demo version or demo of a song is one recorded for reference rather than for release. A demo is a way for a musician to approximate their ideas on tape or disc, and provide an example of those ideas to record labels, producers or other artists...
of songs taped between 1962 and 1964 for Dylan's earliest music publishers: Leeds Music in 1962, and Witmark Music
M. Witmark & Sons
M. Witmark & Sons was a leading publisher of sheet music for the United States "Tin Pan Alley" music industry.The firm of Marcus Witmark & Sons was established in New York City in 1886...
from 1962 to 1964. One reviewer described the set as "a kind of alternate early history of Dylan's songwriting process, 'writing five new songs before breakfast,' as he once famously quipped". The critical aggregator website Metacritic awarded the album a Metascore of 86, indicating "universal acclaim". In the same week, Sony Legacy
Legacy Recordings
Legacy Recordings is Sony Music Entertainment's catalog division. It was founded in 1990 by CBS Records under the leadership of Jerry Shulman, Richard Bauer, Gary Pacheco and Amy Herot to handle reissues of recordings from the vast catalogues of Columbia Records, Epic Records and associated...
released Bob Dylan: The Original Mono Recordings
The Original Mono Recordings
The Original Mono Recordings is a box set compilation album of recordings by Bob Dylan, released in October 2010 on Legacy Recordings, catalogue 88697761042. It consists of Dylan's first eight studio albums in mono on nine compact discs, the album Blonde on Blonde being issued on two discs in its...
, a box set which for the first time presented Dylan's eight earliest albums, from Bob Dylan (1962) to John Wesley Harding (1967), in their original mono mix in the CD format, accompanied by new liner notes by Dylan critic Greil Marcus
Greil Marcus
Greil Marcus is an American author, music journalist and cultural critic. He is notable for producing scholarly and literary essays that place rock music in a much broader framework of culture and politics than is customary in pop music journalism.-Life and career:Marcus was born in San Francisco...
.
On April 12, 2011, Legacy Recordings
Legacy Recordings
Legacy Recordings is Sony Music Entertainment's catalog division. It was founded in 1990 by CBS Records under the leadership of Jerry Shulman, Richard Bauer, Gary Pacheco and Amy Herot to handle reissues of recordings from the vast catalogues of Columbia Records, Epic Records and associated...
released Bob Dylan in Concert – Brandeis University 1963 . The recording was taped at Brandeis University
Brandeis University
Brandeis University is an American private research university with a liberal arts focus. It is located in the southwestern corner of Waltham, Massachusetts, nine miles west of Boston. The University has an enrollment of approximately 3,200 undergraduate and 2,100 graduate students. In 2011, it...
on May 10, 1963, two weeks prior to the release of The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan. The tape had been discovered in the archive of music writer Ralph J. Gleason
Ralph J. Gleason
Ralph Joseph Gleason was an influential American jazz and pop music critic. He contributed for many years to the San Francisco Chronicle, was a founding editor of Rolling Stone magazine, and cofounder of the Monterey Jazz Festival.-Biography:Gleason was born in New York City and attended Columbia...
, and had previously been available as a limited edition supplement to The Bootleg Series Vol. 9. The recording carries liner notes by Dylan scholar Michael Gray
Michael Gray (author)
Michael Gray is a British author who has written extensively about popular music.Gray grew up on Merseyside, attended Birkenhead School, and read History and English Literature at the University of York. Gray subsequently lived and worked in North Devon, Birmingham, West Malvern, London and North...
. Gray writes, "(The) Dylan performance it captured, from way back when Kennedy
John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....
was President and the Beatles
The Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...
hadn't yet reached America, wasn't even on fans' radar.... It reveals him not at any Big Moment but giving a performance like his folk club sets of the period... This is the last live performance we have of Bob Dylan before he becomes a star."
The extent to which his work was studied at an academic level was demonstrated on Dylan's 70th birthday on May 24, 2011, when three universities organised symposia on his work. The University of Mainz, the University of Vienna
University of Vienna
The University of Vienna is a public university located in Vienna, Austria. It was founded by Duke Rudolph IV in 1365 and is the oldest university in the German-speaking world...
, and the University of Bristol
University of Bristol
The University of Bristol is a public research university located in Bristol, United Kingdom. One of the so-called "red brick" universities, it received its Royal Charter in 1909, although its predecessor institution, University College, Bristol, had been in existence since 1876.The University is...
invited literary critics and cultural historians from Europe and the US to give papers on aspects of Dylan's work. Other events, including tribute bands, intellectual debates and simple singalongs, took place around the world, as reported in The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
: "From Moscow to Madrid, Norway to Northampton and Malaysia to his home state of Minnesota, self-confessed "Bobcats" will gather today to celebrate the 70th birthday of a giant of popular music."
On October 4, 2011, Dylan's label, Egyptian Records, released an album of previously unheard Hank Williams songs, The Lost Notebooks of Hank Williams
The Lost Notebooks of Hank Williams
-Chart performance:...
. Dylan had helped to curate this project, in which songs unfinished when Williams died in 1953 were completed and recorded by a variety of artists, including Dylan himself, his son Jakob Dylan
Jakob Dylan
Jakob Luke Dylan is the lead singer and songwriter of the rock band The Wallflowers and is a son of singer-songwriter Bob Dylan and Sara Dylan. He has also recorded two solo albums.-Personal life:...
, Levon Helm
Levon Helm
Mark Lavon "Levon" Helm , is an American rock multi-instrumentalist and actor who achieved fame as the drummer and frequent lead and backing vocalist for The Band....
, Norah Jones
Norah Jones
Norah Jones is an American singer-songwriter and occasional actress.In 2002, she launched her solo music career with the release of the commercially successful and critically acclaimed album Come Away With Me, which was certified a diamond album in 2002, selling over 20 million copies...
, Jack White
Jack White
Jack White may refer to:* Jack White , with the rock bands The White Stripes, The Raconteurs, and The Dead Weather* Jack White , UK soldier* Jack White , German producer of disco music...
, and others.
Never Ending Tour
Tony Garnier (musician)
Tony Garnier is an American bassist , best known as an accompanist to Bob Dylan, with whom he has played since 1989...
, multi-instrumentalist Donnie Herron and guitarist Charlie Sexton
Charlie Sexton
Charles Wayne Sexton is an American guitarist, singer and songwriter best known for the 1985 hit Beat's So Lonely and as the guitarist for Bob Dylan's backing band from 1999 to 2002 and since 2009...
. To the dismay of some of his audience, Dylan's performances remain unpredictable as he alters his arrangements and changes his vocal approach night after night. Critical opinion about Dylan's shows remains divided. Critics such as Richard Williams
Richard Williams (journalist)
Richard Williams is a British music and sports journalist.As a writer, then deputy editor, of the weekly rock magazine Melody Maker, he became an influential commentator on the rise of new forms of rock music at the end of the 1960s. Williams and MM, as it was known, helped to promote and...
and Andy Gill have argued that Dylan has found a successful way to present his rich legacy of material. 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", and his lack of interest in bonding with his audience.
Dylan's performances in China
People's Republic of China
China , officially the People's Republic of China , is the most populous country in the world, with over 1.3 billion citizens. Located in East Asia, the country covers approximately 9.6 million square kilometres...
in April 2011 generated controversy. Some criticised him for not making any explicit comment on the political situation in China, and for, allegedly, allowing the Chinese authorities to censor his set-list. Others defended Dylan's performances, arguing that such criticism represented a misunderstanding of Dylan's art, and that no evidence for the censorship of Dylan's set-list existed.
Dylan responded to these allegations of censorship by posting a statement on his website: "As far as censorship goes, the Chinese government had asked for the names of the songs that I would be playing. There's no logical answer to that, so we sent them the set lists from the previous 3 months. If there were any songs, verses or lines censored, nobody ever told me about it and we played all the songs that we intended to play."
In April 2011, Dylan performed concerts in Taiwan, China, Singapore, Vietnam and Australia. He toured Europe, Israel and the US from June to August 2011, commencing in Cork, Ireland
Cork (city)
Cork is the second largest city in the Republic of Ireland and the island of Ireland's third most populous city. It is the principal city and administrative centre of County Cork and the largest city in the province of Munster. Cork has a population of 119,418, while the addition of the suburban...
, and concluding in Boston, Massachusetts. Accompanied by Mark Knopfler
Mark Knopfler
Mark Freuder Knopfler, OBE is a Scottish-born British guitarist, singer, songwriter, record producer and film score composer. He is best known as the lead guitarist, vocalist, and songwriter for the British rock band Dire Straits, which he co-founded in 1977...
as a supporting act, Dylan undertook a second European tour in October and November, which began in Dublin and ended in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
.
Artist
Over a decade after Random HouseRandom House
Random House, Inc. is the largest general-interest trade book publisher in the world. It has been owned since 1998 by the German private media corporation Bertelsmann and has become the umbrella brand for Bertelsmann book publishing. Random House also has a movie production arm, Random House Films,...
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
Chemnitz
Chemnitz is the third-largest city of the Free State of Saxony, Germany. Chemnitz is an independent city which is not part of any county and seat of the government region Direktionsbezirk Chemnitz. Located in the northern foothills of the Ore Mountains, it is a part of the Saxon triangle...
, Germany. This first public exhibition of Dylan's paintings showcased more than 200 watercolors and gouache
Gouache
Gouache[p], also spelled guache, the name of which derives from the Italian guazzo, water paint, splash or bodycolor is a type of paint consisting of pigment suspended in water. A binding agent, usually gum arabic, is also present, just as in watercolor...
s made earlier in 2007 from the original drawings. The exhibition coincided with the publication of the book Bob Dylan: The Drawn Blank Series, which includes 170 reproductions from the series. From September 2010 until April 2011, the National Gallery of Denmark
Statens Museum for Kunst
Statens Museum for Kunst is the Danish national gallery located in Copenhagen....
exhibited 40 large-scale acrylic paintings by Dylan, The Brazil Series.
In July 2011, a leading contemporary art gallery, Gagosian Gallery
Gagosian Gallery
Gagosian Gallery is a contemporary art gallery owned and directed by Larry Gagosian. There are currently eleven gallery spaces: three in New York; two in London; one in each of Beverly Hills, Rome, Athens, Paris, Geneva, Hong Kong and Moscow.-1980s:...
, announced their representation of Dylan's paintings. An exhibition of Dylan's art, The Asia Series, opened at the Gagosian Madison Avenue Gallery on September 20, displaying Dylan's paintings of scenes in China and the Far East. The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
reported that "some fans and Dylanologists have raised questions about whether some of these paintings are based on the singer’s own experiences and observations, or on photographs that are widely available and were not taken by Mr. Dylan." The Times pointed to close resemblances between Dylan's paintings and six historic photos of Japan and China which had been posted on the Flickr
Flickr
Flickr is an image hosting and video hosting website, web services suite, and online community that was created by Ludicorp in 2004 and acquired by Yahoo! in 2005. In addition to being a popular website for users to share and embed personal photographs, the service is widely used by bloggers to...
website. Dylan's paintings also appeared to be based on photographs taken by Dmitri Kessel, Henri Cartier-Bresson
Henri Cartier-Bresson
Henri Cartier-Bresson was a French photographer considered to be the father of modern photojournalism. He was an early adopter of 35 mm format, and the master of candid photography...
, and Jacob Aue Sobol
Jacob Aue Sobol
Jacob Aue Sobol is a Danish photographer. He has worked around the world, including in East Greenland, Guatemala, Tokyo, Bangkok and Copenhagen.Since 2007 Sobol has been a nominee at Magnum Photos...
. The Magnum photo agency
Magnum Photos
Magnum Photos is an international photographic cooperative owned by its photographer-members, with offices located in New York, Paris, London and Tokyo...
confirmed that Dylan had licensed the reproduction rights of these photographs.
Family
Dylan married Sara LowndsSara Dylan
Sara Dylan , born Shirley Marlin Noznisky and later known as Sara Lownds, was the first wife of singer-songwriter Bob Dylan and mother of singer Jakob Dylan. She was married to Bob Dylan from November 1965 until June 1977.-Early life:Little is known about Sara Dylan's early life or family...
on November 22, 1965. Their first child, Jesse Byron Dylan
Jesse Dylan
Jesse Dylan is an American film director, and the founder, CEO and creative director of the media production company Wondros.-Personal Life:...
, was born on January 6, 1966, and they had three more children: Anna Lea (born July 11, 1967), Samuel Isaac Abraham (born July 30, 1968), and Jakob Luke
Jakob Dylan
Jakob Luke Dylan is the lead singer and songwriter of the rock band The Wallflowers and is a son of singer-songwriter Bob Dylan and Sara Dylan. He has also recorded two solo albums.-Personal life:...
(born December 9, 1969). Dylan also adopted Sara's daughter from a prior marriage, Maria Lownds (later Dylan, born October 21, 1961). Maria married musician Peter Himmelman
Peter Himmelman
Peter Himmelman is a singer-songwriter from Minnesota, who formerly played in the band Sussman Lawrence.-Family life:He is Bob Dylan's son-in-law, being married to his daughter Maria Dylan...
, an Orthodox Jew, in 1988. In the 1990s, Dylan's son Jakob became well known as the lead singer of the band The Wallflowers
The Wallflowers
The Wallflowers is a rock band from Los Angeles, California, fronted by Jakob Dylan. Formed in 1989 and originally known as The Apples, the ensemble has gone through numerous personnel changes with Dylan the only constant....
. Jesse Dylan is a film director and a successful businessman. Bob and Sara Dylan were divorced on June 29, 1977.
In June 1986, Dylan married his longtime backup singer Carolyn Dennis
Carolyn Dennis
Carolyn Dennis , sometimes known professionally as Carol Dennis or Carol Dennis-Dylan, is an American singer and actor best known for her work with and marriage to Bob Dylan.-Early life:...
(often professionally known as Carol Dennis). Their daughter, Desiree Gabrielle Dennis-Dylan, was born on January 31, 1986. The couple divorced in October 1992. Their marriage and child remained a closely guarded secret until the publication of Howard Sounes
Howard Sounes
Howard Sounes is a British author, journalist and biographer.Howard Sounes began his career as a newspaper journalist as a staff reporter for the Sunday Mirror. He broke major stories concerning one of the most notorious murder cases in British criminal history, that of Fred West and Rosemary West...
' Dylan biography, Down the Highway: The Life Of Bob Dylan in 2001. Dylan now lives in Malibu, California, when not on the road.
In total, Bob Dylan has six children (five biological and one adopted) and eleven grandchildren as of 2011.
Religious beliefs
Growing up in HibbingHibbing, Minnesota
Hibbing is a city in Saint Louis County, Minnesota, United States. The population was 16,361 at the 2010 census. The city was built on the rich iron ore of the Mesabi Iron Range. At the edge of town is the largest open-pit iron mine in the world. U.S...
, Minnesota, Dylan and his family were part of the area's small but close-knit Jewish community, and in May 1954 Dylan had his Bar Mitzvah. Around the time of his 30th birthday, in 1971, Dylan visited Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
, and also met Rabbi Meir Kahane
Meir Kahane
Martin David Kahane , also known as Meir Kahane , was an American-Israeli rabbi and ultra-nationalist writer and political figure. He was an ordained Orthodox rabbi and later served as a member of the Israeli Knesset...
, founder of the New York-based Jewish Defense League
Jewish Defense League
The Jewish Defense League is a Jewish organization whose stated goal is to "protect Jews from antisemitism by whatever means necessary"...
. Time Magazine quoted Dylan saying about Kahane, "He's a really sincere guy. He's really put it all together." Subsequently, Dylan downplayed the extent of his contact with Kahane.
For a period during the late 1970s and early 1980s, Dylan was a public convert to Christianity. From January to April 1979, he participated in Bible study classes at the Vineyard School of Discipleship
Association of Vineyard Churches
The Association of Vineyard Churches, also known as the Vineyard Movement, is a neocharismatic evangelical Christian denomination with over 1,500 affiliated churches worldwide....
in Reseda, California. Pastor Kenn Gulliksen has recalled: "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."
By 1984, Dylan was distancing himself from the "born-again" label. He told Kurt Loder
Kurt Loder
Kurt Loder is an American film critic, author, columnist, and television personality. He served in the 1980s as editor at Rolling Stone, during a tenure that Reason later called "legendary". He has contributed to articles in Reason, Esquire, Details, New York, and Time. He has also made cameos on...
of Rolling Stone magazine: "I've never said I'm born again. That's just a media term. I don't think I've been an agnostic
Agnosticism
Agnosticism is the view that the truth value of certain claims—especially claims about the existence or non-existence of any deity, but also other religious and metaphysical claims—is unknown or unknowable....
. I've always thought there's a superior power, that this is not the real world and that there's a world to come." In response to Loder's asking whether he belonged to any Church or synagogue, Dylan laughingly replied, "Not really. Uh, the Church of the Poison Mind." In 1997 he told David Gates
David Gates (author)
David Gates is an American journalist and novelist. His first novel, Jernigan , about a dysfunctional one-parent family, was a Pulitzer Prize finalist. This was followed by a second novel, Preston Falls , and a short story collection, The Wonders of the Invisible World...
of Newsweek
Newsweek
Newsweek is an American weekly news magazine published in New York City. It is distributed throughout the United States and internationally. It is the second-largest news weekly magazine in the U.S., having trailed Time in circulation and advertising revenue for most of its existence...
:
In an interview published in The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
on September 28, 1997, journalist Jon Pareles
Jon Pareles
Jon Pareles is an American journalist who is the chief popular music critic in the arts section of the New York Times. He played jazz flute and piano, and graduated from Yale University with a degree in music. In the 1970s he was an associate editor of Crawdaddy!, and in the 1980s an associate...
reported that "Dylan says he now subscribes to no organized religion."
Dylan has been described, in the last 20 years, as a supporter of the Chabad Lubavitch movement and has privately participated in Jewish religious events, including the bar mitzvahs of his sons and attending Hadar Hatorah
Hadar Hatorah
Yeshiva Hadar Hatorah is a Chabad men's yeshiva in Brooklyn, New York. It is the world's first yeshiva for baali teshuva.-History:The yeshiva was founded in 1962 by Rabbi Yisroel Jacobson, a Chabad activist, to accommodate baalei teshuva interested in full-time study in a traditional yeshiva...
, a Chabad Lubavitch yeshiva
Yeshiva
Yeshiva is a Jewish educational institution that focuses on the study of traditional religious texts, primarily the Talmud and Torah study. Study is usually done through daily shiurim and in study pairs called chavrutas...
. In September 1989 and September 1991, Dylan appeared on the Chabad telethon. Jewish news services have reported that Dylan has visited Chabad synagogues
Chabad
Chabad or Chabad-Lubavitch is a major branch of Hasidic Judaism.Chabad may also refer to:*Chabad-Strashelye, a defunct branch of the Chabad school of Hasidic Judaism*Chabad-Kapust or Kapust, a defunct branch of the Chabad school of Hasidic Judaism...
; on September 22, 2007 (Yom Kippur
Yom Kippur
Yom Kippur , also known as Day of Atonement, is the holiest and most solemn day of the year for the Jews. Its central themes are atonement and repentance. Jews traditionally observe this holy day with a 25-hour period of fasting and intensive prayer, often spending most of the day in synagogue...
), he attended Congregation Beth Tefillah, in Atlanta, Georgia, where he was called to the Torah
Torah
Torah- A scroll containing the first five books of the BibleThe Torah , is name given by Jews to the first five books of the bible—Genesis , Exodus , Leviticus , Numbers and Deuteronomy Torah- A scroll containing the first five books of the BibleThe Torah , is name given by Jews to the first five...
for the sixth aliyah.
Dylan has continued to perform songs from his gospel albums in concert, occasionally covering traditional religious songs. He has also made passing references to his religious faith—such as in a 2004 interview with 60 Minutes
60 Minutes
60 Minutes is an American television news magazine, which has run on CBS since 1968. The program was created by producer Don Hewitt who set it apart by using a unique style of reporter-centered investigation....
, when he told Ed Bradley
Ed Bradley
Edward Rudolph "Ed" Bradley, Jr. was an American journalist, best known for twenty-six years of award-winning work on the CBS News television program 60 Minutes...
that "the only person you have to think twice about lying to is either yourself or to God." He also explained his constant touring schedule 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."
In a 2009 interview with Bill Flanagan promoting his Christmas LP, Christmas in the Heart
Christmas in the Heart
Christmas in the Heart is Bob Dylan's 34th studio album and first Christmas album, released on October 13, 2009 on Columbia. The album comprises a collection of hymns, carols, and popular Christmas songs...
, Flanagan commented on the "heroic performance" Dylan gave of "O Little Town of Bethlehem
O Little Town of Bethlehem
"O Little Town of Bethlehem" is a popular Christmas carol. The text was written by Phillips Brooks , an Episcopal priest, Rector of the Church of the Holy Trinity, Philadelphia. He was inspired by visiting the Palestinian city of Bethlehem in 1865. Three years later, he wrote the poem for his...
" and that Dylan "delivered the song like a true believer". Dylan replied: "Well, I am a true believer."
Legacy
Bob Dylan is 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 CenturyTime 100: The Most Important People of the Century
Time 100: The Most Important People of the Century is a compilation of the 20th century's 100 most influential people, published in Time magazine in 1999....
where he was called "master poet, caustic social critic and intrepid, guiding spirit of the counterculture generation". Biographer Howard Sounes
Howard Sounes
Howard Sounes is a British author, journalist and biographer.Howard Sounes began his career as a newspaper journalist as a staff reporter for the Sunday Mirror. He broke major stories concerning one of the most notorious murder cases in British criminal history, that of Fred West and Rosemary West...
placed him among the most exalted company when he said, "There are giant figures in art who are sublimely good—Mozart, Picasso, Frank Lloyd Wright
Frank Lloyd Wright
Frank Lloyd Wright was an American architect, interior designer, writer and educator, who designed more than 1,000 structures and completed 500 works. Wright believed in designing structures which were in harmony with humanity and its environment, a philosophy he called organic architecture...
, Shakespeare, Dickens. Dylan ranks alongside these artists."
Initially modeling his writing style on the songs of Woody Guthrie
Woody Guthrie
Woodrow Wilson "Woody" Guthrie is best known as an American singer-songwriter and folk musician, whose musical legacy includes hundreds of political, traditional and children's songs, ballads and improvised works. He frequently performed with the slogan This Machine Kills Fascists displayed on his...
, and lessons learned from the blues of Robert Johnson, Dylan added increasingly sophisticated lyrical techniques to the folk music of the early 60s, infusing it "with the intellectualism of classic literature and poetry". Paul Simon
Paul Simon
Paul Frederic Simon is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist.Simon is best known for his success, beginning in 1965, as part of the duo Simon & Garfunkel, with musical partner Art Garfunkel. Simon wrote most of the pair's songs, including three that reached number one on the US singles...
suggested that Dylan's early compositions virtually took over the folk genre: "[Dylan's] early songs were very rich ... with strong melodies. 'Blowin' in the Wind
Blowin' in the Wind
"Blowin' in the Wind" is a song written by Bob Dylan and released on his album The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan in 1963. Although it has been described as a protest song, it poses a series of questions about peace, war and freedom...
' has a really strong melody. He so enlarged himself through the folk background that he incorporated it for a while. He defined the genre for a while."
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 synthesis exemplified by his mid-'60s trilogy of albums—Bringing It All Back Home, Highway 61 Revisited and Blonde on Blonde. In Mike Marqusee
Mike Marqusee
Mike Marqusee is an American-born writer, journalist and political activist in London. His partner is the barrister Liz Davies.Marqusee, who describes himself as a "deracinated New York Marxist Jew" has lived in Britain since 1971...
'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, British beat, symbolist, modernist
Modernist poetry in English
Modernist poetry in English is generally considered to have emerged in the early years of the 20th century with the appearance of the Imagists. In common with many other modernists, these poets wrote in reaction to the perceived excesses of Victorian poetry, with its emphasis on traditional...
and Beat poetry, surrealism
Surrealism
Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....
and Dada
Dada
Dada or Dadaism is a cultural movement that began in Zurich, Switzerland, during World War I and peaked from 1916 to 1922. The movement primarily involved visual arts, literature—poetry, art manifestoes, art theory—theatre, and graphic design, and concentrated its anti-war politics through a...
, advertising jargon and social commentary, Fellini
Federico Fellini
Federico Fellini, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI , was an Italian film director and scriptwriter. Known for a distinct style that blends fantasy and baroque images, he is considered one of the most influential and widely revered filmmakers of the 20th century...
and Mad magazine, he forged a coherent and original artistic voice and vision. The beauty of these albums retains the power to shock and console."
One legacy of Dylan's verbal sophistication was the increasing attention paid by literary critics to his lyrics. Professor Christopher Ricks
Christopher Ricks
Sir Christopher Bruce Ricks, FBA is a British literary critic and scholar. He is the William M. and Sara B. Warren Professor of the Humanities at Boston University and Co-Director of the Editorial Institute at Boston University, and was Professor of Poetry at the University of Oxford from 2004...
published a 500-page analysis of Dylan's work, placing him in the context of Eliot
T. S. Eliot
Thomas Stearns "T. S." Eliot OM was a playwright, literary critic, and arguably the most important English-language poet of the 20th century. Although he was born an American he moved to the United Kingdom in 1914 and was naturalised as a British subject in 1927 at age 39.The poem that made his...
, Keats
John Keats
John Keats was an English Romantic poet. Along with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley, he was one of the key figures in the second generation of the Romantic movement, despite the fact that his work had been in publication for only four years before his death.Although his poems were not...
and Tennyson, and claiming that Dylan was a poet worthy of the same close and painstaking analysis. Former British poet laureate
Poet Laureate
A poet laureate is a poet officially appointed by a government and is often expected to compose poems for state occasions and other government events...
, Andrew Motion
Andrew Motion
Sir Andrew Motion, FRSL is an English poet, novelist and biographer, who presided as Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom from 1999 to 2009.- Life and career :...
, argued that Bob Dylan's lyrics should be studied in schools. Since 1996, academics have lobbied the Swedish Academy
Swedish Academy
The Swedish Academy , founded in 1786 by King Gustav III, is one of the Royal Academies of Sweden.-History:The Swedish Academy was founded in 1786 by King Gustav III. Modelled after the Académie française, it has 18 members. The motto of the Academy is "Talent and Taste"...
to award Dylan the Nobel Prize in Literature
Nobel Prize in Literature
Since 1901, the Nobel Prize in Literature has been awarded annually to an author from any country who has, in the words from the will of Alfred Nobel, produced "in the field of literature the most outstanding work in an ideal direction"...
.
Dylan's voice was, in some ways, as startling 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
Dave Van Ronk
Dave Van Ronk was an American folk singer, born in Brooklyn, New York, who settled in Greenwich Village, New York, and was eventually nicknamed the "Mayor of MacDougal Street" ....
." David Bowie
David Bowie
David Bowie is an English musician, actor, record producer and arranger. A major figure for over four decades in the world of popular music, Bowie is widely regarded as an innovator, particularly for his work in the 1970s...
, in his tribute, "Song for Bob Dylan
Song for Bob Dylan
"Song for Bob Dylan" is a song written by David Bowie in 1971 for the album Hunky Dory. In the opening lyrics of the song, David Bowie describes Bob Dylan's voice "like sand and glue" which is similar to how Joyce Carol Oates described it upon first meeting Dylan: "When we first heard this raw,...
", described Dylan's singing as "a voice like sand and glue". Dylan's voice continued to develop as he began to work with rock'n'roll backing bands; critic Michael Gray described the sound of Dylan's vocal on his hit single, "Like a Rolling Stone", as "at once young and jeeringly cynical". As Dylan's voice aged during the 1980s, for some critics, it became more expressive. Christophe Lebold writes in the journal Oral Tradition
Oral Tradition Journal
Oral Tradition is a peer-reviewed academic journal established in 1986 by John Miles Foley covering studies in oral tradition and related fields...
, "Dylan's more recent broken voice enables him to present a world view at the sonic surface of the songs—this voice carries us across the landscape of a broken, fallen world. The anatomy of a broken world in "Everything is Broken" (on the album Oh Mercy
Oh Mercy
Oh Mercy is singer-songwriter Bob Dylan's 26th studio album, released by Columbia Records in September 1989.Produced by Daniel Lanois, it was hailed by critics as a triumph for Dylan, after a string of weaker-reviewed albums...
) is but an example of how the thematic concern with all things broken is grounded in a concrete sonic reality."
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." Many musicians have testified to Dylan's influence, such as Joe Strummer
Joe Strummer
John Graham Mellor , best remembered by his stage name Joe Strummer, was the co-founder, lyricist, rhythm guitarist and lead vocalist of the British punk rock band The Clash. His musical experience included his membership in The 101ers, Latino Rockabilly War, The Mescaleros and The Pogues, in...
, who praised Dylan as having "laid down the template for lyric, tune, seriousness, spirituality, depth of rock music." Other major musicians to have acknowledged Dylan's importance include John Lennon
John Lennon
John Winston Lennon, MBE was an English musician and singer-songwriter who rose to worldwide fame as one of the founding members of The Beatles, one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music...
, Paul McCartney
Paul McCartney
Sir James Paul McCartney, MBE, Hon RAM, FRCM is an English musician, singer-songwriter and composer. Formerly of The Beatles and Wings , McCartney is listed in Guinness World Records as the "most successful musician and composer in popular music history", with 60 gold discs and sales of 100...
, Pete Townshend
Pete Townshend
Peter Dennis Blandford "Pete" Townshend is an English rock guitarist, vocalist, songwriter and author, known principally as the guitarist and songwriter for the rock group The Who, as well as for his own solo career...
, Neil Young
Neil Young
Neil Percival Young, OC, OM is a Canadian singer-songwriter who is widely regarded as one of the most influential musicians of his generation...
, Bruce Springsteen
Bruce Springsteen
Bruce Frederick Joseph Springsteen , nicknamed "The Boss," is an American singer-songwriter who records and tours with the E Street Band...
, David Bowie
David Bowie
David Bowie is an English musician, actor, record producer and arranger. A major figure for over four decades in the world of popular music, Bowie is widely regarded as an innovator, particularly for his work in the 1970s...
, Bryan Ferry
Bryan Ferry
Bryan Ferry, CBE is an English singer, musician, and songwriter. Ferry came to public prominence in the early 1970s as lead vocalist and principal songwriter with the band Roxy Music, who enjoyed a highly successful career with three number one albums and ten singles entering the top ten charts in...
, Nick Cave
Nick Cave
Nicholas Edward "Nick" Cave is an Australian musician, songwriter, author, screenwriter, and occasional film actor.He is best known for his work as a frontman of the critically acclaimed rock band Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, established in 1984, a group known for its eclectic influences and...
, Patti Smith
Patti Smith
Patricia Lee "Patti" Smith is an American singer-songwriter, poet and visual artist, who became a highly influential component of the New York City punk rock movement with her 1975 debut album Horses....
, Syd Barrett
Syd Barrett
Syd Barrett , born Roger Keith Barrett, was an English singer-songwriter, guitarist, and painter, best remembered as a founding member of the band Pink Floyd. He was the lead vocalist, guitarist and primary songwriter during the band's psychedelic years, providing major musical and stylistic...
, Cat Stevens
Cat Stevens
Yusuf Islam , commonly known by his former stage name Cat Stevens, is an English singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, educator, philanthropist, and prominent convert to Islam....
,Joni Mitchell
Joni Mitchell
Joni Mitchell, CC is a Canadian musician, singer songwriter, and painter. Mitchell began singing in small nightclubs in her native Saskatchewan and Western Canada and then busking in the streets and dives of Toronto...
, and Tom Waits
Tom Waits
Thomas Alan "Tom" Waits is an American singer-songwriter, composer, and actor. Waits has a distinctive voice, described by critic Daniel Durchholz as sounding "like it was soaked in a vat of bourbon, left hanging in the smokehouse for a few months, and then taken outside and run over with a car."...
. More directly, both The Byrds
The Byrds
The Byrds were an American rock band, formed in Los Angeles, California in 1964. The band underwent multiple line-up changes throughout its existence, with frontman Roger McGuinn remaining the sole consistent member until the group disbanded in 1973...
and The Band
The Band
The Band was an acclaimed and influential roots rock group. The original group consisted of Rick Danko , Garth Hudson , Richard Manuel , and Robbie Robertson , and Levon Helm...
, two 1960s contemporary groups with some measure of influence on popular music themselves, largely owed their initial success to Dylan: the Byrds with their hit of "Mr. Tambourine Man" and subsequent album
Mr. Tambourine Man (album)
Mr. Tambourine Man is the debut album by the American folk rock band The Byrds and was released in June 1965 on Columbia Records . The album, along with the single of the same name, established the band as an internationally successful rock act and was also influential in originating the musical...
; and the Band for their association with him on tour in 1966
Bob Dylan World Tour 1966
The Bob Dylan World Tour 1966 was a concert tour undertaken by American musician Bob Dylan, from February to May 1966. Dylan's 1966 World Tour was notable as the first tour where Dylan employed an electric band backing him, following his "going electric" at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival...
, on retreat in Woodstock
The Basement Tapes
The Basement Tapes is a 1975 studio album by Bob Dylan and The Band. The songs featuring Dylan's vocals were recorded in 1967, eight years before the album's release, at houses in and around Woodstock, New York, where Dylan and the Band lived...
, and on their debut album
Music from Big Pink
Music from Big Pink is the 1968 debut album by rock band The Band. It features the well-known song, "The Weight". The music was composed partly in 'Big Pink', a house shared by Rick Danko, Richard Manuel, and Garth Hudson in West Saugerties, in upstate New York...
featuring three previously unreleased Dylan songs.
There have been dissenters. Because Dylan was widely credited with imbuing pop culture with a new seriousness, the critic Nik Cohn
Nik Cohn
Nik Cohn is a British rock journalist, born in London in 1946. He was brought up in Derry, in the North of Ireland, the son of historian Norman Cohn and Russian writer Vera Broido...
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 major gift for self-hype." Similarly, Australian critic Jack Marx
Jack Marx
Jackson Gregory Marx , known as Jack Marx, is an Australian journalist and author. He was born in Maitland, New South Wales and is the second youngest of four children.- Career :...
credited Dylan with changing the persona of the rock star: "What cannot 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
Mick Jagger
Sir Michael Philip "Mick" Jagger is an English musician, singer and songwriter, best known as the lead vocalist and a founding member of The Rolling Stones....
to Eminem
Eminem
Marshall Bruce Mathers III , better known by his stage name Eminem or his alter ego Slim Shady, is an American rapper, record producer, songwriter and actor. Eminem's popularity brought his group project, D12, to mainstream recognition...
educating themselves from the Dylan handbook." Joni Mitchell
Joni Mitchell
Joni Mitchell, CC is a Canadian musician, singer songwriter, and painter. Mitchell began singing in small nightclubs in her native Saskatchewan and Western Canada and then busking in the streets and dives of Toronto...
described Dylan as a "plagiarist" and his voice as "fake" in a 2010 interview in the Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
, in response to a suggestion that she and Dylan were similar since they had both changed their birthnames. Mitchell's comment led to discussions of Dylan's use of other people's material, both supporting and criticizing Dylan.
If Bob Dylan's legacy in the 1960s was seen as bringing intellectual ambition to popular music, now that he has reached the age of 70, he has been described as a figure who has greatly expanded the folk culture from which he initially emerged. As J. Hoberman
J. Hoberman
James Lewis Hoberman , also known as J. Hoberman, is an American film critic. He is currently the senior film critic for The Village Voice, a post he has held since 1988.-Education:...
wrote in The Village Voice
The Village Voice
The Village Voice is a free weekly newspaper and news and features website in New York City that features investigative articles, analysis of current affairs and culture, arts and music coverage, and events listings for New York City...
, "Elvis
Elvis Presley
Elvis Aaron Presley was one of the most popular American singers of the 20th century. A cultural icon, he is widely known by the single name Elvis. He is often referred to as the "King of Rock and Roll" or simply "the King"....
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 history 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."
External links
- BobDylan.com – Official web site, including lyrics and touring schedule
- Expecting Rain – Dylan news and events, updated daily
- BobLinks – Comprehensive log of concerts and set lists
- Bjorner's Still on the Road – Information on recording sessions and performances