Musicians - Bob Dylan

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	Musicians - Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan (born Robert Allen Zimmerman on May 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter, musician and poet whose enduring contributions to American song are often compared, in fame and influence, to those of Stephen Foster, Irving Berlin, Woody Guthrie, and Hank Williams.

Much of Dylan's best known work is from the 1960s, when he became an informal documentarian and reluctant figurehead of American unrest. Many involved in the anti-war and civil rights movements found an anthem in his song "Blowin' in the Wind". He remains an influential and popular artist; his most recent album of new songs, "Love and Theft", reached #5 on the charts in the US and #3 in Britain.

Dylan's lyrics incorporated politics, social commentary, philosophy and literary influences, defying existing pop music conventions and appealing widely to the counterculture of the time. While expanding and personalizing musical styles, Dylan has shown steadfast devotion to traditions of American song, from folk and country/blues to rock 'n' roll and rockabilly, to Gaelic balladry, even jazz, swing and Broadway.

Dylan plays the guitar, keyboard and harmonica. Backed by a changing lineup of musicians, he has toured steadily since the late 1980s.

Musical career and personal life

Beginnings

Bob Dylan was born in Duluth, Minnesota and raised in Hibbing, Minnesota, northwest of Lake Superior. His grandparents were Jewish emigrants from Lithuania, Russia and Ukraine, and his parents, Abraham Zimmerman and Beatrice Stone (Beatty), were part of the area's small but close-knit Jewish community. He lived in Duluth until age seven, when his father was stricken with polio. The family returned to nearby Hibbing, Beatty's hometown, where Robert Zimmerman spent the rest of his childhood.

Zimmerman spent much of his youth listening to the radio, first to the powerful blues and country music stations broadcasting from New Orleans and, later, early rock and roll. He made his earliest known recordings on Christmas Eve 1956, with two friends in a department store booth, singing verses of songs by Carl Perkins, Little Richard, Lloyd Price, The Penguins and others. He formed several bands while in high school; the first, The Shadow Blasters, was short-lived, but the second, the Golden Chords, proved more durable. They played covers and the Zimmerman-penned tune "Little Richard" at their high-school talent show. In 1959 he toured briefly under the name of Elston Gunnn with Bobby Vee, playing piano and supplying handclaps.

An able but not outstanding student, Zimmerman enrolled at the University of Minnesota in 1959 and moved to Minneapolis. His musical focus on rock and roll gave way to an interest in subtler, Gaelic-inflected American folk music, typically performed with an acoustic guitar. He soon became actively involved in the local Dinkytown folk music circuit, fraternizing with local folk enthusiasts and occasionally "borrowing" many of their albums. During his Dinkytown days Zimmerman began introducing himself as "Bob Dylan" (or Dillon). In his autobiography "Chronicles" (2005) Dylan writes: "What I was going to do as soon as I left home was just call myself Robert Allen...It sounded like a Scottish king and I liked it." However he discovered by reading Downbeat magazine that there was already a saxophone player called David Allyn. Dylan explains that he liked the way Allyn has changed the spelling of his last name to appear more exotic. A little later he came across Dylan Thomas and then made a choice between Robert Allyn and Robert Dylan: "I couldn't decide - the letter D came on stronger" he explained. He decided on "Bob" as there were several Bobbys in popular music at the time (Bobby Vee, Bobby Vinton, Bobby Rydell).

Dylan quit college at the end of his freshman year but stayed in Minneapolis, working the folk circuit there with temporary sojourns in Denver, Colorado, and Chicago, Illinois. In January 1961, en route to Minneapolis from Chicago, he changed course and went to New York City to perform and to visit his ailing musical idol Woody Guthrie in a New Jersey hospital. Initially playing mostly in small "basket" clubs for little pay, he gained some public recognition after a review in the New York Times by critic Robert Shelton, while John Hammond, a legendary music business figure, signed him to Columbia Records that September.

At the time his voice, musicianship and songwriting were still raw. His performances, like his first Columbia album (1962's Bob Dylan), consisted of familiar folk, blues and gospel material seasoned with a few of his own songs. As he continued to record for Columbia, he also recorded more than a dozen songs for Broadside Magazine (a folk music magazine and record label), under the pseudonym Blind Boy Grunt. In August 1962, Robert Allen Zimmerman went to the Supreme Court building in New York, and changed his name to Robert Dylan. By the time his next record, The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, was released in 1963 he had begun to make his name as both a singer and songwriter, specializing in protest songs, inspired partly by Joe Hill and initially in the style of Guthrie but soon practically developing his own genre.

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Musicians - Bob Dylan

Musical career and personal life

Beginnings

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