Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan Recording
Like a Rolling Stone
Bob Dylan Performances
Blowin' in the Wind
Mr. Tambourine Man
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Bob Dylan Biography
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Robert Allen Zimmerman was born on May 24, 1941, in Duluth, Minnesota. He grew up in the mining town of Hibbing in northeastern Minnesota. Robert began playing guitar and piano at an early age. He formed his first rock and roll band, the Golden Chords, when he was a freshman in high school. He briefly attended the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. In Minneapolis he began performing folk music in coffeehouses and using the name Bob Dylan. He moved to New York, New York, in 1961.
Dylan became part of the folk music scene of the Greenwich Village neighborhood in New York City. Soon, he gained a following of fans. Within a year of moving to the city, he came to the attention of John Hammond, an important music producer. Hammond signed Dylan to his first record contract. Dylan’s first album, Bob Dylan, was released in 1962.
Dylan’s first few albums kept to the folk music tradition. He began to mix folk with rock and roll on Bringing It All Back Home in 1965. The music included electric instruments, which angered some of his fans. The transition from folk to rock music was complete with Highway 61 Revisited, which was also released in 1965. Dylan toured throughout 1965 and 1966 until a motorcycle accident caused him to stop touring.
Dylan emerged two years later with John Wesley Harding in 1968. The album was influenced by country music. His next album, Nashville Skyline, which was released in 1969, is considered one of the albums that helped launch the genre of country rock.
In the 1970s Dylan released two chart-topping albums—Blood on the Tracks, from 1975, and Desire, which was released in 1976. In 1979 Dylan converted to Christianity. He recorded and performed only religious material for three years.
Through the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s, Dylan continued to tour and record. Some of his most popular albums from this era were Oh Mercy, from 1989, Time Out of Mind, from 1997, and Love and Theft, which was released in 2001. He was still actively performing as he entered his 70s.
In addition to his recordings, Dylan has published a book of poetry called Tarantula in 1971, and an autobiography, Chronicles: Volume 1 in 2004. He has appeared in a number of films, including the popular documentaries Don’t Look Back, from 1967, and No Direction Home: Bob Dylan from 2005.
Dylan’s long list of honors includes numerous Grammy Awards for his recordings. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1988 and received a lifetime achievement award from the Recording Academy in 1991. Dylan was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2012 and the French Legion of Honor in 2013. In 2016 the Swedish Academy awarded Dylan the Nobel Prize for Literature. The academy praised Dylan for “having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition.”
Today, Bob Dylan continues to tour, perform, and release new music. His most recent release is the critically acclaimed Rough and Rowdy Ways from 2020. This album contained his first ever Billboard #1 hit single - Murder Most Foul. Bob Dylan is one of the most important figures in American music and remains an important influence on the culture today.