"The protest singer; the man who played fucking loud; the recluse; the heart-broken man; the born-again christian; the grizzled blues player. At every point in Bob's career he's written great songs with lines that rattle around your head, making sense of some things and throwing others into greater doubt. He's never failed to make me think and he's a voice I'm always willing to lend my time to. A genius."- MrMungbean
"The best lyricist that popular music has, as of yet, produced, Dylan is a true great. His voice is instantly recognizable in it's many different forms, giving character and meaning to his songs. The different genres that he has experimented with and the eclectic nature of his work is astounding. It's no mean feat to consistently make great music that will be highly respected in years to come, but the fact that he is still producing music of such a high quality some 45 years into his career makes Dylan not only talented and special, but, along with The Beatles, the pinnacle of popular music."- ecjam6
"Bob Dylan's genius remains greater than his talent. Dylan proves it's not how you sing it, it's what you sing. Dylan can express every emotion known to man, and is simply the greatest lyricist of all time...and it's unlikely he will ever be touched. Dylan invented rock songwriting by allying the literacy of folk to the boozed-up sexbeat of rock and roll. For me, he has the greatest library of songs in music, and anyone who can't get him is seriously missing out!"- ziggy32001
"I'd describe him as literate, but that might imply a pretentiousness that isn't there. I'd describe him as earthy, but that might imply a tackiness that isn't there. I'd say he lives in his own universe, but that definitely implies a disconnection from reality (which couldn't be further from the truth). I'll just say that, at his best, his music makes everyday life seem extraordinary."- Ellison
Bob Dylan was born Robert Allen Zimmerman on May 24, 1941 in the town of Duluth, Minnesota. Dylan moved with his family to Hibbing, Minnesota when he was six years old and remained there through high school. He taught himself how to play guitar, harmonica, and piano in his early teens and later formed the rock & roll group The Golden Chords. Bob graduated from high school in 1959 and went on to study at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. While attending the school he began to perform...>>
Bob Dylan was born Robert Allen Zimmerman on May 24, 1941 in the town of Duluth, Minnesota. Dylan moved with his family to Hibbing, Minnesota when he was six years old and remained there through high school. He taught himself how to play guitar, harmonica, and piano in his early teens and later formed the rock & roll group The Golden Chords. Bob graduated from high school in 1959 and went on to study at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. While attending the school he began to perform locally as a folk singer under the alias of Bob Dylan. Dylan dropped out of university and moved to New York City in the winter of 1961. He began performing in coffeehouses and clubs in the Greenwich Village area and managed to generate a small following in the Greenwich Village folk community.
In the fall of 1961 Dylan was signed to Columbia records by John Hammond and began recording his first album with John Hammond producing. His self-titled debut, Bob Dylan, was released in March of 1962. It largely consisted of folk and blues covers, with only two original Dylan songs appearing on the album. Dylan's second album, The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, was released in May of 1963. It consisted of 13 acoustic folk songs, mostly Dylan originals. This album took a lot of people by surprise when it was released after his very modest debut album and is now considered one of Dylan's most essential recordings. He followed that album up with two more acoustic folk releases in 1964. In 1965, Dylan turned his back on folk music and in the process made history when he plugged in and went electric. He released his first electric album, Bringing It All Back Home, that year. The album consisted of half electric rock & roll tracks and half acoustic folk songs in the vein of his previous albums. He followed Bringing It All Back Home up with Highway 61 Revisited, an album consisting of almost entirely electric songs, later that year. Highway 61 Revisited along with its follow-up Blonde on Blonde, which was released in May of 1966, are considered by many of Dylan's fans to be his best and most essential recordings.
On July 29, 1966, Dylan was severely injured in a motorcycle accident. After this he took a break and didn't release another album until John Wesley Harding in 1967. This album was a change from the harder edged electric sound of his hugely successful albums of 1965 and 1966. It was a shift to a more easy going country sound. He released four more albums in this form and then moved from Columbia records to the smaller Asylum records in 1973. While with Asylum, Dylan released his first number one album, Planet Waves, and a live album from the accompanying tour called Before the Flood. Dylan returned to Columbia records and followed up the commercial success of his last album with Blood on the Tracks, which critics applauded as a return to form after a period in which they viewed Dylan as being on the decline. He followed Blood on the Tracks up with Desire in 1976 and Street-Legal in 1978.
Following the release of Street-Legal, Dylan entered one of his most controversial periods when he declared himself a born again Christian and subsequently released a trilogy of Christian albums; Slow Train Coming in 1979, Saved in 1980 and Shot of Love in 1981. To the relief of fans, Dylan's Christian phase was short lived. Just four years after the release of his first Christian album, Dylan put out the secular Infidels in 1983 to favourable reviews. Dylan's following '80s releases were largely panned by critics and rejected by fans. However, in 1989 he made yet another comeback with Oh Mercy which was cheered by many critics as his best release since Blood on the Tracks. Unfortunately, his next album, Under the Red Sky, did not generate the same kind of excitement and praise as Oh Mercy and was largely panned in the same way many of his '80s releases were.
Dylan took a break from recording after his 1990 release Under the Red Sky and didn't record another studio album until Good as I Been to You in late 1992. This album consisted of traditional folk songs as did the album's 1993 follow-up World Gone Wrong. In 1997 Dylan released his first album of original material in seven years. Time Out of Mind was a huge and unexpected commercial and critical success, even winning him a Grammy Award for Album of the Year. In 2001, Dylan followed up Time Out of Mind with another critically acclaimed album, "Love and Theft".
rym
