Bob Dylan Pictures, Biography, Profile, Facts, Discography, Filmography, more.

Genres: Blues, country and western, and folk music to create distinctive protest music in the 1960s. His song “Blowin' in the Wind” became an anthem of the civil rights movement. His music, with its strong note of social protest, was especially popular during the 1960s, when he wrote songs such as “Like a Rolling Stone.”, “Blowin' in the Wind,” and “The Times They Are A-Changin'”. While undeniably a fine interpreter of traditional songs, Dylan was hardly a "good" singer under the narrow strictures of American popular-commercial music; many of his songs first reached the public through versions by other artists.

More broadly, Dylan is credited with expanding the vocabulary of popular music, moving it beyond traditional boy-and-girl themes into the heady realms of politics/social commentary, philosophy, and a kind of stream of consciousness absurdist humor that defies easy description. This lyrical innovation has occurred within the context of Dylan's steadfast devotion to the richest traditions of American song, from folk and country/blues to rock 'n' roll and rockabilly, to Gaelic balladry, even jazz, swing, and Broadway.

Bob Dylan's influence on popular music is incalculable. As a songwriter, he pioneered several different schools of pop songwriting, from confessional singer/songwriter to winding, hallucinatory, stream-of-conscious narratives. As a vocalist, he broke down the notions that in order to perform, a singer had to have a conventionally good voice, thereby redefining the role of vocalist in popular music. As a musician, he sparked several genres of pop music, including electrified folk-rock and country-rock. And that just touches on the tip of his achievements. Dylan's force was evident during his height of popularity in the '60s -- the Beatles' shift toward introspective songwriting in the mid-'60s never would have happened without him -- but his influence echoed throughout several subsequent generations. Many of his songs became popular standards, and his best albums were undisputed classics of the rock & roll canon. Dylan's influence throughout folk music was equally powerful, and he marks a pivotal turning point in its 20th century evolution, signifying when the genre moved away from traditional songs and toward personal songwriting. Even when his sales declined in the '80s and '90s, Dylan's presence was calculable.

Birth Name / Real Name: Robert Allen Zimmerman

Born: 24 May 1941

Birth Place: Duluth, Minnesota

Profession : Musician

Height : 5' 7½''

Profession : Musician

Styles: Blues, Country & Western, Folk Music, Protest Music

Best Known As: Singer of Like a Rolling Stone, Blowin' in the Wind, The Times They Are A-Changin'.

Nicknames : Bobby, Zimmy, Zimbo (childhood).

Sometimes Called : Sergei Petrov, Robert Zimmerman.

Bob Dylan's Life / Early Years:

Bob Dylan (Robert Allen Zimmerman) was born 24 May 1941 in Duluth MN; his father Abe worked for the Standard Oil Company. He is widely regarded as one of America's greatest popular songwriters. Bob Dylan learned guitar at the age of 10 and autoharp and harmonica at 15. Stephen Foster, Irving Berlin, Woody Guthrie, and Hank Williams are among the few songwriters similarly revered for their enduring contributions to the American oeuvre.

Much of his best-known work is from the 1960s, when his musical shadow was so large that he became a documentarian and reluctant figurehead of American unrest. The civil rights movement had no more moving anthem than his song "Blowin' In The Wind". Millions of young people embraced "The Times They Are A-Changin'" during that era of extreme change. The radical insurgent group The Weathermen named themselves after a lyric in his "Subterranean Homesick Blues" ("You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows").

Bob Dylan started university studies in 1959 in Minneapolis. During his Dinkytown days Zimmerman began introducing himself as Bob Dylan (or Dillon). Dylan has never explained the exact source for the pseudonym, sometimes alluding to an apparently mythical uncle, sometimes to the hero of Gunsmoke, to its similarity to his middle name, and occasionally acknowledging some reference to the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas.

He quit college at the end of his freshman year, but stayed in Minneapolis, working the folk circuit there, with temporary sojourns in Denver and Chicago. In January 1961, enroute to Minneapolis from Chicago, he changed course, and headed to New York City to perform and to visit his ailing idol Woody Guthrie. Initially playing mostly in small "basket" clubs for little pay, he soon gained some public recognition after a review in the New York Times (September 29, 1961) by critic Robert Shelton, while John Hammond, a legendary music business figure, signed him to Columbia Records. 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, 1962 also saw Dylan recording some of his lesser songs for Broadside (a folk music magazine and record label), under the pseudonym Blind Boy Grunt. By the time his next record, The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, in which his girlfriend Suze Rotolo appeared on the cover, was released in (1963), he had begun to make his name as both a singer and composer, specialising in protest songs, initially in the style of Guthrie and soon practically developing his own genre.

His most famous songs of the time are typified by "Blowin' In The Wind", its melody partially derived from the traditional slave song "No More Auction Block", coupled with lyrics challenging the social and political status quo. In hindsight, the lyrics to some of these songs may appear unsophisticated ("How many times must the cannonballs fly before they are forever banned"), but compared to the largely anemic popular culture of the 1950s they were a breath of fresh air, and the songs fueled the zeitgeist of the 1960s. "Blowin' In The Wind" itself was widely recorded, an international hit for Peter, Paul and Mary, setting an enduring precedent for other artists to cover Dylan's songs. While Dylan's topical songs made his early reputation, Freewheelin' also mixed in finely crafted bittersweet love songs ("Don't Think Twice, It's Alright", "Girl From the North Country") and jokey, frequently surreal talking blues ("Talking World War III Blues", "I Shall Be Free"). The song "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall" occupies a plane perhaps above even "Blowin' In The Wind", with its hard hitting imagery and almost God's-eye perspective. It represents a nearly alchemical moment in modern songwriting in which time-tested folk structures are reworked into a latter-day idiom encompassing world events and deep personal reflection (the citizen's life "flashing before his eyes" under the apprehension of apocalypse). The song gained even more resonance as the Cuban missile crisis developed only a few weeks after Dylan began performing it. Joan Baez took it upon herself to record and perform his early material regularly; others who covered his songs included The Byrds, Sonny and Cher, The Hollies, Manfred Mann and Herman's Hermits. So ubiquitous were these covers by the mid-1960s that CBS started to promote him with the tag: "Nobody Sings Dylan Like Dylan". Whoever sang his songs, they were immediately recognizable as his and a good part of his fame rested not only on his lyrical excellence but on the underlying attitude.

Awards & Nominations for Bob Dylan:

Golden Globe

Year : 2001

Category : Best Original Song - Motion Picture

For : Wonder Boys

Result: Won

Oscar

Year : 2001

Category : Best Music, Original Song

For : Wonder Boys

Result: Won

Grammy

Year : 2001

Category : Best Song Written for a Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media

For : Wonder Boys

Result: Nominated

Sierra Award

Year : 2000

Category : Best Song

For : Wonder Boys

Result: Won

Anthony Asquith Award for Film Music (BAFTA Awards)

Year : 1974

Category :

For : Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid

Result: Nominated

Grammy

Year : 1974

Category : Album of Best Original Score Written for a Motion Picture

For : Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid

Result: Nominated