About Me
American musician, born Robert Zimmerman in Duluth, Minnesota, whose songs of social protest, such as “Blowin’ in the Wind†(1962) and “The Times They Are A-Changin’†(1964), became firmly associated with the civil rights movement.From the late 1950s Dylan (who took his surname from the name of the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas) played the local folk-club circuit in Minneapolis, before moving to the Greenwich Village area of New York in 1961. His eponymous debut album (1962) followed the tradition of the American singer-songwriter Woody Guthrie, with its guitar- and harmonica-based songs about the poor and downtrodden. The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan (1963) and The Times They Are A-Changin’ (1964) confirmed Dylan’s political commitment, but on songs like “Boots of Spanish Leather†he was also shown to be a master of romantic and introspective lyrics. Outraging folk-music audiences, Dylan began performing with an electric rock band in the mid-1960s, inspired by the Beatles and the Byrds (whose folk-rock version of Dylan’s song “Mr Tambourine Man†was a hit in 1965). Despite being jeered at by former fans at concerts, Dylan’s albums from this period (Bringing It All Back Home and Highway 61 Revisited, both 1965; Blonde on Blonde, 1966) are considered his best work.Traces of the folk and blues origins of his style remained in the harsh nasal quality of his voice—much imitated by other singers—but his stream-of-consciousness lyrics were increasingly inspired by literary figures such as John Keats, Arthur Rimbaud, and Jack Kerouac. Following an 18-month convalescence after a 1966 motorcycle accident, Dylan’s style veered more towards country-and-western music (as heard in John Wesley Harding, 1968, and Nashville Skyline, 1969, in which he collaborated with Johnny Cash). In the mid-1970s he collaborated with The Band on Planet Waves and the live album Before the Flood (both 1974; bootlegged sessions with The Band recorded during Dylan’s recovery were officially released as The Basement Tapes in 1975) and released Blood on the Tracks (1975)—a bitter and moving account of his divorce—and Desire (1976).Also in the 1970s, Dylan began to be interested in films: in 1973 he acted in Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (directed by Sam Peckinpah), and in 1987 played a Dylanesque rock star in Hearts of Fire, while in 1978 he directed as well as played the lead role in the drama Renaldo and Clara (co-written with Sam Shepard). Dylan’s late-1970s albums (such as Slow Train Coming, 1979) reflected his conversion to evangelical Christianity, while the brooding atmospherics of the Daniel Lanois-produced Oh Mercy (1989) brought renewed critical approval. In 1995 he recorded an acclaimed live acoustic album, Bob Dylan: Unplugged, and (after a heart attack) released his first record of new songs since 1990, the direct and personal Time Out of Mind (1997), which won three Grammy Awards.In 1991 he received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award; he was also nominated in four consecutive years for the Nobel Prize for Literature. In 2001 he won an Academy Award for the best song in a film, "Things Have Changed", from Wonder Boys (Curtis Hanson; 2000); his blues-inspired album “Love and Theft†(2001) was also awarded a Grammy for best contemporary folk album.
