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] is an American ] ]. He is known for poetic, often obscure lyrics with politically and socially charged themes. There are other musicians and songwriters who are compared to Bob Dylan in that they share these attributes.
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Very early in his career Donovan was called both the Scottish Bob Dylan (),as well as "Britain's Response to Bob Dylan" (), but this label was dropped as their styles diverged. Bruce Springsteen (), Tom Waits (), John Prine (), Kris Kristofferson, Elvis Costello (), Steve Forbert (), Neil Young () are all part of a long line of talented artists who, at some point in their careers, were seen as "new Dylan"s.
{{Infobox_band
| band_name = Bob Dylan
| image = ]
| caption = Portrait photograph by Daniel Kramer
| years_active = 1959—present
| origin = ]
| music_genre = ], ], ]
| record_label = ]
}}


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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 ] and ] found an anthem in his song "]". He remains an influential and popular artist; his last album, ], reached #5 on the charts in the US and #3 in Britain.

Dylan's lyrics incorporated ], ], ] and ] 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 ] and ]/] to ] and ], to ] balladry, even ], ] and ].

Dylan plays the ], ] and ]. 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 ] and raised in ], on the extreme western shore of ]. His grandparents were ] emigrants from ], ] and ], 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 ]. The family returned to nearby ], 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 ] and ] stations broadcasting from ] and, later, early ]. He made his earliest known recordings on Christmas Eve 1956, with two friends in a department store booth, singing verses of songs by ], ], ], ] 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 ], playing piano and supplying handclaps.

An able but not outstanding student, Zimmerman enrolled at the ] in 1959 and moved to ]. His musical focus on ] 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 ] ] 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 ] 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 ], and ]. In January 1961, en route to Minneapolis from Chicago, he changed course and went to ] to perform and to visit his ailing musical idol ] in a ] hospital. Initially playing mostly in small "basket" clubs for little pay, he gained some public recognition after a review in the '']'' by critic ], while ], a legendary music business figure, signed him to ] that September.

At the time his voice, musicianship and songwriting were still raw. His performances, like his first Columbia album (]'s '']''), 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 ] (a folk music magazine and record label), under the pseudonym Blind Boy Grunt. In ] ], Robert Allen Zimmerman went to the ] building in New York, and changed his name to Robert Dylan. By the time his next record, '']'', was released in ] he had begun to make his name as both a singer and songwriter, specializing in ]s, inspired partly by ] and initially in the style of Guthrie but soon practically developing his own genre.

His most famous songs of the time are typified by "]", its melody partially derived from the traditional slave song "No More Auction Block", coupled with Dylan's original lyrics challenging the social and political status quo. "Blowin' In The Wind" itself was widely recorded and was an international hit for ], setting an enduring precedent for other artists. While Dylan's topical songs solidified his early reputation, somewhat overlooked among them on ''Freewheelin''' was a mixture of finely crafted bittersweet love songs ("Don't Think Twice, It's Alright", "Girl From the North Country") and jokey, frequently surreal talking blues ("]", "I Shall Be Free"). Humor was a large part of Bob Dylan's persona.

The ''Freewheelin''' song "]", built melodically from a loose adaptation of the stanza tune of the folk ] ], with its veiled references to ] ], gained even more resonance as the ] developed only a few weeks after Dylan began performing it. Soon after the release of ''Freewheelin'' Dylan emerged as a dominant figure of the so-called "new folk movement" headquartered in Lower Manhattan's ]. ], amongst others, listened to this album and 1964's '']'' repeatedly and realized that entire albums of boy-meets-girl songs were now, at one blow, outmoded.
] during the Civil Rights March on ], 1963]]
While undeniably a fine interpreter of traditional songs, Dylan's singing voice was unusual and untrained and his phrasing as a vocalist was eccentric. He sang his songs with an arrogance and aggression that was anathema to the music industry of the time. Many of his most famous early songs first reached the public through versions by other performing musicians who were more immediately palatable. ], regarded at the time as the reigning queen of folk, became Dylan's advocate as well as his lover. In addition to jumpstarting Dylan's performance career by inviting him onstage during her concerts, she chose to record several of his early songs. Given her considerable fame at the time, her recordings of Dylan's songs were influential in bringing Dylan to national and international prominence.

Others who recorded and released his songs around this time included ], ], ], ], ], ] and ], most attempting to impart more of a pop feel and rhythm to the songs where Dylan and Baez performed them mostly as sparse folk pieces keying rhythmically off the vocals. So ubiquitous were these covers by the mid-1960s that ] started to promote him with the tag: "Nobody Sings Dylan Like Dylan". Paradoxically, many new artists sprang up at this time with singing styles suspiciously similar to Dylan's, typically using his inflections and tone while dispensing with the "mumbly" and gruff qualities (see ]).

===Protest and another side===
By ], Dylan was becoming increasingly prominent in the ] movement, singing at rallies including the ] where ] gave his "]" speech. In January, he appeared on ] in the ] play '' ]'', featuring as a ]-type figure. Dylan's next album, ''],'' reflected a more sophisticated, politicized and cynical Dylan. This bleak material, concerned with such subjects as the murder of civil rights worker ] and the despair engendered by the breakdown of farming and mining communities ("Ballad of Hollis Brown", "North Country Blues"), was tempered by two enduring love songs, "Boots of Spanish Leather" and "One Too Many Mornings", and the epic renunciation of "Restless Farewell". The ]-influenced "]", a highlight of the album, describes a young socialite's killing of a hotel maid. Never explicitly mentioning race, the song leaves no doubt that the killer is white, the victim black.

As a sign of the political influence of Dylan's lyrics, in 1969 the militant ] radical group took their name from a line in "]" ("You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows").

By the end of 1963, however, Dylan felt both manipulated and constrained by the folk-protest movement. Accepting the "] Award" from the ] at a ceremony shortly after the assassination of ], a drunken, rambling Dylan questioned the role of the committee, insulted its members as old and balding, and claimed to see something of himself (and of every man) in assassin ].

Perhaps inevitably then, his next album, the accurately but prosaically titled '']'', recorded on a single June evening in ], had a lighter mood than its predecessor. The surreal Dylan reemerged on "I Shall Be Free #10" and "Motorpsycho Nightmare" employing a sense of humor which would persist throughout his career. "Spanish Harlem Incident" and "To Ramona" were touching love songs, "I Don't Believe You", a prototypical rock and roll song played on acoustic guitar, and "It Ain't Me Babe", a romping rejection of the role his reputation thrust at him. His newest direction was signaled by three songs: "]", long and ], sets elements of social commentary against a denser metaphorical landscape in a style later characterized by ] as "chains of flashing images"; "]" even more personally attacks the simplistic and arch seriousness of his own earlier topical songs; and a musically undeveloped "Mr. Tambourine Man", written before many songs included on ''Another Side'' but held back for Dylan's next release.

In the early 1960s, Dylan had adopted a sort of ] persona and told picaresque tales of knocking around, hopping freights, and working at folksy jobs. In that bohemian phase, lasting a few years, he sang and wrote somewhat like the Woody Guthrie of 25 or 30 years earlier. However, as he “brought it all back home” (Dylan’s point of view as a writer became at once more thoroughly contemporary and more surrealistic, and probably more honest.

Throughout this time Dylan's artistic development moved so fast that he frequently left both critics and fans behind. His March ] album '']'' was a further stylistic leap. Influenced by ] (whose artistic development had already been enhanced by Dylan's influence) and the rock and roll of his youth, the first side contained his first significant original up-tempo rock songs. Lyrically, however, the songs were pure Dylan, exhibiting his dry wit and inhabited by a sequence of grotesque, metaphorical characters. The raucous first single, "]", owed much to ]'s "Too Much Monkey Business" and was provided with an early ] courtesy of ]'s ] presentation of Dylan's 1965 tour, '']''. Its lyrics drew references in large from the beat poetry of the time, its name possibly refering to ].

Side 2 of the album was a different matter, including four lengthy acoustic songs whose undogmatic political, social and personal concerns are illuminated with the rich poetic imagery that would become another trademark. One of these songs, "]" had already been a hit for The Byrds, albeit in a truncated form, and would remain one of Dylan's most enduring compositions, while "Gates Of Eden", "It's All Over Now Baby Blue", and "It's Alright Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)" have justifiably been fixtures in Dylan's live performances for most of his career.

That summer, Bob Dylan stoked the drama of his legacy by performing his first electric set (since his high school days) with a pickup group drawn mostly from the ] at the ]. Dylan had appeared at Newport twice before in 1963 and 1964. Two wildly divergent accounts of the crowd's response in 1965 survive to this day. The settled fact is that Dylan, met with a mix of cheering and booing, left the stage after only three songs. As one version of the legend has it, the boos were from the outraged folk fans Dylan alienated with his electric guitar. An alternative account has it that audience members were upset by poor sound quality and a surprisingly short set. Whatever sparked the crowd's disfavor, Dylan soon reemerged and sang two much better received solo acoustic numbers, "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" and "Mr. Tambourine Man." Nevertheless, the import of the appearance at Newport worked its way into the awareness of this restless generation: thoughtful acoustic music was no longer enough even for tradition-aware singers like Dylan; times were indeed "a changin" and electricity was needed to express those changes.

===Creative height, crash===
The single "]" was a U.S. and U.K. hit, cementing his reputation as a lyricist; at over six minutes, devoid of a bridge, the song also helped to expand the limits of hit radio. (In 2004, ] listed it at #1 on its list of the 500 greatest songs of all time.) Its signature sound, with a full, jangling band and a simple organ riff, would characterize his next album, '']'' (titled after the road that led from his native Minnesota to the musical hotbed of ]; and referencing any number of ] songs; e.g., ]'s "61 Highway"). The songs were in the same vein as the hit single, surreal litanies of the grotesque flavored by ]'s blues guitar, a tight rhythm section and Dylan's obvious enjoyment of the sessions. The closing song, "]", is a lengthy apocalyptic vision with references to many figures of ].
], ] and Dylan's own brand of surrealism, '']'' (1966) is often considered to be one of the finest recordings of American popular music.]]

In support of the record, Dylan was booked for two U.S. concerts and set about assembling a band. ] was unwilling to leave the Butterfield Band, so Dylan mixed ] and ] from his studio crew with bar-band stalwarts ] and ], best known for backing ]. In August 1965 at Forest Hills Auditorium, the group was heckled from an audience who, Newport notwithstanding, still demanded the acoustic troubadour of previous years; their reception on September 3rd at the ] was more uniformly favorable.

Neither Kooper nor Brooks wanted to tour with Dylan, and he was unable to lure his preferred band, a crew of west coast musicians best known for backing ], featuring guitarist ] and drummer ], away from their regular commitments. Dylan then hired Robertson and Helm's full band, ], for his tour group, and began a string of studio sessions with them in an effort to record the follow-up to '']''.

Dylan secretly married ] on ], ]; their first child, Jesse Byron Dylan, was born on January 6, 1966. Dylan and Lownds had four children in total: ], Anna, Samuel, and ] (born ], ]). Dylan also adopted Sara Lownds' first daughter Maria Lownds (born October 21st, 1961) from a prior marriage. In the 1990's, the youngest of the pair's children, ], became well known as the lead singer of the band ]. ] is a film director and a very successful businessman.

Dylan and Lownds divorced in July 1977, though they reportedly remained in regular contact for many years and, by some accounts, even to the present day.

While Dylan and the Hawks met increasingly receptive audiences on tour, their studio efforts floundered. At John Hammond's suggestion, producer ] brought Dylan to ] to record, surrounding him with a cadre of top-notch session men. Only Robertson and Kooper came down from ] to play more limited roles. The Nashville sessions brought out what Dylan would later call "that thin wild mercury sound" and a classic record often viewed as one of the greatest in American popular music, '']'' (1966).

Dylan undertook an ambitious "world tour" of ] and ] in the spring of 1966. Each show was split into two parts: in the first half Dylan performed solo, accompanying himself on ] and ]; in the second half, backed by ] he played fully-charged electric music. This jarring switch chafed at many fans, who jeered and slowly handclapped. The tour culminated in an infamously raucous confrontation with his audience at the Manchester ] in ] (officially released on CD in 1998). At the climax of the concert, one fan, angry with Dylan's electric sound, shouted; "]!" from the audience, and Dylan responded, "I don't believe you! You're a liar!" before turning to the band and exhorting them to "Play fuckin' loud!" as they launched into the last song of the night—"]".

After his European tour, Dylan returned to ], but the pressures on him continued to increase: his publisher was demanding a finished ] of the poem/novel '']'' and manager ] had already scheduled a grueling summer/fall concert tour. On ], ], while Dylan rode his Triumph 500 ] in ], its brakes locked, throwing him to the ground. Though the extent of his injuries were never fully disclosed, it was confirmed that he indeed broke his ]. Whether through necessity or ], Dylan used an extended convalescence to escape the pressures of ].

Once Dylan was well enough to resume creative work, he began editing footage into '']'', a rarely exhibited follow-up to ''Dont Look Back''. In ] he began recording music with the Hawks at his home and, legendarily, the basement of the Hawks' nearby "Big Pink". The relaxed atmosphere yielded renditions of many of Dylan's favored old and new songs and some newly written pieces. These originals, at first compiled as demos for other artists to record, began to circulate on their own merits. Columbia belatedly released selections from them in 1975 as '']''. Later in 1967, the Hawks (soon to be rechristened as ]) independently recorded the album '']'', thus beginning a long and successful recording and performing career of their own.

Unsurprisingly, Dylan's new music reflected by his changed lifestyle. In December 1967, he released his first album since the motorcycle crash called '']''. The album was a quiet, contemplative record of shorter songs, set in a landscape which drew on both the ] and the ]. The sparse structure and instrumentation, coupled with lyrics which took the Judeo-Christian tradition seriously, marked a departure not only from Dylan's own work but from the escalating psychedelic fervor of the 1960s musical culture.It included "]", with lyrics derived from the ] (21:5–9). The song was later immortalized by ] in a version that Dylan himself has acknowledged as definitive.

] died in October 1967, and Dylan made his first public appearances in 18 months at a pair of Guthrie memorial concerts the following January.

Dylan's next release, '']'' (]), was virtually a mainstream country record featuring instrumental backing by ] musicians, a mellow-voiced, contented Dylan, a duet with ], and the hit single "]". Dylan appeared on Cash's new television show and then gave a high-profile performance at the ] rock festival (after rejecting overtures to appear at the ] event far closer to his home).

===The 1970s===
In the early 1970s, critics charged Dylan's output was of varied and unpredictable quality. "What is this shit?" '']'' magazine writer and Dylan loyalist ] notoriously asked, upon first listening to ]'s '']''. In general, ''Self Portrait'', a double LP including few original songs, was poorly received. Later that year, Dylan released '']'', considered by some as a return to form. His unannounced appearance at ] ] ] was widely praised, but reports of a new album, a television special, and a return to touring came to nothing.

In 1972, Dylan signed onto ]'s film '']'', providing the ] and taking a role as "Alias", a minor member of Billy's gang. "]", among Dylan's most covered songs, has proved much more durable than the film itself.

Dylan signed with ]'s new Asylum label when his contract with ] expired in ]. He recorded '']'' with the Band; like ''New Morning'', ''Planet Waves'' was initially viewed as a return to peak form, but in retrospect appears less substantial (although "Forever Young" has proved to be one of Dylan's most lasting songs). Columbia Records almost simultaneously released '']'', a haphazard collection of studio outtakes often termed a "revenge" release.

In early ], Dylan and ] staged a high-profile, coast-to-coast tour of ]; promoter ] claimed he received more ticket purchase requests than for any prior tour by any artist. The tour was documented on the album '']'', but Dylan refused to allow a tour film to be produced.

After the tour, Dylan and his wife became publicly estranged. He filled a small red notebook with songs about his marital problems, and quickly recorded a new album entitled '']'' in September 1974.

Word of Dylan's efforts soon leaked out, and expectations were high. But Dylan delayed the album's release, and then re-recorded half of the songs in ] by year's end. Released in early ], '']'' was critically acclaimed and commercially successful, and is considered his finest album by many fans. The songs are among his most intimate.

That summer, Dylan wrote his first successful "protest" song in twelve years, championing the cause of boxer ] who he believed had been wrongfully imprisoned for a triple homicide in Paterson, New Jersey (an eponymous 1971 tribute to ], a ] who was killed in prison, sank almost unnoticed). After visiting Carter in jail, Dylan wrote "]", presenting the case for Carter's innocence. Despite its 8 1/2 minute length, the song was released as a single, peaking at #31 on the Billboard Chart, and performed at every 1975 date of Dylan's next tour, the ]. The tour was something different: a varied evening of entertainment featuring many performers drawn mostly from the resurgent Greenwich Village folk scene, including ]; ]; ]; former ] frontman ]; ], a ] player Dylan discovered while she was walking down the street to a rehearsal, her violin case hanging on her back; and a reunion with ]. ] added herself to the Revue in November, and poet ] accompanied the troupe, staging scenes for the film Dylan was simultaneously shooting. ], who would later achieve some fame as a playwright and actor, traveled along as a sort of informal chronicler.

Running through the fall of 1975 and again through the spring of 1976, the tour also encompassed the release of the album '']'' (]), with many of Dylan's new songs featuring an almost ]-like narrative style, showing the influence of his new collaborator, playwright ]. The spring 1976 half of the tour was documented by a TV concert special, ''Hard Rain'', and an LP of the same title; no concert album from the better-received and better-known opening half of the tour would be released until 2002, when '']'' appeared as the fifth volume in Dylan's official ''Bootleg Series''.

The fall 1975 tour with the Revue also provided the backdrop to Dylan's nearly four-hour film '']'', a sprawling, improvised and frequently baffling narrative mixed with striking concert footage and reminiscences. Released in 1978, the movie received generally poor, sometimes scathing, reviews and had a very brief theatrical run. Later in that year, Dylan allowed a two-hour edit, dominated by the concert performances, to be more widely released.

In November 1976, Dylan appeared at The Band's "farewell" concert, along with other guests including ], ], ], and ]. ]'s cimematic chronicle of this show, '']'', acclaimed as perhaps the best American concert film yet produced, was released in 1978 and included about half of Dylan's set.

Dylan's ] album '']'' was generally well reviewed. Lyrically one of his more complex and absorbing, it suffered, however, from a poor sound mix (attributed to his studio recording practices), submerging much of its instrumentation in the sonic equivalent of cotton wadding until its remastered CD release nearly a quarter century later.

Dylan's work in the late 1970s and early 1980s was dominated by his becoming, in 1979, a ]. He released two albums of exclusively religious material and a third that seemed mostly so; of these, the first, '']'' (1979), is generally regarded as the most accomplished, winning him a Grammy for best male vocalist. The second album, '']'' (1980), was not so well-received. When touring from the fall of 1979 through the spring of 1980 Dylan refused to play secular music and delivered sermonettes on stage, such as:

:''"Years ago they used ..., said I was a prophet. I used to say, 'No, I'm not a prophet,' they say, 'Yes, you are, you're a prophet.' I said, 'No, it's not me.' They used to say, 'You sure are a prophet.' They used to convince me I was a prophet. Now I come out and say Jesus Christ is the answer. They say, 'Bob Dylan's no prophet.' They just can't handle it."'' (January 25, 1980, Omaha)

Dylan's religious conversion was met with distrust by some fans and fellow artists. ], for example, recorded "Serve Yourself", a parody of Dylan's "Gotta Serve Somebody".

===Hard-working elder statesman===
====1980s====
In the fall of 1980, Dylan briefly resumed touring, restoring several of his most popular 1960s songs to his repertoire, for a series of concerts billed as "A Musical Retrospective". '']'', recorded the next spring, featured Dylan's first secular compositions in more than two years, mixed with explicitly Christian songs and material that resisted pigeonholing.

In the 1980s, the quality of Dylan's recorded work varied, from the well-regarded '']'' in 1983 to the panned '']'' in 1988. In addition, beginning with ''Infidels'', Dylan's recordings would no longer be dominated by openly Christian lyrics, as they had been on his previous three albums. Of course, one need not look far to find religious themes in his work since, but these themes would no longer be so explicit, and certainly not so evangelistic. Naturally, there is much debate among Dylan fans over his current personal beliefs. Virtually all would agree that he no longer records songs comparable in evangelistic fervor to those of his gospel period, such as "I Believe In You", "Saving Grace", or "Property Of Jesus". However, most would also admit that the supernatural is still a major theme in Dylan's work; for example, he has written and recorded songs such as "", "", and "", in the lyrics of which a cursory glance will reveal religious concerns.

The ''Infidels'' recording sessions produced several notable outtakes, and some critics have questioned Dylan's judgment in leaving these off the album. Most well-regarded of these outtakes were "]", "Foot of Pride", "Someone's Got a Hold of My Heart" and "Lord Protect My Child", which were later released on the boxed set '']''. An earlier version of '']'', prepared by producer/guitarist ], contained different arrangements and song selections than what appeared on the final product.

In late 1985, Dylan married his longtime backup singer Carolyn Dennis (often professionally known as Carol Dennis). Their daughter, Desiree, Gabrielle Dennis-Dylan, was born on ], ]. The couple divorced in the early 1990s.

In 1987, Dylan starred in ]'s movie '']'', in which he played a washed-up-rock-star-turned-chicken farmer whose teenage lover (Fiona) leaves him for a jaded English synth-pop sensation (]). The film was a critical and commercial flop. In fact, when asked in a press conference if he had anything to do with writing the movie, Dylan chuckled "I couldn't have possibly written anything like that."

Dylan was inducted into the ] in 1988. Later that spring, he took part in the first ] album, working with ], ], ], and his good friend ] on lighthearted, well-selling fare. Despite Orbison's death, the other four Wilburys issued a sequel in 1990.

Dylan finished the decade on a critical high note with the ]-produced '']'' (]). Lanois's influence is audible throughout '']''. "Ring Them Bells" seems to call for Christians to maintain a visible presence in the world, perhaps adding fuel to the debate over Dylan's religious orientation. The track "Most of the Time", a ruminative lost love composition, was later prominently featured in the film '']'' while "What Was It You Wanted?" was a love song that doubled as a dry comment on the expectations of fans.

Dylan made a number of music videos during this period, but only "Political World" found any regular airtime on ].

====1990s====
Dylan's 1990s began with '']'' (]), an odd about-face from the serious ''Oh Mercy''. The album was dedicated to "Gabby Goo Goo", and contained several apparently simple songs, including "Under the Red Sky" and "Wiggle Wiggle." The "Gabby Goo Goo" dedication was later explained as a nickname for Dylan's four-year-old daughter. However, the story that the album's songs were written for her entertainment is plainly apocryphal. Sidemen on the album included ], ] from ], ], ], ], and ].

The next few years saw Dylan returning to his folk roots with two albums covering old folk and blues numbers: '']'' (]) and '']'' (]), featuring nuanced interpretations and ragged but highly original acoustic guitar work. His ] concert on '']'', and the album culled from it, marked Dylan's only newly recorded output during the mid-1990s. Essentially a ] collection, it also included "John Brown", an unreleased 1963 song detailing the ravages of both war and ].

With a sheaf of songs reportedly written while snowed-in on his Minnesota ranch, Dylan returned to the recording studio with Lanois in January 1997. Late that spring, before the album's release, Dylan was hospitalized with a life-threatening heart infection, ], brought on by ]. His scheduled European tour was cancelled, but Dylan made a speedy recovery and left the hospital saying, "I really thought I'd be seeing ] soon." He was back on the road by midsummer, and in early fall performed before ] at the World Eucharistic Conference in ], ].

September saw the release of the new Lanois-produced album, Dylan's first collection of original songs in seven years. '']'', with its bitter assessment of love and morbid ruminations, was highly acclaimed and achieved an unforeseen popularity among young listeners, particularly the song "Love Sick". This collection of complex songs won him his first solo Album of the Year ] (he was one of numerous performers on ], the 1972 winner). The ballad "To Make You Feel My Love", covered by both Garth Brooks and Billy Joel, generated more royalties than any song he had written since the 1960s.

====2000 and beyond====
In 2001, his song "Things Have Changed", penned for the film '']'', won a ] and an ]. For reasons unannounced, the Oscar (by some reports a facsimile) tours with him, presiding over shows perched atop an amplifier.

'']'', an album that explores diverse styles of American music and revisits Dylan's own creative roots, was released on ], ]. Dylan produced the album himself under the pseudonym Jack Frost, and its distinctive sound is owes much to the accompanists. ], bassist and bandleader, had played with Dylan for 12 years, longer than any other musician. Larry Campbell, one of the most accomplished American guitarists of the last two decades, played on the road with Dylan from 1997 through 2004. Guitarist ] and drummer ] had also toured with Dylan for years. Keyboard player ], the only musician not part of Dylan's touring band, had also played on ''Time Out of Mind''. The album was critically well-received, nominated for several Grammy awards, and sold strongly.
'']'' was controversial due to some similarities between the lyrics of the song "Floater" to Japanese writer Junichi Saga's book ''Confessions of a Yakuza''. It is unclear if Dylan intentionally lifted any material. Dylan's publicist had no comment.

2003 saw the release of the film '']'', a creative collaboration with television producer ], featured many well-known actors. Dylan and Charles cowrote the film under the pseudonyms Rene Fontaine and Sergei Petrov. As difficult to decipher as some of his songs, ''Masked & Anonymous'' was panned by most major critics and had a limited run in theaters.

In 2005 preproduction began on a film entitled ''I'm Not There: Suppositions on a Film Concerning Dylan'' . The movie makes use of seven characters to represent the different aspects of Dylan's life. The movie is to be directed by ], and the cast currently includes ], ] and ].

]'s film biography '']'' was shown on ] and ] ] on ] in the United Kingdom and ] in the United States. A DVD of this film was released on ], with an accompanying soundtrack released on ], ].

Dylan himself returned to recording studio at some point in 2005. He recorded at least one song, entitled "Tell Ol' Bill" for the motion picture ]. The song is an original composition, not the similarly titled traditional folk song.


In February 2006, Dylan recorded tracks for a new album in New York City the following week; it is expected to be released late in the spring. He is scheduled to resume touring in April. In May or June, he plans to begin hosting a weekly radio program for ].

====Recent live performances====

Dylan has played roughly 100 dates a year for the entirety of the 1990s and the 2000s, a heavier schedule than most performers who started out in the 1960s. The "Never Ending Tour" continues, anchored by longtime bassist Tony Garnier and filled out with talented musicians better known to their peers than to their audiences. To the dismay of some fans Dylan refuses to be a nostalgia act; his reworked arrangements, evolving bands and experimental vocal approaches keep the music unpredictable night after night.

Dylan, once known as a guitar player, has not been playing guitar in live performance since 2002 (with very rare exceptions). Instead he chooses to play on the keyboard, with increasingly frequent harmonica solos. Various rumors have circulated as to why Dylan gave up his guitar, none terribly reliable. According to David Gates, a Newsweek reporter who interviewed Dylan in 2004, "...it has to do with his guitar not giving him quite the fullness of sound he was wanting at the bottom... He's thought of hiring a keyboard player so he doesn't have to do it himself, but hasn't been able to figure out who."

Dylan chooses songs from throughout his 40-year career, seldom playing the same set twice.

==Fan base==
Bob Dylan's large and vocal fan base write books, essays, ']s, etc. at a furious rate. They also maintain a massive Internet presence with daily Dylan news, a site which rigorously documents every song he has ever played in concert, and one where visitors bet on what songs he will play on upcoming tours. Within minutes of the end of concerts, set lists and reviews are posted by his loyal following.

The poet laureate of Britain, ], is a vocal supporter of Dylan's work, as are musicians ], ], ], ], ], ], ], and ].

The ], which was created in 2001 has been featured on CNN, CBC, BBC, and the Associated Press. To the , "The pool reflects both the obsessive interest Dylan still draws 40 years into his career and the way this road warrior has structured his career." It allows interaction between fans while adding a level of competition through the unique online Bob Dylan fantasy game.

==Chronicles Vol. 1==
After a lengthy delay, ] saw the publishing of Bob Dylan's autobiography, '']''. He once again confounded expectations. Dylan wrote three chapters about the year between his arrival in ] in 1961 and recording his first album. Dylan focused on the brief period before he was a household name, while virtually ignoring the mid-1960s when his fame was at its height. He also devoted chapters to two lesser-known albums, '']'' (1970) and '']'' (1989), which contained insights into his collaborations with poet ] and producer ]. In the '']'' chapter, Dylan expresses distaste for the "spokesman of a generation" label bestowed upon him, and evinces disgust with his more fanatical followers.

Another section features Dylan's account of a guitar-strumming style in mathematical detail that he claimed was the key to his renaissance in the 1990s. Despite the ] of some passages, there is an overall clarity in voice that is generally missing in Dylan's other prose writings, and a noticeable generosity towards friends and lovers of his early years. At the end of the book, Dylan describes with great passion the moment when he listened to the Brecht/Weill song "Pirate Jenny", and the moment when he first heard ]’s recordings. In these passages, Dylan suggested the process which ignited his own song-writing.

Six weeks after its publication, ''Chronicles, Vol. 1'' was #5 on the ]' Hardcover Non-Fiction best seller list and climbing. Simultaneously, ] and ] reported the book as their #2 best seller among all categories. ''Chronicles Vol. 1'' is the first of three planned volumes.

==Discography, film, books==
See ].

==Band==
The current members of Bob Dylan's touring band:

* '''Bob Dylan''' - ], ], ]
* Stu Kimball - ]
* Denny Freeman - ]
* Donny Herron - ], ], ], ], ]
* ] - ], ]
* George Receli - ]

==Known pseudonyms==
* Elston Gunnn (the spelling is an eccentricity of his adolescence)
* Bob Dylan (his legal name, since August 1962- Robert Dylan)
* Bob Dillon (according to some biographers, an early spelling based on an affection for the character ] in ])
* Blind Boy Grunt (album credit)
* Bob Landy (album credit)
* Tedham Porterhouse (album credit)
* Robert Milkwood Thomas
* Lucky Wilbury (])
* Boo Wilbury (])
* Jack Frost (producer of '']'' and co-producer of '']'' and '']'')
* Sergei Petrov (co-writer of '']'')

==Further reading==
* Bob Dylan, ''Chronicles: Volume 1''. Simon and Schuster, October 5, 2004, hardcover, 208 pages. ISBN 0743228154
* Michael J. Gilmour, "Tangled Up in the Bible: Bob Dylan and Scripture". Continuum, 2004, 160 pages. ISBN 0826416020
* Michael Gray, ''Song & Dance Man III: The Art of Bob Dylan''. Continuum International, 2000, paperback, 944 pages. ISBN 0826463827
* David Hajdu, ''Positively 4th Street: The Lives and Times of Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Mimi Baez Farina, and Richard Farina'' Farrar Straus Giroux, 2001, 328 pages. ISBN 0374281998
* Clinton Heylin, ''Bob Dylan: Behind the Shades Revisited''. Perennial Currents, 2003, 800 pages. ISBN 006052569X
* Clinton Heylin, ''Bob Dylan: A Life In Stolen Moments'', Schirmer Books, 1986, 403 pages. ISBN 0825671566. Also known as ''Bob Dylan: Day By Day''
* John Hinchey. ''Like a Complete Unknown: The Poetry of Bob Dylan’s Songs, 1961-1966''. Stealing Home Press, 2002. 277 pages. ISBN 0972359206
*], ''The Old, Weird America: The World of Bob Dylan's Basement Tapes'', Picador, 2001. ISBN 0312420439 (also published as "Invisible Republic")
*], ''Like A Rolling Stone: Bob Dylan at the Crossroads'', PublicAffairs, 2005. ISBN 1586482548
* Mike Marqusee, ''] : The Politics of Bob Dylan's Art'' The New Press, NY, 2003, 327 pages. ISBN 1-56584-825-X
* Wilfrid Mellers, ''A Darker Shade Of Pale: A Backdrop To Bob Dylan'' Oxford University Press, 1985, 255 pages. ISBN 0-19-503622-0
* Christopher Ricks, ''Dylan's Visions of Sin'', Penguin/Viking, 2003, 517 pages. ISBN 067080133X
* Tim Riley, ''Hard Rain: A Dylan Commentary'', Vintage, 1992, 356 pages. ISBN 0-679-74527-0
* Anthony Scaduto, ''Bob Dylan'', Helter Skelter, 2001 reprint of 1972 original, 312 pages. ISBN 1900924234
* ], ''No Direction Home'', Da Capo Press, 2003 reprint of 1986 original, 576 pages. ISBN 0306812878
* ], ''Rolling Thunder Logbook'', Da Capo, 2004 reissue, 176 pages. ISBN 0306813718
* Howard Sounes, ''Down The Highway: The Life Of Bob Dylan'', Grove Press, 2001, 527 pages. ISBN 0802116868
* Anthony Varesi, "The Bob Dylan Albums", Guernica Editions, 2002, 264 pages. ISBN 1550711393
* Carl Porter and Peter Vernezze (editors), “Bob Dylan and Philosophy” Open Court Books, 2005, 225 pages. ISBN 0-8126-9592-5

==See also==
* ]
* ]

==External links==
{{wikiquote}}
{{commons|Bob Dylan}}
=====Portals=====
* – official website, including lyrics
* Longtime favorite fan site, updated daily.
* Another classic fansite, with a comprehensive categorized link collection and up-to-date tour information.
* Gateway to the ]'s online Dylan resources.

=====Chords and lyrics=====
<!-- Please do not add plain lyrics sites here. Dylan's official site already contains lyrics. Please don't add new lyric site links unless you're linking to a site with information not already available here -->
* Bob Dylan's musical roots and influences
* Includes lyrics to many songs and versions not found elsewhere.
*

=====Concert recordings, outtakes, etc.=====
* A large compilation/index of information on Dylan's "unofficial" recordings
*
* an exhaustive index of Dylan's recordings and performances
* Bob Dylan DVD Recording Database
* User-contributed reviews of "unofficial" recordings
* – A Bob Dylan bootleg "museum" website
*
*
* , documents 1974 Dylan/Band tour
*
* , documents Dylan's 1979–80 evangelical tours
*

=====Reference works=====
* , reference guide, yearly chronicles, sessionography, etc.
* , same as above, but in book form
*
* , Standard reference book for collectors, 5th edition
* Tour dates and statistics, updated almost daily
*
* {{imdb name|id=0001168|name=Bob Dylan}}

=====Magazines=====
*
*
*
* (online magazine)
* (archive, no longer published)

=====Commentary on religious themes=====
* discusses the influence of Yiddish writers, Judaism, and events in Israel on Bob Dylan's songs.
* discusses direct links between Dylan's songs and the Bible.
* discusses the Judeo-Christian feminine imagery in Bob Dylan's songs

=====Books=====
*
*
*

=====Articles=====
*
* By Bill Wyman

=====Miscellaneous=====
*2005 ]/] Documentary: directed by ]; at
* timeline, guides, profiles, reviews, video clips and photos
* An account of young Robert Zimmerman's life in Hibbing, prepared for the local "Dylan Days 2005" event
*Dylan's speech to the
*
*
*
*
*,
*Search Google archive of 1989–present (includes all HWY61-L posts)
*Search the Dylan Mailing List Archives 1995–present (includes many rec.music.dylan posts, with wheat separated from chaff)
*
*
*Master & Disciple –
*
* Online Dylan community (message board)
*, a discussion forum for fans of the music of Bob Dylan.
* from Music City
*
* - Started out as a portal of sorts, now it's more like a blog, featuring news on cd's, books etc.
* - Setlist prediction game and discussion boards

{{Bob Dylan}}

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Revision as of 00:44, 6 March 2006

Bob Dylan is an American folk-rock singer-songwriter. He is known for poetic, often obscure lyrics with politically and socially charged themes. There are other musicians and songwriters who are compared to Bob Dylan in that they share these attributes.

Very early in his career Donovan was called both the Scottish Bob Dylan (),as well as "Britain's Response to Bob Dylan" (), but this label was dropped as their styles diverged. Bruce Springsteen (), Tom Waits (), John Prine (), Kris Kristofferson, Elvis Costello (), Steve Forbert (), Neil Young () are all part of a long line of talented artists who, at some point in their careers, were seen as "new Dylan"s.

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