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 The
most profoundly influential singer-songwriter of the rock era, Bob Dylan
(b. Robert Allen Zimmerman, May 24, 1941, Duluth, Minnesota) has
released over 45 albums since his 1962 debut and remains today as vital
an artist, and as imposing a figure, as he was in his '60s heyday. The
changes he wrought in all of pop music have been the subject of
countless essays, articles, books, films and documentaries, as have the
changes he himself has undergone, musical or otherwise. There are
literally no major artists in popular music who have not been affected
by Dylan on one level or another: He was a major catalyst in the careers
of the Beatles and Rolling Stones in the '60s; his song "All Along the
Watchtower" was the sole hit single by the Jimi Hendrix Experience; he
was the figure to whom distinguished singer-songwriters such as Bruce
Springsteen, John Prine, Loudon Wainwright III were compared upon their
debuts; he was the subject of a song by David Bowie and the central
inspiration of "new wave" up-and-comer Elvis Costello in the '70s; his
"Mr. Tambourine Man" sparked the Byrds' success and thus spawned R.E.M.
and the entire genre of folk-rock; and his many songs have been covered
by literally hundreds of artists of nearly every musical genre. Dylan's
memorable 30th Anniversary Concert, held at Madison Square Garden
October 16, 1992, gave just an inkling of the number of superstar
artists who consider themselves indebted to the singer-songwriter; among
those performing were Neil Young, George Harrison, Eric Clapton, Lou
Reed, Johnny & June Carter Cash, Roger McGuinn, Tom Petty & The
Heartbreakers, Willie Nelson, Stevie Wonder, John Mellencamp, the Band,
the O'Jays, Chrissie Hynde, Sinead O'Connor, Kris Kristofferson, and
even Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam.
Dylan has said that he listened most to rock 'n' roll artists such as
Little Richard, Carl Perkins, and Jerry Lee Lewis before hearing
Leadbelly and turning toward folk music, then burgeoning in the late
'50s. He read and was moved by Woody Guthrie's Bound For Glory, and
began performing in coffeehouses near the University of Minnesota, where
he enrolled briefly in 1959. By 1961, he had moved to New York, where he
visited the hospitalized Guthrie in New Jersey and began performing in
Greenwich Village folk clubs such as Gerde's Folk City. Finding early
session work as a harmonica player, Dylan met legendary Columbia Records
producer and talent scout John Hammond at a Carolyn Hester recording
session; Hammond invited Dylan to make a demo tape. A rave review by New
York Times critic Robert Shelton of a Dylan Gerde's appearance further
drew attention to the singer, and by October, Hammond had signed Dylan
to Columbia.
Dylan's earliest records were very much folk music in the tradition of
Guthrie and Pete Seeger. Though his 1962 Bob Dylan bore only two
original tunes ("Talkin' New York" and "Song To Woody," both talking
blues), by the next year's The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, the singer had
produced enough original material to base an entire career upon. Among
the best known songs were "Blowin' In The Wind" and "Don't Think Twice,
It's Alright" (both top 10 hits for Peter, Paul & Mary in 1963),
"Masters Of War," and the uniquely wordy "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall."
Written during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, the latter track was "a
desperate kind of song," Dylan said at the time. "Every line in it is
actually the start of a whole song. But when I wrote it, I thought I
wouldn't have enough time alive to write all those songs so I put all I
could into this one."
Though Dylan would not "go electric" until 1965, his earlier albums
still found a wide audience: Freewheelin' had reached No. 22 on the
charts, and 1964's The Times They Are A-Changin' peaked at No. 20. And
while 1965's follow-up Another Side Of Bob Dylan only reached No. 43,
the songs it contained were among Dylan's best-known due to cover
versions by other artists: "My Back Pages" and "All I Really Want To Do"
were both top 40 hits by the Byrds, the latter also a top 15 hit by Cher,
and "It Ain't Me Babe" was a top 10 hit for the Turtles.
If any year was Bob Dylan's, it was 1965: He added an electric backing
band on half of Bringing It All Back Home, was booed at the Newport Folk
Festival for the same offense, and in June released what would be the
most galvanizing single of his career--and perhaps all time--"Like A
Rolling Stone." An immediate hit that held the No. 2 slot for two weeks
(the Beatles' "Help" was No. 1), it would inspire a generation and
become as close to a theme song as the budding counter-cultural
"movement" of the '60s would ever have. The two albums that followed,
Highway 61 Revisited and Blonde On Blonde are considered the singer's
all-time classics, and indeed, Dylan's impact was felt everywhere: In
the songs of contemporaries the Beatles and Rolling Stones, in the surge
of former folk singers who were picking up electric guitars, and in the
entranced media, that typically saw Dylan as a mysterious, charismatic
figure who might provide a clue into the workings of what seemed an
increasingly disenfranchised youth culture.
In July, 1966, a serious motorcycle accident kept Dylan in seclusion for
many months, during which time he would eventually record material with
a backing group soon to be known as the Band. Though that material was
widely heard on many late-'60s bootlegs, its first legitimate release
came in 1975, when Columbia issued it as The Basement Tapes. Had it been
issued when it was recorded, it might've explained the jarring
transition between Blonde On Blonde and 1968's John Wesley Harding, a
stripped-down, starkly acoustic album of songs filled with noticeable
religious imagery. While in retrospect it seems a logical
move--particularly in light of the verbal-imagery overload of Blonde On
Blonde's final track, "Sad Eyed Lady Of The Lowlands," which might have
signaled an approaching stylistic blind alley--it surprised many fans at
the time. In truth, it was just another instance of one-time folkie Bob
Dylan re-inventing himself. By the time of his wholly countrified
Nashville Skyline, which featured the singer's voice sounding a
near-octave lower than normal and simplistic songs such as "Country
Pie," some wayward fans were suggesting Dylan's motorcycle accident was
more serious than had been let on.
Dylan had many more surprises up his sleeve, and for the first time in
his career was beginning to lose faithful critics. His 1970 double-LP
Self Portrait--on which rock's songwriting legend covered both Paul
Simon and Gordon Lightfoot--confused many and was widely panned; when he
seemed to return to form short months later with New Morning, initially
giddy critics were soon moping about a perceived "lack of depth" in
Dylan's new material. In the meantime, Dylan took on an acting role in
Sam Peckinpah's Pat Garrett & Billy The Kid and recorded its
soundtrack--which included "Knockin' On Heaven's Door," a song that has
since grown to become a classic in Dylan's canon.
Though Dylan's two ensuing ventures with the Band--1974's Planet Waves
and the live Before The Flood--won a fair amount of praise (and sales:
Planet Waves was the singer's first No. 1 album), it was his magnificent
Blood On The Tracks that stands as his crowning achievement of the '70s.
Seemingly a mixture of autobiography and romantic nostalgia, the album's
"Tangled Up In Blue," "Simple Twist Of Fate," and "Lily, Rosemary And
The Jack Of Hearts" were richly rewarding tracks certainly the equal of
much of his past work, and in many ways more lyrically mature. The set
was the second No. 1 album in Dylan's career, and would only be bested
commercially by its follow-up Desire, which was No. 1 for five weeks and
greatly pushed by the singer's much-publicized Rolling Thunder Revue
tour of 1975-76.
Increasingly, Dylan's recordings began to be marked by cycles of seeming
dead ends and critical rebirths. When the singer surprised many by
announcing he was a born-again Christian in 1979, it was accompanied by
the marvelously peculiar Slow Train Coming, which featured
religious-themed tracks such as "Gotta Serve Somebody," "Man Gave Names
To All The Animals," and "When He Returns"; the oddest facet of Dylan's
conversion, as displayed in Slow Train's songs, was his apparent belief
in a merciless and vengeful God. Follow-up albums Saved (1980) and Shot
Of Love (1981) lacked the superb songs of Slow Train, but by 1983's
Infidels, Dylan was writing some of his sharpest songs in ages. Their
political orientation bothered some critics who considered Dylan's
religious conversion to have gone hand-in-hand with a new political
conservatism; indeed, with their references to Israel and greedy labor
union leaders, many songs such as "Neighborhood Bully" and "Union
Sundown" were scathingly attacked by former staunch fans.
Since then, there have been many Bob Dylans on display for both critics
and fans to choose from:
*The Dylan of the Past--whose glorious works have been resurrected twice
now in much-lauded CD boxed-set format, Biograph (1985) and The Bootleg
Series, Vols. 1-3 [Box] (Rare And Unreleased) 1961-1991 (1991).
*The Dylan of the Never Ending Tour--who has continued to document his
non-stop live performance activities with Real Live (1985) and Dylan &
The Dead (1989).
*The Dylan of Traveling Wilburys Fame--who recorded two hit albums
between 1988-1990 with George Harrison, Roy Orbison, Jeff Lynne, and Tom
Petty.
*The Dylan of Today--who continues to roll out new albums, with a
celebrity-studded cast of musicians and producers, such as Knocked Out
Loaded (with Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, 1986), Down In The Groove
(with Eric Clapton, Mark Knopfler, Ron Wood, and members of the Grateful
Dead, Clash, and Sex Pistols, 1988), Oh Mercy (produced by Daniel Lanois,
1989), and Under The Red Sky (with David Crosby, George Harrison, Bruce
Hornsby, Elton John, Jimmy & Stevie Ray Vaughan, and Slash of Guns N'
Roses, 1990).
*The Dylan as He'd Like to Be Remembered--in which the former fledgling
folksinger who started out with a guitar, harmonica, and other people's
songs, does it all over again with Good As I Been To You (1992) and
World Gone Wrong (1993).
Less than a year after his massive 30th Anniversary Concert gathered
together some of the finest musicians in the world to pay him tribute,
Bob Dylan was gearing up for the road yet again, this time touring with
old friend Carlos Santana. "It's all about a livelihood," he told an
Associated Press writer at the time. "It's all about going out and
playing. That's what every musician who has crossed my path strives
for."
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