160 Facts About Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan was born and raised in St Louis County, Minnesota.

Bob Dylan went on to release the politically charged The Times They Are a-Changin' and the more lyrically abstract and introspective Another Side of Bob Dylan in 1964.

In 1965 and 1966, Bob Dylan drew controversy among folk purists when he adopted electrically amplified rock instrumentation, and in the space of 15 months recorded three of the most important and influential rock albums of the 1960s: Bringing It All Back Home, Highway 61 Revisited and Blonde on Blonde.

Bob Dylan has released five critically acclaimed albums of original material since then, the most recent being Rough and Rowdy Ways.

Bob Dylan recorded a series of three albums in the 2010s comprising versions of traditional American standards, especially songs recorded by Frank Sinatra.

Bob Dylan has toured continuously since the late 1980s on what has become known as the Never Ending Tour.

Since 1994, Bob Dylan has published nine books of paintings and drawings, and his work has been exhibited in major art galleries.

Bob Dylan has sold more than 145 million records, making him one of the best-selling musicians of all time.

Bob Dylan has received numerous awards, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom, ten Grammy Awards, a Golden Globe Award and an Academy Award.

Bob Dylan has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame and the Songwriters Hall of Fame.

In 2016, Bob Dylan was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature "for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition".

Bob Dylan was born Robert Allen Zimmerman in St Mary's Hospital on May 24,1941, in Duluth, Minnesota, and raised in Hibbing, Minnesota, on the Mesabi Range west of Lake Superior.

In September 1959, Bob Dylan moved to Minneapolis and enrolled at the University of Minnesota.

Bob Dylan's focus on rock and roll gave way to American folk music, as he explained in a 1985 interview:.

In May 1960, Bob Dylan dropped out of college at the end of his first year.

Guthrie had been a revelation to Bob Dylan and influenced his early performances.

Much of Guthrie's repertoire was channeled through Elliott, and Bob Dylan paid tribute to Elliott in Chronicles: Volume One.

Bob Dylan later said he was influenced by African-American poets he heard on the New York streets, especially Big Brown.

Bob Dylan often accompanied other musicians on harmonica, which led to Dylan filling in for the ailing Sonny Terry on Harry Belafonte's 1962 album Midnight Special.

That month, Bob Dylan played harmonica on folk singer Carolyn Hester's third album, bringing him to the attention of the album's producer John Hammond, who signed Bob Dylan to Columbia Records.

Dylan's first album, Bob Dylan, released March 19,1962, consisted of familiar folk, blues and gospel with just two original compositions.

Bob Dylan changed his name to Bob Dylan, and he signed a management contract with Albert Grossman.

Bob Dylan made his first trip to the United Kingdom from December 1962 to January 1963.

Bob Dylan had been invited by television director Philip Saville to appear in a drama, Madhouse on Castle Street, which Saville was directing for BBC Television.

Bob Dylan learned material from UK performers, including Martin Carthy.

The rough edge of Bob Dylan's singing unsettled some but was an attraction to others.

The second side of Bringing It All Back Home contained four long songs on which Bob Dylan accompanied himself on acoustic guitar and harmonica.

In 1965, headlining the Newport Folk Festival, Bob Dylan performed his first electric set since high school with a pickup group featuring Mike Bloomfield on guitar and Al Kooper on organ.

Bob Dylan had appeared at Newport in 1963 and 1964, but in 1965 met with cheering and booing and left the stage after three songs.

One version has it that the boos were from folk fans whom Bob Dylan had alienated by appearing, unexpectedly, with an electric guitar.

Nevertheless, Bob Dylan's performance provoked a hostile response from the folk music establishment.

In support of the album, Bob Dylan was booked for two US concerts with Al Kooper and Harvey Brooks from his studio crew and Robbie Robertson and Levon Helm, former members of Ronnie Hawkins's backing band the Hawks.

From September 24,1965, in Austin, Texas, Bob Dylan toured the US and Canada for six months, backed by the five musicians from the Hawks who became known as The Band.

Producer Bob Johnston persuaded Dylan to record in Nashville in February 1966, and surrounded him with top-notch session men.

The Nashville sessions produced the double album Blonde on Blonde, featuring what Bob Dylan called "that thin wild mercury sound".

On November 22,1965, Bob Dylan quietly married 25-year-old former model Sara Lownds.

Some of Bob Dylan's friends, including Ramblin' Jack Elliott, say that, immediately after the event, Bob Dylan denied he was married.

Bob Dylan toured Australia and Europe in April and May 1966.

Bob Dylan performed solo during the first half, accompanying himself on acoustic guitar and harmonica.

On July 29,1966, Bob Dylan crashed his motorcycle, a Triumph Tiger 100, near his home in Woodstock, New York.

Mystery still surrounds the circumstances of the accident since no ambulance was called to the scene and Bob Dylan was not hospitalized.

Bob Dylan's biographers have written that the crash offered him the chance to escape the pressures around him.

Once Dylan was well enough to resume creative work, he began to edit D A Pennebaker's film of his 1966 tour.

In 1967, secluded from public gaze, Bob Dylan recorded over 100 songs at his Woodstock home and in the basement of the Hawks' nearby house, "Big Pink".

Woody Guthrie died in October 1967, and Bob Dylan made his first live appearance in twenty months at a memorial concert held at Carnegie Hall on January 20,1968, where he was backed by the Band.

Bob Dylan next traveled to England to top the bill at the Isle of Wight festival on August 31,1969, after rejecting overtures to appear at the Woodstock Festival closer to his home.

In October 1970, Bob Dylan released New Morning, considered a return to form.

Between March 16 and 19,1971, Bob Dylan reserved three days at Blue Rock, a small studio in Greenwich Village, to record with Leon Russell.

On November 4,1971, Bob Dylan recorded "George Jackson", which he released a week later.

Bob Dylan contributed piano and harmony to Steve Goodman's album, Somebody Else's Troubles, under the pseudonym Robert Milkwood Thomas in September 1972.

In 1972, Bob Dylan signed to Sam Peckinpah's film Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, providing songs and backing music for the movie, and playing "Alias", a member of Billy's gang with some historical basis.

Bob Dylan began 1973 by signing with a new label, David Geffen's Asylum Records, when his contract with Columbia Records expired.

Bob Dylan had second thoughts about Asylum, unhappy that Geffen had sold only 600,000 copies of Planet Waves despite millions of unfulfilled ticket requests for the 1974 tour; he returned to Columbia Records, which reissued his two Asylum albums.

Bob Dylan filled three small notebooks with songs about relationships and ruptures, and recorded the album Blood on the Tracks in September 1974.

Bob Dylan delayed the album's release and re-recorded half the songs at Sound 80 Studios in Minneapolis with production assistance from his brother, David Zimmerman.

The tour featured about one hundred performers and supporters from the Greenwich Village folk scene, including T-Bone Burnett, Ramblin' Jack Elliott, Joni Mitchell, David Mansfield, Roger McGuinn, Mick Ronson, Joan Baez and Scarlet Rivera, whom Bob Dylan discovered walking down the street, her violin case on her back.

In November 1976, Bob Dylan appeared at the Band's "farewell" concert, with Eric Clapton, Joni Mitchell, Muddy Waters, Van Morrison and Neil Young.

In 1978, Bob Dylan embarked on a year-long world tour, performing 114 shows in Japan, the Far East, Europe and North America, to a total audience of two million.

When Bob Dylan brought the tour to the US in September 1978, the press described the look and sound as a "Las Vegas Tour".

Wexler said that Bob Dylan had tried to evangelize him during the recording.

John Lennon, shortly before being murdered, recorded "Serve Yourself" in response to Bob Dylan's "Gotta Serve Somebody".

In late 1980, Bob Dylan briefly played concerts billed as "A Musical Retrospective", restoring popular 1960s songs to the repertoire.

Between July 1984 and March 1985, Bob Dylan recorded Empire Burlesque.

In 1985 Bob Dylan sang on USA for Africa's famine relief single "We Are the World".

Bob Dylan joined Artists United Against Apartheid providing vocals for their single "Sun City".

Bob Dylan's remarks were widely criticized as inappropriate, but they did inspire Willie Nelson to organize a series of events, Farm Aid, to benefit debt-ridden American farmers.

Since then, some critics have called the 11-minute epic that Bob Dylan co-wrote with Sam Shepard, "Brownsville Girl", a work of genius.

In 1986 and 1987, Bob Dylan toured with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, sharing vocals with Petty on several songs each night.

Bob Dylan would continue to tour with a small, changing band for the next 30 years.

In 1987, Bob Dylan starred in Richard Marquand's movie Hearts of Fire, in which he played Billy Parker, a washed-up rock star turned chicken farmer whose teenage lover leaves him for a jaded English synth-pop sensation played by Rupert Everett.

Bob Dylan co-founded the band with George Harrison, Jeff Lynne, Roy Orbison and Tom Petty, and in late 1988 their multi-platinum Traveling Wilburys Vol.

Bob Dylan finished the decade on a critical high note with Oh Mercy produced by Daniel Lanois.

Bob Dylan's 1990s began with Under the Red Sky, an about-face from the serious Oh Mercy.

In 1990 and 1991 Bob Dylan was described by his biographers as drinking heavily, impairing his performances on stage.

Defilement and remorse were themes Bob Dylan addressed when he received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award from American actor Jack Nicholson in February 1991.

The event coincided with the start of the Gulf War against Saddam Hussein and Bob Dylan performed "Masters of War".

In November 1994 Bob Dylan recorded two live shows for MTV Unplugged.

Bob Dylan said his wish to perform traditional songs was overruled by Sony executives who insisted on hits.

Bob Dylan's scheduled European tour was canceled, but Dylan made a speedy recovery and left the hospital saying, "I really thought I'd be seeing Elvis soon".

Bob Dylan was back on the road by mid-year, and performed before Pope John Paul II at the World Eucharistic Conference in Bologna, Italy.

The Pope treated the audience of 200,000 people to a homily based on Bob Dylan's lyric "Blowin' in the Wind".

Bob Dylan commenced the 2000s by winning the Polar Music Prize in May 2000 and his first Oscar; his song "Things Have Changed", written for the film Wonder Boys, won an Academy Award for Best Song in 2001.

Critics noted that Bob Dylan was widening his musical palette to include rockabilly, Western swing, jazz, and even lounge ballads.

Bob Dylan played the central character in the film, Jack Fate, alongside a cast that included Jeff Bridges, Penelope Cruz and John Goodman.

In October 2004, Bob Dylan published the first part of his autobiography, Chronicles: Volume One.

Bob Dylan devoted chapters to the albums New Morning and Oh Mercy.

Bob Dylan resurrected his Theme Time Radio Hour format when he broadcast a two-hour special on the theme of "Whiskey" on Sirius Radio on September 21,2020.

The sophistication of the Bob Dylan 07 marketing campaign was a reminder that Bob Dylan's commercial profile had risen considerably since the 1990s.

The ad, broadcast to a record audience of 98 million viewers, opened with Bob Dylan singing the first verse of "Forever Young" followed by will.

Bob Dylan released his album Together Through Life on April 28,2009.

Critics pointed out that Bob Dylan was "revisiting yuletide styles popularized by Nat King Cole, Mel Torme, and the Ray Conniff Singers".

One reviewer described the set as "a hearty glimpse of young Bob Dylan changing the music business, and the world, one note at a time".

Bob Dylan appeared in a commercial for the Chrysler 200 car which was screened during the 2014 Super Bowl American football game played on February 2,2014.

In December 2013, the Fender Stratocaster which Bob Dylan had played at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival fetched $965,000, the second highest price paid for a guitar.

The book was edited by literary critic Christopher Ricks, Julie Nemrow and Lisa Nemrow, to offer variant versions of Bob Dylan's songs, sourced from out-takes and live performances.

In February 2015, Bob Dylan released Shadows in the Night, featuring ten songs written between 1923 and 1963, which have been described as part of the Great American Songbook.

All of the songs on the album had been recorded by Frank Sinatra, but both critics and Bob Dylan himself cautioned against seeing the record as a collection of "Sinatra covers".

Bob Dylan released a triple album of a further 30 recordings of classic American songs, Triplicate, in March 2017.

Bob Dylan posted a long interview on his website to promote the album, and was asked if this material was an exercise in nostalgia.

The next edition of Bob Dylan's Bootleg Series revisited Bob Dylan's "Born Again" Christian period of 1979 to 1981, which was described by Rolling Stone as "an intense, wildly controversial time that produced three albums and some of the most confrontational concerts of his long career".

Mr Bob Dylan's voice is clear, cutting and ever improvisational; working the crowds, he was emphatic, committed, sometimes teasingly combative.

Bob Dylan made a contribution to the compilation EP Universal Love, a collection of reimagined wedding songs for the LGBT community in April 2018.

Bob Dylan recorded the 1929 song "She's Funny That Way", changing the gender pronoun to "He's Funny That Way".

Also in April 2018, The New York Times announced that Bob Dylan was launching Heaven's Door, a range of three whiskeys: a straight rye, a straight bourbon and a "double-barreled" whiskey.

Bob Dylan has been involved in both the creation and the marketing of the range.

On November 2,2018, Bob Dylan released More Blood, More Tracks as Volume 14 in the Bootleg Series.

On March 26,2020, Bob Dylan released a seventeen-minute track "Murder Most Foul" on his YouTube channel, revolving around the assassination of President Kennedy.

Three weeks later, on April 17,2020, Bob Dylan released another new song, "I Contain Multitudes".

In December 2020, it was announced that Bob Dylan had sold his entire song catalog to Universal Music Publishing Group.

Bob Dylan's deal includes 100 percent of his rights for all the songs of his catalog, including both the income he receives as a songwriter and his control of each song's copyright.

On February 26,2021, Columbia Records released 1970, a three-CD set of recordings from the Self Portrait and New Morning sessions, including the entirety of the session Bob Dylan recorded with George Harrison on May 1,1970.

Several new biographies and studies of Bob Dylan were published as journalists and critics assessed the scale of Bob Dylan's achievements in a career spanning 60 years.

Bob Dylan published The Philosophy of Modern Song on November 1,2022, a book containing 66 essays on songs by other artists.

Bob Dylan has played roughly 100 dates a year since, a heavier schedule than most performers who started in the 1960s.

Bob Dylan's website announced in March 2023 a tour of Europe, commencing in Porto, Portugal, on June 2 and ending in Rome, Italy on July 9.

Critics such as Richard Williams and Andy Gill have argued that Bob Dylan has found a successful way to present his rich legacy of material.

The exhibition coincided with the publication of Bob Dylan: The Drawn Blank Series, which includes 170 reproductions from the series.

The Magnum photo agency confirmed that Bob Dylan had licensed the reproduction rights of these photographs.

Bob Dylan's second show at the Gagosian Gallery, Revisionist Art, opened in November 2012.

In February 2013, Bob Dylan exhibited the New Orleans Series of paintings at the Palazzo Reale in Milan.

In November 2013, the Halcyon Gallery in London mounted Mood Swings, an exhibition in which Bob Dylan displayed seven wrought iron gates he had made.

Since 1994, Bob Dylan has published nine books of paintings and drawings.

In November 2022, Bob Dylan apologised for using an autopen to sign books and artwork which were subsequently sold as "hand-signed" since 2019.

Bob Dylan has published Tarantula, a work of prose poetry; Chronicles: Volume One, the first part of his memoirs; several books of the lyrics of his songs, and eight books of his art.

Bob Dylan has been the subject of numerous biographies and critical studies.

On hearing Bob Dylan perform his song "With God on Our Side", Baez later said, "I never thought anything so powerful could come out of that little toad".

In July 1963, Baez invited Bob Dylan to join her on stage at the Newport Folk Festival, setting the scene for similar duets over the next two years.

Baez starred as "The Woman In White" in the film Renaldo and Clara, directed by Bob Dylan and filmed during the Rolling Thunder Revue.

Bob Dylan married Sara Lownds, who had worked as a model and a secretary at Drew Associates, on November 22,1965.

Bob Dylan adopted Sara's daughter from a prior marriage, Maria Lownds.

Sara Bob Dylan played the role of Clara in Bob Dylan's film Renaldo and Clara.

Bob Dylan and his backup singer Carolyn Dennis have a daughter, Desiree Gabrielle Dennis-Bob Dylan, born on January 31,1986.

Around the time of his 30th birthday, in 1971, Bob Dylan visited Israel, and met Rabbi Meir Kahane, founder of the New York-based Jewish Defense League.

In November 1978, guided by his friend Mary Alice Artes, Bob Dylan made contact with the Vineyard School of Discipleship.

Bob Dylan responded by saying yes, he did in fact want Christ in his life.

From January to March 1979, Bob Dylan attended Vineyard's Bible study classes in Reseda, California.

Bob Dylan has supported the Chabad Lubavitch movement, and has privately participated in Jewish religious events, including his sons' Bar Mitzvahs and services at Hadar Hatorah, a Chabad Lubavitch yeshiva.

Bob Dylan has continued to perform songs from his gospel albums in concert, occasionally covering traditional religious songs.

Bob Dylan has made passing references to his religious faith, such as in a 2004 interview with 60 Minutes, when he told Ed Bradley, "the only person you have to think twice about lying to is either yourself or to God".

Bob Dylan has won many awards throughout his career including the 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature, ten Grammy Awards, one Academy Award and one Golden Globe Award.

Bob Dylan has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame, and Songwriters Hall of Fame.

In May 2000, Bob Dylan received the Polar Music Prize from Sweden's King Carl XVI.

In June 2007, Bob Dylan received the Prince of Asturias Award in the Arts category.

Bob Dylan received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in May 2012.

In February 2015, Bob Dylan accepted the MusiCares Person of the Year award from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, in recognition of his philanthropic and artistic contributions to society.

In November 2013, Bob Dylan received the accolade of Legion d'Honneur from the French education minister Aurelie Filippetti.

Bob Dylan has been described as one of the most influential figures of the 20th century, musically and culturally.

Bob Dylan was included in the Time 100: The Most Important People of the Century, where he was called "master poet, caustic social critic and intrepid, guiding spirit of the counterculture generation".

Bob Dylan received the award in 2016, making Dylan the first musician awarded the Literature Prize.

In 2008, it was estimated that Bob Dylan had sold about 120 million albums worldwide.

Bob Dylan so enlarged himself through the folk background that he incorporated it for a while.

When Bob Dylan made his move from acoustic folk and blues music to a rock backing, the mix became more complex.

Between late 1964 and the middle of 1966, Bob Dylan created a body of work that remains unique.

Dylan's lyrics began to receive detailed scrutiny from academics and poets as early as 1998, when Stanford University sponsored the first international academic conference on Bob Dylan held in the United States.

David Bowie, in his tribute "Song for Bob Dylan", described Dylan's singing as "a voice like sand and glue".

Bob Dylan's voice continued to develop as he began to work with rock'n'roll backing bands; critic Michael Gray described the sound of Dylan's vocal work on "Like a Rolling Stone" as "at once young and jeeringly cynical".

Bob Dylan is considered a seminal influence on many musical genres.

Punk musician Joe Strummer praised Bob Dylan for having "laid down the template for lyric, tune, seriousness, spirituality, depth of rock music".

Bob Dylan's archive, comprising notebooks, song drafts, business contracts, recordings and movie out-takes, was purchased in 2016 by the George Kaiser Family Foundation, which had acquired the papers of Woody Guthrie.

In 2006, a cultural pathway, Bob Dylan Way, was inaugurated in Duluth, Minnesota, where Dylan was born.