1. Bob Dylan added increasingly sophisticated lyrical techniques to the folk music of the early 1960s, infusing it "with the intellectualism of classic literature and poetry".
151 Facts About Bob Dylan
1. 2.
Bob Dylan's lyrics incorporated political, social, and philosophical influences, defying pop music conventions and appealing to the burgeoning counterculture.
3.
In 1965 and 1966, Bob Dylan created controversy among folk purists when he used electrically amplified rock instrumentation for his albums Bringing It All Back Home, Highway 61 Revisited, and Blonde on Blonde.
4.
Bob Dylan explored country music and rural themes on the albums John Wesley Harding, Nashville Skyline and New Morning.
5.
Bob Dylan gained critical attention for Blood on the Tracks, and Time Out of Mind, the latter of which earned him the Grammy Award for Album of the Year.
6.
Since 1994, Bob Dylan has published nine books of paintings and drawings, and his work has been exhibited in major art galleries.
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Bob Dylan's life has been profiled in several documentaries and the biopic A Complete Unknown.
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Bob Dylan was honored with the Kennedy Center Honors in 1997, National Medal of Arts in 2009, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2012.
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Bob Dylan has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame and the Songwriters Hall of Fame.
10.
Bob Dylan was awarded a Pulitzer Prize special citation in 2008, and the 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature "for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition".
11.
Bob Dylan was born Robert Allen Zimmerman in St Mary's Hospital on May 24,1941, in Duluth, Minnesota.
12.
On January 31,1959,17-year-old Bob Dylan saw Buddy Holly perform at the Duluth Armory, four days before Holly's fatal plane crash.
13.
In September 1959, Bob Dylan enrolled at the University of Minnesota.
14.
Bob Dylan's focus on rock and roll gave way to American folk music, as he explained in a 1985 interview:.
15.
In May 1960, Bob Dylan dropped out of college at the end of his first year.
16.
Guthrie had been a revelation to Bob Dylan and influenced his early performances.
17.
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.
18.
Dylan's debut album, Bob Dylan, released March 19,1962, consisted of traditional folk, blues and gospel material with just two original compositions, "Talkin' New York" and "Song to Woody".
19.
Bob Dylan made his first trip to the United Kingdom from December 1962 to January 1963.
20.
Bob Dylan had been invited by television director Philip Saville to appear in Madhouse on Castle Street, which Saville was directing for BBC Television.
21.
Bob Dylan learned material from UK performers, including Martin Carthy.
22.
The rough edge of Bob Dylan's singing unsettled some but attracted others.
23.
Bob Dylan performed "Only a Pawn in Their Game" and "When the Ship Comes In".
24.
The humorous Bob Dylan reemerged on "I Shall Be Free No 10" and "Motorpsycho Nightmare".
25.
In late 1964 and early 1965, Bob Dylan moved from folk songwriter to folk-rock pop-music star.
26.
The second side of Bringing It All Back Home contained four long songs on which Bob Dylan accompanied himself on acoustic guitar and harmonica.
27.
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.
28.
Bob Dylan had appeared at Newport in 1963 and 1964, but in 1965 was met with cheering and booing and left the stage after three songs.
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One version has it that the boos were from folk fans whom Bob Dylan had alienated by appearing, unexpectedly, with an electric guitar.
30.
Bob Dylan's performance provoked a hostile response from the folk music establishment.
31.
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.
32.
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.
33.
Producer Bob Johnston persuaded Dylan to record in Nashville in February 1966, and surrounded him with top-notch session men.
34.
The Nashville sessions produced the double album Blonde on Blonde, featuring what Bob Dylan called "that thin wild mercury sound".
35.
On November 22,1965, Bob Dylan quietly married 25-year-old former model Sara Lownds.
36.
Some of Bob Dylan's friends, including Ramblin' Jack Elliott, say that, immediately after the event, Bob Dylan denied he was married.
37.
Bob Dylan toured Australia and Europe in April and May 1966.
38.
Bob Dylan performed solo during the first half, accompanying himself on acoustic guitar and harmonica.
39.
On July 29,1966, Bob Dylan crashed his motorcycle, a Triumph Tiger 100, near his home in Woodstock, New York.
40.
The circumstances of the accident are unclear since no ambulance was called to the scene and Bob Dylan was not hospitalized.
41.
Bob Dylan's biographers have written that the crash offered him the chance to escape the pressures around him.
42.
Once Dylan was well enough to resume creative work, he began to edit D A Pennebaker's film of his 1966 tour.
43.
The public heard these recordings when Great White Wonder, the first "bootleg recording", appeared in West Coast shops in July 1969, containing Bob Dylan material recorded in Minneapolis in 1961 and seven Basement Tapes songs.
44.
In late 1967, Bob Dylan returned to studio recording in Nashville, accompanied by Charlie McCoy on bass, Kenny Buttrey on drums and Pete Drake on steel guitar.
45.
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.
46.
In 1969, Bob Dylan was asked to write songs for Scratch, Archibald MacLeish's musical adaptation of "The Devil and Daniel Webster".
47.
Bob Dylan 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 home.
48.
In October 1970, Bob Dylan released New Morning, considered a return to form.
49.
The title track was from Bob Dylan's ill-fated collaboration with MacLeish, and "Day of the Locusts" was his account of receiving an honorary degree from Princeton University on June 9,1970.
50.
In November 1968, Bob Dylan co-wrote "I'd Have You Anytime" with George Harrison; Harrison recorded that song and Bob Dylan's "If Not for You" for his album All Things Must Pass.
51.
Bob Dylan shelved his book for several years, apparently uncertain of its status, until he suddenly informed Macmillan at the end of 1970 that the time had come to publish it.
52.
Between March 16 and 19,1971, Bob Dylan recorded with Leon Russell at Blue Rock, a small studio in Greenwich Village.
53.
On November 4,1971, Bob Dylan recorded "George Jackson", which he released a week later.
54.
In 1972, Bob Dylan joined Sam Peckinpah's film Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, providing the soundtrack and playing "Alias", a member of Billy's gang.
55.
Bob Dylan began 1973 by signing with a new label, David Geffen's Asylum Records, when his contract with Columbia Records expired.
56.
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.
57.
Bob Dylan filled three small notebooks with songs about relationships and ruptures, and recorded the album Blood on the Tracks in September 1974.
58.
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.
59.
In November 1976, Bob Dylan appeared at the Band's farewell concert with Eric Clapton, Muddy Waters, Van Morrison, Neil Young and Joni Mitchell.
60.
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.
61.
When Bob Dylan brought the tour to the US in September 1978, the press described the look and sound as a "Las Vegas Tour".
62.
Wexler said that Bob Dylan had tried to evangelize him during the recording.
63.
In late 1980, Bob Dylan briefly played concerts billed as "A Musical Retrospective", restoring popular 1960s songs to the repertoire.
64.
Infidels employed Knopfler again as lead guitarist and as producer; the sessions resulted in several songs that Bob Dylan left off the album.
65.
Between July 1984 and March 1985, Bob Dylan recorded Empire Burlesque.
66.
In 1985 Bob Dylan sang on USA for Africa's famine relief single "We Are the World".
67.
Bob Dylan joined Artists United Against Apartheid, providing vocals for their single "Sun City".
68.
Bob Dylan's remarks were widely criticized as inappropriate, but inspired Willie Nelson to organize a concert, Farm Aid, to benefit debt-ridden American farmers.
69.
In October 1985, Bob Dylan released Biograph, a box set featuring 53 tracks, 18 of them previously unreleased.
70.
Some critics have called the song Bob Dylan co-wrote with Shepard, "Brownsville Girl", a masterpiece.
71.
In 1986 and 1987, Bob Dylan toured with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, sharing vocals with Petty on several songs each night.
72.
Bob Dylan would continue to tour with a small, changing band for the next 30 years.
73.
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.
74.
Bob Dylan was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in January 1988.
75.
Bob Dylan finished the decade on a critical high note with Oh Mercy, produced by Daniel Lanois.
76.
Bob Dylan's 1990s began with Under the Red Sky, an about-face from the serious Oh Mercy.
77.
In 1990 and 1991 Bob Dylan was described by his biographers as drinking heavily, impairing his performances on stage.
78.
Defilement and remorse were themes Bob Dylan addressed when he received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award from Jack Nicholson in February 1991.
79.
The event coincided with the start of the Gulf War and Bob Dylan played "Masters of War"; Rolling Stone called his performance "almost unintelligible".
80.
Bob Dylan said his wish to perform traditional songs was overruled by Sony executives who insisted on hits.
81.
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".
82.
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.
83.
The Pope treated the audience of 200,000 to a homily based on Bob Dylan's "Blowin' in the Wind".
84.
In 2001, Bob Dylan won an Academy Award for Best Original Song for "Things Have Changed", written for the film Wonder Boys.
85.
Critics noted that Bob Dylan was widening his musical palette to include rockabilly, Western swing, jazz and lounge music.
86.
Bob Dylan starred as Jack Fate, alongside a cast that included Jeff Bridges, Penelope Cruz and John Goodman.
87.
In 2004, Bob Dylan published the first part of his memoir, Chronicles: Volume One.
88.
Bob Dylan's show was praised for the breadth of his musical selections and for his jokes, stories and eclectic references.
89.
The sophistication of the Bob Dylan 07 marketing campaign was a reminder that Bob Dylan's commercial profile had risen considerably since the 1990s.
90.
The ad opened with Bob Dylan singing the first verse of "Forever Young" followed by will.
91.
Bob Dylan initially intended to record a single track, "Life Is Hard", but "the record sort of took its own direction".
92.
Edna Gundersen wrote that Bob Dylan was "revisiting yuletide styles popularized by Nat King Cole, Mel Torme, and the Ray Conniff Singers".
93.
In Rolling Stone, Will Hermes gave Tempest five out of five stars, writing: "Lyrically, Bob Dylan is at the top of his game, joking around, dropping wordplay and allegories that evade pat readings and quoting other folks' words like a freestyle rapper on fire".
94.
Bob Dylan appeared in a commercial for the Chrysler 200 car which aired during the 2014 Super Bowl.
95.
The book was edited by literary critic Christopher Ricks, Julie Nemrow and Lisa Nemrow and offered variant versions of Bob Dylan's songs, sourced from out-takes and live performances.
96.
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.
97.
All of the songs had been recorded by Frank Sinatra, but both critics and Bob Dylan himself cautioned against seeing the record as a collection of "Sinatra covers".
98.
In March 2017, Bob Dylan released a triple album of 30 more recordings of classic American songs, Triplicate.
99.
Bob Dylan posted a long interview on his website to promote the album, and was asked if this material was an exercise in nostalgia.
100.
Mr Bob Dylan's voice is clear, cutting and ever improvisational; working the crowds, he was emphatic, committed, sometimes teasingly combative.
101.
Bob Dylan recorded the 1929 song "She's Funny That Way", changing the gender pronoun to "He's Funny That Way".
102.
That same month, The New York Times reported that Bob Dylan was launching Heaven's Door, a range of three whiskeys.
103.
Bob Dylan has been involved in both the creation and the marketing of the range; on September 21,2020, Bob Dylan resurrected Theme Time Radio Hour with a two-hour special with the theme of "Whiskey".
104.
On November 2,2018, Bob Dylan released More Blood, More Tracks as Volume 14 in the Bootleg Series.
105.
On March 26,2020, Bob Dylan released "Murder Most Foul", a seventeen-minute song revolving around the Kennedy assassination, on his YouTube channel.
106.
Three weeks later, on April 17,2020, Bob Dylan released another new song, "I Contain Multitudes".
107.
In December 2020, it was announced that Bob Dylan had sold his entire song catalog to Universal Music Publishing Group, including both the income he receives as a songwriter and his control of their copyright.
108.
In February 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.
109.
On July 7,2022, Christie's, London, auctioned a 2021 recording of Bob Dylan singing "Blowin' in the Wind".
110.
On November 17,2023, Bob Dylan released The Complete Budokan 1978, containing the full recordings of the February 28 and March 1 Tokyo concerts from his 1978 Tour.
111.
Bob Dylan contributed a cover version of Cole Porter's song "Don't Fence Me In" to the soundtrack of the biographical film Reagan, which was released on August 30,2024.
112.
Bob Dylan has played roughly 100 dates a year since, a heavier schedule than most performers who started in the 1960s.
113.
Richard Williams and Andy Gill argued that Bob Dylan has found a successful way to present his rich legacy of material.
114.
The Rough and Rowdy Ways World Tour replaced Bob Dylan's varied set lists with a more stable repertory, performing nine of the ten songs on his 2020 album.
115.
In February 2025, Bob Dylan announced that he would undertake a US leg of his Rough and Rowdy Ways World Wide Tour, commencing in Tulsa, Oklahoma on March 25, and ending in Williamsport, Pennsylvania on April 22.
116.
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".
117.
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.
118.
Bob Dylan married Sara Lownds, who had worked as a model and secretary at Drew Associates, on November 22,1965.
119.
Bob Dylan adopted Sara's daughter from a prior marriage, Maria Lownds.
120.
Sara Bob Dylan played the role of Clara in Bob Dylan's film Renaldo and Clara.
121.
Bob Dylan and his backing singer Carolyn Dennis have a daughter, Desiree Gabrielle Dennis-Bob Dylan, born on January 31,1986.
122.
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.
123.
In November 1978, guided by his friend Mary Alice Artes, Bob Dylan made contact with the Vineyard School of Discipleship.
124.
Bob Dylan responded by saying yes, he did in fact want Christ in his life.
125.
From January to March 1979, Bob Dylan attended Vineyard's Bible study classes in Reseda, California.
126.
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.
127.
Bob Dylan has continued to perform songs from his gospel albums in concert, occasionally covering traditional religious songs.
128.
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".
129.
Bob Dylan has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame and Songwriters Hall of Fame.
130.
In May 2000, Bob Dylan received the Polar Music Prize from Sweden's King Carl XVI.
131.
Bob Dylan received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in May 2012.
132.
In November 2013, Bob Dylan was awarded France's highest honor, the Legion d'Honneur, despite the misgiving of the grand chancellor of the Legion, who had declared him unworthy.
133.
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.
134.
Bob Dylan has been described as one of the most influential figures of the 20th century, musically and culturally.
135.
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".
136.
Bob Dylan so enlarged himself through the folk background that he incorporated it for a while.
137.
Between late 1964 and the middle of 1966, Bob Dylan created a body of work that remains unique.
138.
In 1998, Stanford University sponsored the first international academic conference on Bob Dylan held in the United States.
139.
Bob Dylan's lyrics have entered the vernacular; Edna Gundersen notes that.
140.
Bob Dylan was listed second on the magazine's list of the hundred greatest artists.
141.
Bob Dylan's voice continued to develop as he began to work with rock'n'roll backing bands; Michael Gray described the sound of Dylan's vocal work on "Like a Rolling Stone" as "at once young and jeeringly cynical".
142.
Bob Dylan's rise to stardom, from his arrival in New York in 1961 to his controversial performance at Newport in 1965, was portrayed by the feature film A Complete Unknown, which opened in the US on December 25,2024.
143.
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.
144.
The exhibition coincided with the publication of Bob Dylan: The Drawn Blank Series, which includes 170 reproductions from the series.
145.
The Magnum photo agency confirmed that Bob Dylan had licensed the reproduction rights of these photographs.
146.
Bob Dylan's second show at the Gagosian Gallery, Revisionist Art, opened in November 2012.
147.
In February 2013, Bob Dylan exhibited the New Orleans Series of paintings at the Palazzo Reale in Milan.
148.
Since 1994, Bob Dylan has published nine books of paintings and drawings.
149.
In November 2022, Bob Dylan apologized for using an autopen to sign books and artwork which were subsequently sold as "hand-signed" since 2019.
150.
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 nine books of his art.
151.
Bob Dylan has been the subject of numerous biographies and critical studies.