A strange young man called Dylan with a voice like sand and glue
Bob Dylan remains one of music’s most enigmatic
figures, a subject of speculation and fascination about a man who has managed
to remain part of the music scene for 50 years, whilst also managing to keep
himself separate from it. Born Robert Allen Zimmerman in Minnesota in 1941, he
changed his name to Bob Dylan, in tribute to Dylan Thomas, the Welsh poet whose
lyrical style and controversial life he began to emulate, further adding to the
element of mystery that surrounds him. He has been recording and releasing
music for 5 decades and during that time has repeatedly reinvented his own
sound and identity, while also influencing the whole musical landscape. Across
his career, he has released over 50 albums and 85 singles, establishing himself
as one of the most highly regarded and influential songwriters of all time,
primarily for the inclusion of poetic style in his lyrics, having 29 tribute
albums dedicated to him. He has been awarded a long list of honours and awards:
An Academy award and a Golden Globe for best original song, 11 Grammys,
inducted in several musical Halls of Fame, as well as being granted the
Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2012, the Pulitzer Prize in 2008, and the
Nobel Prize for Literature in 2016, “for having
created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition[1]”.
In
1961, Dylan recorded his debut, eponymous album, during a time when folk music
was not considered commercially viable, and other than his manager John
Hammond, few at Columbia records thought he would be a success. Despite the
lack of success of his first album, what followed was a series of some of the
most significant albums of the 1960’s, and a recording career that would continue
up to the present date. His second album, Freewheeling Bob Dylan, consisted
mostly of protest songs about, race issues, poverty and potential nuclear war.
The album turned Dylan into a folk icon, brought folk music into the
mainstream, and can be seen as the start of the folk revolution. From then on,
he gained the title ‘spokesman of a generation’, something he rejected. His
reputation as a protest singer was so large that he was invited to sing at the
March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, where Martin Luther King delivered
his historic ‘I Have a Dream’ speech. After establishing himself as a folk
music icon in such a short space of time, Dylan entered a period of inspiration
which produced some of the most significant albums of the sixties. After
following Freewheeling with two more folk albums in quick succession, Dylan
shocked his fans by shifting from his acoustic folk sound. He released Bringing
It All Back Home in 1965, where he controversially electrified his sound, resulting
in him being booed at the Newport Folk Festival. Just months later, he released
Highway 61 Revisited, a rock album which changed his sound yet again and produced
one of his most famous songs, Like a Rolling Stone, which Rolling Stone
Magazine voted as the greatest song of all time. This was followed by Blonde on
Blonde, the first rock double album ever released, which brought with it
another unique sound. These three albums are his most important, and have been
cited as influences for many other major artists. After these albums, Dylan
explored several different styles over the next 40 years. He moved onto
traditional country music with Nashville Skyline, which features a duet with
Johnny Cash. This country phase also included having a minor role in the film
Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, which he also wrote the soundtrack for. He experimented with different forms of folk,
blues, country and rock music, before his surprising conversion to gospel
music. Declaring himself as a born again Christian in the late 70’s, a
controversial event considering his Jewish ancestry, he released a handful of
albums with overtly Christian themes, and restricted his live sets to only
include songs from this gospel period. After a decade of a lack of success, in
the late 80s Dylan joined the Travelling Wilburys under the pseudonym Lucky
Wilbury, a supergroup comprised of Dylan, Roy Orbison, George Harrison, Jeff
Lynne and Tom Petty. Despite reduced success over recent years, he still
performs in his legendary ‘Never Ending Tour’, which has carried on since 1988.
Dylan’s influence on the music world and
pop culture is massive. Various artists such as the Beatles, Neil Young, Bruce Springsteen
and Jimi Hendrix as well as many more have cited him as an influence. A wide variety
of artists from several generations have famously recorded his songs, such as
Adele, Jimi Hendrix, and the Byrds. His image from Highway 61 Revisited
features on the cover of the Beatles’ Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, and
David Bowie wrote a song in tribute of him. It spans different genres and
generations, by shifting from folk protest singer to controversial poetic rock
star to country crooner to gospel singer. Without him, music would not have
been the same.
Bibliography
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2017/apr/02/bob-dylan-finally-accepts-nobel-prize-in-literature-at-private-ceremony-in-stockholm
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jul/10/dylan-goes-electric-elijah-wald-review-when-bob-took-stratocaster-newport-folk-festival
http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/bob-dylan-will-receive-presidential-medal-of-freedom-20120427
Dylan,
Bob, Chronicles Vol. I, (London:
Simon & Schuster, 2004).
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/music/2017/apr/02/bob-dylan-finally-accepts-nobel-prize-in-literature-at-private-ceremony-in-stockholm
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