Bob Dylan : iSOUND.COM™

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Born: 1941 05 24

iSound Site: www.isound.com/bob_dylan

Biography

Sounds Like

Artists:
George Harrison
The Byrds
Fairport Convention
The Grateful Dead
Neil Young
John Prine
Joni Mitchell
John Hiatt
Phil Ochs
Donovan
Bruce Springsteen
Paul Simon
Lou Reed
John Lennon
Tim Buckley
Jackson Browne
Dire Straits
Tom Waits
Warren Zevon
T-Bone Burnett
Joe Hill
Peter, Paul & Mary
The Velvet Underground
The Pretenders
Tom Petty
Randy Newman
James McMurtry
Roger McGuinn
Freedy Johnston
Steve Forbert
Crosby, Stills & Nash
Peter Case
The Beatles
Jesse Winchester
David Blue
The Sir Douglas Quintet
Fred Neil
Zakk Jaxin
MichaelStephine
JOE CAMPBELL (DE)
Dennis Paul
Ralph Buckley
Suzy Fischer, featuring the Dinosaurs - John Cipollina, Spencer Dryden, Peter Albin
TheSlowLearners
Endangered and Counting with Tommy-Lee Phillips
Lex Zaleta
nick utah
mark throne
Ton Loeffler
Junno
Genres:
Country-Rock
Folk
Folk-Rock
Singer/Songwriter

Featured Video

Featured Album

	Dylan Released: 2007

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Discussions	Last Post
Be In A Rock Video!!! :D...	08.29th.2006
concerts...	08.17th.2006
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Biography

Bob Dylan was born on May 24, 1941 as Robert Allen Zimmerman in Duluth, Minnesota. His dad was Abe Zimmerman. He worked for the Standard Oil Company. In 1947, they moved to the small town of Hibbling. When Robert was about ten years old, he began to write poems. He taught himself to play guitar and piano while he was in his early teens. He began to form his own bands.

In 1959, he left on his own to go to college in Minneapolis at the University of Minnesota. He started to trace rock, country, and folk music back to their roots. He listened to Hank Williams, Robert Johnson, and Woody Guthrie. There was really no artist that he listened to that didn’t influence him. He dropped out of college in 1960 and went to New York. He became part of the New York folk-music scene. He met his hero, Woody Guthrie, who was hospitalized at the time in New Jersey. In New York he discovered his ability to memorize a song quickly and he began to write more of his own songs. He played solo in places like, The Ten o’clock Scholar Café and St. Paul’s Purple Onion Pizza Parlor. Robert adopted the stage name Bob Dylan, in honor of the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas.

In 1961, Robert Shelton saw Bob play at Gerde’s Folk City. Shelton stated in the New York Times that Bob was “Bursting at the seams with talent.” A Month later, Dylan was signed to the recording company, Columbia Records. His first album was released in early 1962. The album only cost $300 dollars to record and didn’t sell well. But his reputation as a protest singer was growing. He sang about issues that many Americans cared about. The next two albums he released were masterpieces. “The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan” released in 1963, and “The Times are A-Changin’” released in 1964, contained some classic protest songs. Dylan had established himself as a 60’s protest folk writer.

After Bob broke up with his girlfriend, Suze Rotolo, he went out with the famous folk singer, Joan Baez.

In 1965, the album “Subterranean Homesick Blues” put Dylan in the US and UK charts for the first time. Then Dylan changed from an all acoustic rhythm to an electric-acoustic rhythm. He used a band he named “The Band” to play the electric parts. Basically, he discovered folk-rock. His folk-rock idea was a disappointment to many of his fans. They even booed him off the stage for it at the Newport folk festival. To make things worse, Joan broke up with him. He began to see Sara Lowndes. Later that year they got married.

Another album, Highway 61 Revisited, had the single “Like a Rolling Stone” on it. The song was over six minutes long and the angriest song to ever be released on a 45. It reached number two on the singles chart.

On July 29, 1966, Bob was in a motorcycle crash. It was nearly fatal. It took him months to recover, but it did give him a break from performing. This allowed him to retreat to his home in Woodstock N.Y. with his wife Sara and newborn son Jesse. A few months after he recovered, The Band joined him in Woodstock. Nashville Skyline, his next album, was a disappointment. The whole album was country. The next albums he released were also no good and he began to loose his reputation. Over the next six years he couldn’t make any good albums. Bob also hadn’t performed any of the songs that he wrote after the crash in 66’.

Someone invited Bob to make the soundtrack for a Western film that one of Bob’s friends was starring in. The soundtrack was a success and broke the top twenty.

It has been seven years since the accident, and Dylan and The Band haven’t gone on tour since, so he and The Band rehearsed for his comeback tour. They recorded the album “Planet Waves.” It was Dylan’s first album to make it to number one on the charts. In January of 1974, Dylan and The Band hit the road for their tour. They sold out tickets everywhere they toured.

Now that his music career was going well again, his personal life was not doing too well. He and Sara separated. He was very upset by this and it inspired him to write songs about it. He came out with another album that became number one on the charts, “Blood on the Tracks.” Soon he released another masterpiece and then went on tour. His ex-girlfriend Joan Baez and other old friends played with him at the concerts. He released his third consecutive number one album, “Desire.” On the album was a song he wrote to Sara, called “Sara.” The song did not win her back though. Now Dylan was thirty-seven, and his career began going downhill along with his personal life. He came out with a really bad album, before he released another masterpiece. “Slow Train Coming,” reached number three on the charts and the hits single, “Gotta Serve Somebody,” won Dylan his first Grammy. It was for the best male rock vocal performance.

Over the next year, Bob went on tours and released more albums. None of the albums were great hits or anything spectacular. He even began to mumble when he performed. In 1993 he went on tour with his 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."

In 1997, he wrote a seventeen-minute-long song while stuck at in his home because of a blizzard. It was great song he titled “Highlands.” That same year he was hospitalized because of a heart problem. It was considered to be a fatal disease, but Dylan recovered from it quite quickly. Today Bob Dylan is still alive, living in his home in Minnesota.

Bio written by: waLkingContridiktion27