Bob Dylan
- Music Artist
- Music Department
- Composer
Robert Allen Zimmerman was born 24 May 1941 in Duluth, Minnesota; his
father Abe worked for the Standard Oil Co. Six years later the family
moved to Hibbing, often the coldest place in the US, where he taught
himself piano and guitar and formed several high school rock bands. In
1959 he entered the University of Minnesota and began performing as Bob
Dylan at clubs in Minneapolis and St. Paul. The following year he went
to New York, performed in Greenwich Village folk clubs, and spent much
time in the hospital room of his hero Woody Guthrie. Late in 1961 Columbia
signed him to a contract and the following year released his first
album, containing two original songs. Next year "The Freewheelin' Bob
Dylan" appeared, with all original songs including the 1960s anthem
"Blowin' in the Wind." After several more important acoustic/folk
albums, and tours with Joan Baez, he launched into a new
electric/acoustic format with 1965's "Bringing It All Back Home" which,
with The Byrds' cover of his "Mr Tambourine Man," launched folk-rock. The
documentary Dont Look Back (1967) was filmed at this time; he broke off his
relationship with Baez and by the end of the year had married Sara Dylan
(born Sara Lowndes). Nearly killed in a motorcycle accident 29 July
1966, he withdrew for a time of introspection. After more hard rock
performances, his next albums were mostly country. With his career
wandering (and critics condemning the fact), Sam Peckinpah asked him to
compose the score for, and appear in, his Cặp Bài Trùng (1973) - more memorable as a
soundtrack than a film. In 1974 he and The Band went on tour, releasing
his first #1 album, "Planet Waves". It was followed a year later by
another first-place album, "Blood on the Tracks". After several Rolling
Thunder tours, the unsuccessful film Renaldo and Clara (1978) and a divorce, he stunned
the music world again by his release of the fundamentalist Christrian
album "Slow Train Coming," a cut from which won him his first Grammy.
Many tours and albums later, on the eve of a European tour May 1997, he
was stricken with histoplasmosis (a possibly fatal infection of the
heart sac); he recovered and appeared in Bologna that September at the
request of the Pope. In December he received the Kennedy Center Award
for artistic excellence.
