Bob Dylan

As the author of some fifty absolute classics of 20th-century songwriting, Bob Dylan is the most covered singer in the world. Since his debut in 1961, Robert Allen Zimmerman—better known as Bob Dylan—born in Duluth, Minnesota, on May 24, 1941, has become one of the most influential figures in contemporary music. This is due as much to his poetic and symbolic lyrics—and his music, which blends blues, folk, country, and early rock ’n’ roll—as to his complex and enigmatic personality. Having emerged with the burgeoning folk revival movement of the early 1960s, Bob Dylan rejected the label of “spokesperson for a generation” and “protest singer,” despite politically charged lyrics such as “Blowin’ in the Wind” and “Masters of War”. In 1965, he divided his audience by transitioning from an acoustic style to electric rock through a trilogy of major albums: Bringing It All Back Home and Highway 61 Revisited (1965), followed by the double album Blonde on Blonde (1966), which included the classic “Like a Rolling Stone”, considered one of the most important songs in rock history. After a motorcycle accident in July 1966, he stepped back from the spotlight to compose a collection of songs known as the Basement Tapes, with the participation of the band The Band. The resulting album was not released until 1975. In the meantime, Bob Dylan reemerged transformed with the country-influenced albums John Wesley Harding (1967) and Nashville Skyline (1969), featuring Johnny Cash. In 1975, following the release of Blood on the Tracks and the single “Hurricane”, he embarked on a major tour, the Rolling Thunder Revue, during which he invited close friends such as Joni Mitchell, Joan Baez, Roger McGuinn, T-Bone Burnett, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, and Mick Ronson; this was followed by the album Desire (1976) and the personal feature film Renald and Clara, which he eventually disowned. The following period, marked by the gospel-influenced albums Slow Train Coming (1979) and Saved (1980), saw him convert to Catholicism, before returning to a folk and rock style. While his influence remains undiminished, as evidenced by the numerous covers of his high-quality repertoire, his significance endures through albums such as Time Out of Mind (1997), Love and Theft (2001), and Modern Times (2006), followed by Tempest (2012). On October 13, 2016, he became the first musician to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. But more interested in continuing his work than in honors, he soon released a new album, Triplicate, a triple album paying tribute to classics by American crooners of the 1940s and 1950s. His first album of original material in eight years, the double album Rough and Rowdy Days (2020)—his thirty-ninth studio recording—is still a major event.