Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan changed what a song could say. He turned folk music into a vehicle for poetry and protest, then plugged in an electric guitar and reshaped rock along the way. Born Robert Allen Zimmerman on May 24, 1941, in Duluth, Minnesota, he arrived in New York in 1961 chasing his hero Woody Guthrie. In 2016 he became the first musician to win the Nobel Prize in Literature.

The folk years

The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan (1963) carried “Blowin’ in the Wind” and “A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall”, songs that became anthems of the civil rights movement. The Times They Are a-Changin’ followed in 1964. For a moment he was the voice of a generation, a role he never wanted and soon walked away from.

Going electric

In 1965 Dylan plugged in. Highway 61 Revisited and “Like a Rolling Stone” pushed folk into rock, and his electric set at the Newport Folk Festival split the audience between cheers and boos. He kept moving, through Blonde on Blonde, the wounded Blood on the Tracks (1975) and the late-career acclaim of Time Out of Mind (1997).

Friends and influence

Dylan and Johnny Cash were longtime friends and pen pals, and they duetted on “Girl from the North Country” for the 1969 album Nashville Skyline. His writing reshaped countless artists, including the Beatles, who traded influence with him after the two camps met in 1964.

The honors

Dylan has won ten Grammy Awards and an Academy Award, was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1988, and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom. The 2024 film A Complete Unknown, with Timothee Chalamet, brought his early years to a new audience. He still tours.

Most loved songs

A spread across the catalogue. Each title opens through the in-site player.

From a protest anthem to a lyric that sounds like scripture, the odds are good a Bob Dylan line has stuck with you. Type the words you remember into the search box above and you may find they lead back to him.