Bob Dylan

Born Robert Zimmerman, Dylan took the name of the great Welsh poet Dylan Thomas and created a persona that has become synonymous with the modern, poetic songwriter. He has claimed that he sold his electric guitar and bought a flat-top Gibson after hearing an Odetta album in a record store. In any case, he left Hibbing, Minnesota as a teenager and came to Greenwich Village in 1960. Sat by Woody Guthrie as he lay dying in a New Jersey hospital and absorbed absolutely everything he came into contact with like a sponge - from The Carter Family to the Beats. Weaving traditional folk music and a pop/rock sensibility (his getting booed for coming on stage with an electric guitar at Newport is legendary), he has always been an iconoclast, an American original, giving a prophetic, mythic quality to his work.

Dylan gained hero status among sixties counterculture for his overtly political songs, with classics like "Blowin' in the Wind," "Masters of War" and "The Times They Are A Changing." But he wouldn't stay in anyone's back pocket, and quickly became harder to pin down, entering a more introspective phase and leaving a lot of bitter activist followers behind. Critics mark his 1966 motorcycle accident as a major turning point in his career. He is legendary for the number of different directions he has gone since then: country music, straight rock, christian music, Hasidic music, and back to traditional folk. He opened for the Grateful Dead recently, and Ani DiFranco has opened for him since then. -HB

Immortal Songs

Dylan is unmatched for the number of songs that have entered our everyday lives and language. The following list, though long, is only a start:

• "Blowin' In The Wind"
• "A Hard Rain's A Gonna Fall"
• "The Times They Are A Changin'"
• "Mr. Tambourine Man"
• "Tangled Up In Blue"
• "Shelter From the Storm"
• "Masters of War"
• "Don't Think Twice It's Alright"
• "Subterranean Homesick Blues"
• "All Along the Watchtower"
• "I Shall Be Released" (1967)

Best Books

• Lyrics 1962-1985. (Knopf) (Buy it online) Includes lyrics to all albums, plus poems, unreleased lyrics, drawings, good index. No chords (but most guitar players won't need them...). I refer to it constantly.
• No Direction Home. (Da Capo Press, 1997) Classic biography/study by acclaimed rock critic Robert Shelton, the NYT writer credited with "discovering" young Dylan in 1961. (Buy it online).
• Behind Closed Doors, by Clinton Heylin (1996, Penguin). Nominated for the Ralph J. Gleason award. (Find it online)

Essential Discs

• Freewheeling Bob Dylan (1963): Includes "Blowin In the Wind," "A Hard Rain's A Gonna Fall,"Masters of War," "Don't Think Twice" and "Bob Dylan's Dream"
• Highway 61 Revisited (1965). Shows Dylan as he leaves folk to become a proto-rocker.
• Blonde on Blonde (1966) In the year The Beatles released Sargeant Pepper, Dylan also broke musical boundaries on this double LP with the 11 minute epic "Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands," and the 7 minute "Visions of Johanna." Also "I Want You," "Just Like a Woman" and "Rainy Day Women." Breathtaking writing.
• Blood on the Tracks (1975): Almost every song is a classic: "Tangled Up In Blue," "Simple Twist of Fate," "Idiot Wind" and "Shelter from the Storm" really define a whole genre of love song.
• Basement Tapes (Columbia). A lot of folk fans prefer this side of Bob Dylan - pared down and essential, sometimes with his guard down. 3 CD set includes out-takes of many classics plus some previously unrecorded material. (Buy it online)
• For Beginners: Greatest Hits vol. 1 & 2 (Columbia). (Buy it online)

Film

• Don't Look Back (documentary of the Rolling Thunder Review Tour)