Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan
Dylan in 2010
Background information
Birth name	Robert Allen Zimmerman
Also known as	Elston Gunn, Blind Boy Grunt, Lucky Wilbury/Boo Wilbury, Elmer Johnson, Sergei Petrov, Jack Frost, Jack Fate, Willow Scarlet, Robert Milkwood Thomas.
Born	(1941-05-24) May 24, 1941 (age 83) Duluth, Minnesota, U.S.
Genres	Folk, rock, blues, country
Occupation(s)	Singer-songwriter, [[writer], poet, artist, actor, screenwriter, disc jockey
Instruments	Vocals, guitar, bass guitar, harmonica, keyboards, accordion, percussion
Years active	1959 – present
Labels	Columbia, Asylum
Website	www.bobdylan.com

Bob Dylan (born Robert Allen Zimmerman; May 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter and musician. He is one of the most famous and successful popular singers of the last 50 years.

He was born in 1941 in Minnesota. His parents were from the Russian Empire in what is now Ukraine.^[1] As a youth he was a big fan of rock and roll, and formed several bands in high school. However, Dylan first became famous as a folk musician. In 1962, he released his first album, simply called Bob Dylan. The next year, he released the folk song "Blowin' in the Wind", which became very popular. In 1965, he began playing rock and roll. That year, Dylan released "Like a Rolling Stone", which has been called the greatest popular music song of all time. He put these two types of music together in a new way, which became very popular.

The next year, Dylan was in a motorcycle crash which broke his neck. His recovery took many months, and he released no new music or records during this time. Dylan re-examined his life while he recovered, saw what other musicians were doing, and made changes to his own style. His comeback album, John Wesley Harding, was different from his earlier work. While he made many tours to perform during the mid-1960s, he made very few public appearances until the mid-1970s.

Dylan later became a Christian, then drifted away from Christianity, even re-exploring Judaism, which his family followed.^[2] Now, he does not talk about his religion. Since the 1980s, he has concentrated on his music career.

Also, Dylan is one of the famous people who appear on the cover of The Beatles's Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

In 2016, Dylan received the Nobel Prize in Literature, "for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition".^[3]

1. ↑ Sounes, pp. 12–13.
2. ↑ "Bob Dylan: Tangled up in Jews"
3. ↑ "The Nobel Prize in Literature 2016: Bob Dylan". Nobelprize.org. October 13, 2016. Retrieved October 13, 2016.