BOB DYLAN

Bob Dylan was born Robert Allen Zimmerman on May 24, 1941 in Duluth, Minnesota and is an American singer, songwriter, author, and visual artist who has been an icon in popular culture for more than fifty years. Bob Dylan began his musical odyssey playing rock and roll numbers and wanting to be Little Richard, however that got binned when he discovered the music of folk hero Woody Guthrie, and soon Bob had moved to New York, mostly to visit Guthrie was then ill in hospital. Bob Dylan made his name playing in the city’s folk clubs, and came to the attention of Columbia Records who snapped him up, and he released his self-titled debut album in March 1962.

Bob Dylan made his first visit to the UK when he was invited to appear in a drama called Madhouse On Castle Street in 1963, and was rapidly becoming a bit of a sensation with his songs Blowin’ In The Wind, A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall, Subterranean Homesick Blues and Like A Rolling Stone. Bob Dylan’s biggest controversy also happened in the UK when he infamously ‘went electric’ at a Manchester concert in 1966, where he eschewed his acoustic guitar for an electric one and people rioted.

Bob Dylan has released 38 studio albums, 12 live albums and 15 volumes of his Bootleg Series of reissues. Bob Dylan has had eight UK Official Album Chart Number 1s, and numerous songs covered by a broad range of other artists such as Jimi Hendrix, Guns ‘N Roses, The Byrds, U2 and Cher. Bob Dylan has won 11 Grammy Awards, received a Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2012, and the awarded the 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature.