Bob Dylan , (1941 - )
Bob Dylan (born Robert Allen Zimmerman May 24, 1941 in Duluth, Minnesota) is a musician and songwriter American singer whose musical style has evolved over the years: rock, folk, country, blues are the examples of the diversity of his work.



Since its inception in the 1960s, Dylan, through his writings and his search for new ways (contrary to his audience at times), significantly marked the contemporary musical culture: witness the many artists who claim his influence (David Bowie, Jeff Buckley, Tom Waits, Elvis Costello, etc..), or the vast repertoire of songs he composed, which draw musicians from all backgrounds and all generations (Elvis Presley, The Beatles, Mark Knopfler, Neil Young, U2, PJ Harvey, The White Stripes, Syd Barrett, Guns N 'Roses, Jimi Hendrix etc.)..

References which inspired Bob Dylan to change his art are not only looking on the side of legendary American musicians like Hank Williams, Woody Guthrie and Robert Johnson, but also among writers of the Beat generation, such as Jack Kerouac or Allen Ginsberg. He also appreciates Arthur Rimbaud, to whom he is often compared, and is interested in playwrights as Bertolt Brecht.

Twenty-first century, nearly 50 years after the release of his debut album, Dylan traveled the world from concert to concert and continued to compose.

Complex, constantly changing (he regularly re-invents each of its standards in different registers, from aggressive rock to jazz to ballads), close to the social and cultural aspirations of the times it went through the work of Dylan Perhaps more than any other, changed the role of popular music in the West (see Analysis). Since 1997, Bob Dylan is regularly nominated for the award of Nobel Prize in Literature. Moreover, the texts of his songs, which range from surrealist poetry and American traditional music, are studied in American universities. His last studio album, Modern Times, released in late August 2006, went straight No. 1 on the charts in the U.S., making him the only singer in the world aged 66 still alive, No. 1 in the hit parade .





Grandparents of Robert Zimmerman are from Eastern Europe, they fled the pogroms of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Ben D. Stone, his maternal grandfather moved to Hibbing, while Zigman Zimmerman who fled Odessa in 1907, moved to Duluth, Minnesota. Abraham Zimmerman and Beatrice Stone, two of their children, married in 1934 and gave birth to Robert (Bob) May 24, 1941. The latter spent his early childhood in Duluth and in 1947 moved with his parents and David, his younger brother, Hibbing [1].

In his autobiography Chronicles, Volume 1 published in 2004, Dylan wrote that his maternal grandmother was known as the Kirghiz, the family she had lived in Trabzon, on the Turkish coast of the Black Sea, although it had grown in the district of Kaðýzman she had Ýstanbul, in western Turkey. His paternal grandfather was from Trabzon.



Hibbing is the time a mining town of about 17,000 inhabitants, manners and conservative Christian tradition. Abraham, cured polio he contracted in Duluth, opened a shop of electrical appliances. Around the age of 8 or 9 years, Robert was introduced to the piano and later, guitar and harmonica. He has a passion first for country music by Hank Williams that he repeats the songs, and listening to radios that play the blues, such as that of Muddy Waters, Howlin 'Wolf, John Lee Hooker and Jimmy Reed [2]. It will also be influenced by Elvis Presley, Buddy Holly, Bill Haley and Little Richard, whose theatrical gestures and attitudes fascinate generation nonconformist teenager as much as they shocked his elders [3].

In high school [4], the adolescent includes small groups, such as The Golden Chords, with whom he played at parties and talent contests. With friends sharing their love of music, he extended his musical culture by exchanging disks jazz and rhythm and blues [5].



In September 1959, aged 18 years, Zimmerman enrolled at the University of Minnesota in order to attend art classes and settled in Dinkytown, the student district of Minneapolis. Little hard to follow it over a few months, he discovered folk (Pete Seeger, Cisco Houston) "songs that someone is always" [6]. He plays occasionally in folk cafes such as The Scholar and The Purple Onion for 2 or 3 dollars, that's when he started calling himself Bob Dylan.

The origin of this name was long considered a reference to the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas, knew that Zimmerman [7], but in reality it is the deformation of his middle name Allen [6]. The Chicago Daily News who asked in 1965 about the influence of Dylan Thomas on the choice of his name, he retorted: "No, God no. I took Dylan because I have an uncle named Dillion. I changed the spelling but only because it was better. I read stuff from Dylan Thomas and it is not like mine. "[8]. On August 9, 1962, Dylan made legally change his name to the Supreme Court [9].

Dylan is a kid that looks like a tramp, his way of playing guitar is considered almost decent voice too monotonous, too harsh, but he won. He learned a lot and quickly, in constant search of new songs to learn, it particularly benefits from the folk culture and nightlife of the parents of his friends - at a time when folk records are rare and valuable [10]. Fabrication times [11], Dylan gradually acquires all the characteristics of a true folk singer.

He met David Whittaker, leftist student with whom he becomes friends [12], and by which he discovered Woody Guthrie, which he devours the autobiography, Bound For Glory. In December 1960, Dylan took the road to New York to meet his idol, ill with Huntington's disease, who stays at Greystone Hospital in New Jersey [13].



After spending several weeks in Chicago, Dylan arrived in New York besieged by cold, by the end of January 1961. He went straight to Greenwich Village, a bohemian area where live singers, artists and political activists, the same evening, he plays at the cafe Wha? [14]. He went to the bedside of Woody and progressively visits, the two men got [15]. Dylan met the Gleason, with whom Guthrie spends his weekends, and that the East Orange apartment has gradually turned around Guthrie in a place where creativity meets the biggest names in the folk scene like (Cisco Houston, Jack Elliot, Pete Seeger, or). Not disdaining the hospitality of Gleason, Dylan studies and repeated recordings of Guthrie that they possess [16].

Arrived in New York recently, Dylan has not been slow to develop relationships, but considered too marginal by the owners of coffee, he struggles to get hired "There Man Said" Come Back Some Other Day, / You sound like a hillbilly / folk singer We want here "" [17]. In April 1961, however, he played in front of the Folk Music Society of New York University, Loeb Student Center at [18]. At that time, Susan Rotolo met Dylan, age 17 [19]. Designer, painter, Suze is not the stereotype of the fan discharge. His involvement in student movements, his knowledge of Brecht, Rimbaud, Villon involved in the metamorphosis of a slightly anachronistic Dylan, playing the happy ignorance, a brilliant writer whose pen will embody the awakening of political consciousness asleep.

At parties for beginners (the Hoot, or hootnanny) of a famous club in the Village, the Gerde's Folk City, Dylan is identified by its director Mike Porco, who hired him for two weeks on the advice of Robert Shelton, critical Music on the New York Times: April 11, 1961 is the first engagement of importance to Dylan, where he played opening for John Lee Hooker, guitarist "incredible", still unknown to the general public [20]. When Mike Porco reprograms Dylan September 26, Robert Shelton is present and published three days later a very laudatory article on "a new designer folk" [21], which enhances the reputation of nascent Dylan.



Renaissance Folk does not develop, however, not only in Greenwich Village in Cambridge, New England, Joan Baez and Eric Von Schmidt also excite their audience, including the Unicorn and Club 47. It is the latter that Dylan met Carolyn Hester, a folk singer who just signed with Columbia Records. Carolyn is looking for a harmonica for the album which she works, and offers room for Dylan, who accepts. During the recording sessions, Dylan plays Carolyn piece he composed, Come Back Baby, which won the John H. Hammond, one of the artistic directors of Columbia. As to the meetings, Hammond became aware of Dylan's talent and, despite the reservations of its management, makes him sign a contract: "I saw this kid with his cap who played the harmonica - not good for Indeed, but I was immediately captivated. I asked him if he could sing. If it consisted. If he did not register. "[22].

The impresario Dylan called Al Grossman, agent famous and controversial New York: praise for the successes which he participated [23], it is also criticized for essentially commercial purposes, hardly reconcilable with the misery that people denounce folk singers. Grossman is also the cofounder, with George Wein, the owner of a folk club in Boston in 1959, the Newport Folk Festival, and manages the careers of the Kingston Trio, Odetta and the folk trio Peter, Paul and Mary [24 ]. Concealing his interest in promoting the career of Dylan [25], Grossman urges Izzy Young, owner of the Folklore Center at the Village to produce the first Dylan concert headlined at Carnegie Chapter Hall, November 4, 1961 [26].

In March 1962 appeared the first album of Dylan (Bob Dylan, 1962). Composed of times folk and blues, it also contains two original songs: Talkin 'New York Song To Woody. Disk, confined to the circle folk, sold poorly [27], but the contract Dylan, strongly defended by Hammond and Johnny Cash, is not broken, as was originally proposed [28].





Since February 1962, appears regularly Broadside Magazine, a magazine founded by Agnes Cunningham folk and at the initiative of Pete Seeger. Albums will also be produced by the magazine, The Broadside Ballads, in which Dylan appeared under the pseudonym Blind Boy Grunt [5]. In this magazine for which regularly write Gil Turner, Tom Paxton and Phil Ochs are published the texts of songs of news, topical songs. Dylan writes a dozen texts [29], often written in the moment [30], which testify to the power of uncontrollable Dylan to write on all subjects, the futility of the hunt for Communists [31] disgust he feels after the summary execution of a black 14 year old and the release of his killers, white [32].

Buoyed by the evocative power of his lyrics, Dylan became the voice of a generation exasperated by injustice and conservatism prevailing then. Blowin 'in the Wind, that Dylan made in April 1962, appeared in issue six of Broadside. Recovery on all campuses and popularized by the trio Peter, Paul and Mary, it symbolizes the social and political dimension that is gaining its young author [33].



Blowin 'In the Wind will be the first song from her second album, The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, he started recording in June. To do this, Dylan composed many songs such as A committed Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall, written during the Cuban missile crisis, Masters of War and Oxford Town. But it also breaks with the tradition of his first folk album with songs more intimate, such as Do not Think Twice, It's All Right, Girl from the North Country, and Bob Dylan's Dream, telling of the mythology and meaning of poetry who live in [5].

The recording sessions and production of the album, longer than the first, also show that the animosity between John H. Hammond Albert Grossman: he dispute first the validity of the contract between CBS Dylan, when he signed a minor, then he is opposed to Hammond on the production of Mixed Up Confusion [34], accompanied by piano, drums, two guitars and a bass. The single, which also includes Corrina, Corrina, is inconsistent with the image of Dylan's folk singer and quickly withdrawn from sale [35].



Discovered by director Philip Saville in Greenwich Village, Dylan moved to London in December to participate in a television play: Madhouse is Castle Street, aired on the evening of January 13, 1963 at the BBC [36]. The play tells the story of a rebellious young man who shuts himself up in a boarding house and refuses to leave, her sister and her neighbors are trying to find out why. Dylan was first approached to play the lead role, but noting the lack of natural Dylan when he plays, Saville rewritten the play and attributes to the role of narrator Dylan singing [37]. Dylan sang four songs including Blowin 'In The Wind, which is the first release, the original recording was destroyed in 1968 and no copy has since been found [36].

On May 12, 1963, Dylan must participate in the Ed Sullivan Show, a program inviting all styles of music and whose distribution is national and is presented by Ed Sullivan and produced by Bob Precht. They accept Talkin 'John Birch Society Blues, Dylan wants to interpret that, but Stove Phelps, Advisor to the programming of CBS, the declines: in this song mocking members of the John Birch Society are ridiculed and are associated with Hitler [ 38]. Phelps expressed concern a libel, to the surprise of Ed Sullivan [39]: Hootenany, another TV show had agreed to broadcast a song from the Chad Mitchell Trio, whose target was also the John Birch Society [5]. Dylan refuses to interpret then another song, and leaves, furious [40]. The song, under pressure from CBS lawyers, is also removed from The Freewheelin ', on which the song was originally intended [41].

This episode does not mark an end to television appearances by Bob Dylan: In May, a program is broadcast Westinghouse Studios, entitled Folk songs and more folk songs, presented by John Henry Faulk, involving also the Brother Four, Carolyn Hester Barbara Dane and The Staple Singers. Dylan sang Blowin 'In The Wind, Man Of Constant Sorrow and Ballad Of Hollis Brow [5].



On August 28, 1963, Dylan, as Joan Baez, Mahalia Jackson, etc.. participates in the March on Washington, where more than 200,000 peace activists gathered to protest the inequality of civil rights suffered by the black population. After the speakers were followed and that was Martin Luther King delivered his famous speech "I Have a Dream", it interprets Only A Pawn In Their Game, while Peter, Paul and Mary sing Blowin 'In The Wind [42].

This episode illustrates the involvement of Dylan and many other artists for civil rights in this period through Suze Rotolo, who worked at CORE (the Congress of Racial Equality), and Broadside [5], [3 ], he rubbed the middle student protester, who campaigned for minorities in difficult [43]. On May 10, 1963, in Greenwood, Mississippi, Dylan had sung at a rally organized by the SNCC [44], to encourage the black population of the southern states to register voters [3]. Similarly, its presence in the concert of Joan Baez, their relationship, helped build his image as champion of social protest, along with Joan. Arise, however, the signs of the small and the inaccuracy of this image.

On December 13, 1963, during a banquet organized by the Charitable Relief Committee Civil Liberties (Emergency Civil Liberties yet committed, ECLC), Dylan was awarded the Tom Paine, which recognizes "a person who symbolized the struggle for fair freedom and equality "[45]. Intoxicated by alcohol, he delivers a speech disastrous.
On the occasion of a profile created by Nat Hentof for the New Yorker, described his Dylan impression: "I fell into a trap when I accepted the award on Tom Paine [...] as soon as I got I pointed I felt oppressed. [...] It really took me by the throat. I started to drink. ... I saw a group of people who had nothing to do with my kind of political ideas. I looked at the floor and I was scared. [...] It was like they gave their money because they feel guilty "[46]. In this article, Dylan also said, "I belong to no movement. Otherwise I could not do anything else than being in the Movement. I can not see people sitting down and making rules for me. I do a lot of stuff that no movement would permit. "

Joan Baez, Dylan which departed in 1964, described as follows: "For some strange reason, I think he wants to be free from liability. Any liability on anyone, I think he said. Just get away with what others have to offer. "[47]



It is February 10, 1964 [48] that seems The Times They Are a-Changin ', the album is the second part of what is sometimes called the trilogy folk of Bob Dylan.

On this album, on which Dylan's first full control [49], it continues to refine the register of the topical song with songs sprung from the political and social context in the United States, for example Only a Pawn in Their Game reminiscent of the murder of Medgar Evers, leader of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in Mississippi in the early summer of 1963, The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll, inspired by a news item on the outskirts of Baltimore, where a man "good society" a servant killed him a blow cane [50].
Above all, the album contains The Times They Are a-Changin ', which, two years after Blowin' in the Wind became the new anthem of youth. This song sums up the mood of the 1960s, in which a prophetic voice announces a changing world, where journalists, critics, politicians should not keep out the rising waters of change [51].

However, The Times They Are a-Changin 'reveals a significant change in its author: first the back cover and an insert Outlined Epitaphs are printed 11 "11 outlined epitaphs," which is the first publication of poetry Dylan [52], and where, subjectively, he spoke more freely of himself. Allusions to the road, the flight are also recurrent. These poems will be republished later in Writings and Drawings and will also support a biography of Dylan: Bob Dylan, Epitaphs 11.
On the other hand, are included in the album of songs like One Too Many Mornings or Leather Boots of genetics, where Dylan expresses feelings about women, love, friendship, traditional folk ballads that do not know how to express [53].

His audience, too, has changed to love folk music, quiet, sober clothing mores follows a public pop, young, enthusiastic, exuberant [54]. It is also noted that Terri Van Ronk, who took care of the fledgling career of Dylan [55], during a concert at Carnegie Hall October 26, 1963, before 3000 spectators

    "It was very surprising. As a taste of Beatlemania. The first major climb Bobby was already there, in this concert of Carnegie Hall. When it was over, we all found ourselves behind the scenes, and they tried the trick to escape the assault of young girls screaming outside. "
        - Anthony Scaduto, Bob Dylan, p. 268 & 269



His next album, Another Side of Bob Dylan, is recorded in one day in June, and appears to August 8, 1964. It's an album in the continuity of Freewheelin ', which remains faithful to the folk idiom (guitar and harmonica), but there is more than protest song. Here, too, poems accompany the album [56].

The focus of this album are love, personal freedom, human relationships. Dylan will also developing another important theme: the futility of the undertaking, as referred My back pages. Dylan laughs at it himself, his Manichean, and finds that the old language and other symbols are just trivialities and lies ("Oh I was so old then / I'm younger than that now").
Dylan participates in the creation of a cultural climate that would allow artists, rock bands to share their poetic vision, to overcome the limitations of the song of the day [57]. During the studio recording the album, Dylan says to Nat Hentoff, a journalist with the New Yorker: "There will be no protest song in this album. These songs, I had made because I saw no one doing this kind of thing. Now many people are protest songs, pointing to what is wrong. I do not want to write for people, be a spokesperson. [...] I want my texts come from inside myself "[58].

The album was poorly received by critics and by the folk scene, accusing in particular excess of subjectivity, its lack of aesthetics. Including a newspaper wrote the following criticism: "But Bob / It has two problems / small / language he writes / is not in English / the bat as he / is not the song / and c ' t'espèce of / intellectualism invert / do nothing / barber me to death. "[59].





On August 28, 1964, Dylan was first met the Beatles at their hotel in New York, during their U.S. tour. Beyond initiation [60], [61] or not [62] to marijuana for the first second, this meeting is a symbol of their mutual influence during the 1960s: while in early 1964 Dylan had watched closely the rise of the Beatles [63], they were susceptible "to the words and attitude [...] incredibly original and brilliant" Dylan [64]. In 1965, during the UK tour of Dylan, the Beatles conspicuously display their attraction, as the title of the article Ray Coleman in the newspaper Melody Maker January 9: The Beatles say Dylan is leading the way [65].



The future is in electric instruments. In 1965, he hired the guitarist amount of time, Mike Bloomfield, the "Clapton American" and recorded a new album, half acoustic, half electric, Bringing It All Back Home. His audience does not follow folk album and sulks, yet still close enough to the previous, even on tracks with electric instruments.

Three months later, appears to Highway 61 Revisited. Fully electric, the album relies on a basic rock, very incisive. Where the pieces of the previous album were often folk "electrified", they give free rein to raging guitars and organs tortuous. Words, abstract and pictorial, are also at the end of the sober folk: the song Ballad of a Thin Man knew many interpretations of the meaning of words, sometimes crazy as each other, all challenged by Dylan.

The singer's fans are confused: Bob Dylan is for them the perpetuation of a strong tradition among American music of the origins and social commitment, and rock music commercial and vulgar dance. Dylan, backed by a small group of garage rock, the Hawks, who would later become The Band, which toured at the time, the longest ever undertaken. Dylan played his new songs around the world, and everywhere he is booed. Divorce is used: Dylan will never be where one would expect.

In the midst of this grueling tour where the band plays louder than anyone before them [66], Dylan recorded the final part of "the electric trilogy" Blonde on Blonde.

Recorded in two weeks of studio during which Dylan wrote the lyrics often several minutes before the start of the session, Blonde on Blonde, the first double album in rock history, is a strange moment of calm amid the fury of that time . Based voice and music there to tell us all the latest experiments Dylan lived and dreamed, in an ode to love in all its forms, from mother to the prostitute, to the love that gives the illusion drugs. Dylan is at the top of the world, vibrating inside a thousand strange sensations, and shares his experiences in this album so surreal it's hard to describe. A masterpiece of timeless Dylan makes the locomotive of rock and roll.



In July 1966, the epic rock and roll, Bob Dylan longer crashes yet it had begun: the Triumph Bonneville motorcycle singer out of the road, sending him to the hospital, which the scenes aside for three years. Forced to rest, Dylan breaks up with life full of excesses that led so far, while the wild rumors circulating about him: it is believed dead, crazy, kidnapped by the CIA, etc.. Its long retreat is an opportunity for him and his friends to save the Band drafts of songs, which emerge in the 1970s under the name of The Basement Tapes.

It was not until 1968 that Dylan reappeared with John Wesley Harding, an acoustic album at peace, which at the time disappointed many fans. He showed a less surreal Dylan and more interested in the past of his country and folk stories shrouded in mystery unreal. However, fans have not abated: Dylan is still their leader and they expect it assumes its role. Harassed, the singer takes refuge in the countryside, then takes an anonymous New York apartment, but nothing works.

This stardom, he does not, is probably partly responsible for two following albums, where Dylan dressed as cowboy tries in country music. Nashville Skyline and Self Portrait double album, while Gentillet ballads and soft, dismayed fans: their idol leaves the counterculture to become a quiet family man. Nashville Skyline Dylan marks the meeting with another giant of American song, Johnny Cash. Songs I Threw It All Away, their cover of Girl From the North Country are participating in the success of the album. The album Self Portrait, consisting mostly of covers of folk and pop tracks, is more heterogeneous.



In early 1970, Dylan is dedicated to his family life. He released an album very quiet, New Morning, dominated by the piano, which bought it in the eyes of some critics, who had burned Self Portrait. He participated in the controversial concert for Bangladesh organized by George Harrison in August 1971 in New York and played in the western, Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, which he wrote the music. Largely instrumental, this soundtrack contains the tube, Knocking on Heaven's Door. It was not until 1975, after a disappointing album often seen with The Band (Planet Waves, which contains the classic Forever Young), Dylan decides to go back on tour.

Concerts in very large rooms are enormous: Dylan is in great shape, determined to reclaim the title of rock star which he himself had given up a few years earlier. He sings more aggressively than ever mincing words, but the public does not care: it finally gives the impression of being alive and that's the point. The tour is followed by a disk that may explain this return to strong emotions, because it tells Dylan's divorce from his wife Sara. Blood on the Tracks, probably one of the most cathartic hard rock, has been considered one of his masterpieces. The songs explore all facets of trouble love: self-pity herself, anger, love relapses, etc.. All this in an inimitable poetic style and with a new sound, a perfect synthesis between the old and the new acoustics of course, but dressed in batteries, bass and keyboards that give it a thick terribly poignant. The disc is a success, which is not enough to Dylan out of his depression, but did not remove his legendary repartee: a journalist who gave him his enthusiasm, he replies that he really does not see how can love experimenting with such sentiments as those expressed by Blood on the Tracks.

The following year, the singer, back for good, meets his old friends, including folk singer Joan Baez, and left for a tour that aims bohemian epic in the spirit hippie already slightly exceeded the era: the Rolling Thunder Revue. At first, everything works wonderfully: the caravan, consisting of dozens of partygoers and musicians, made a stop in small rooms, playing with musicians from bar Locally, a film is shot. All great enthusiasm by end unfortunately fall, but not without having produced its share of exceptional music, a live published in the Bootleg Series and the Desire album, the result of cooperation between Dylan and lyricist Jacques Levy.

This strange idea, however, gives very good songs, stories shrouded in mystery full of pyramids, gangsters and thugs, dressed in a rich orchestration in which the violin played by a musician met by chance on the tour, is a big place. There is even, for the first time in over ten years, a protest song! Hurricane recounts the trial of the boxer Hurricane Carter in prison for murder, and that Dylan is committed to free him. Album from his discography, Desire will be sadly the last great record of Bob Dylan before nearly three decades. The 1970 end indeed with Street Legal, which shows a Dylan again depressed and tired, and did not win a major success.



In 1979, Dylan operates one of the dramatic reversals he has the secret, overnight almost, he converted to Christianity and began to write about its new relationship with God. If the first record of this period, Slow Train Coming, including Mark Knopfler on guitar, turns friendly, it can be said for more: on Saved and Shot of Love, he wrote some inspired texts that seem copied from a book of hymns, and dress his music of choirs and brass deafening. Unappreciated by critics, however, these albums contain some gems (Every Grain of Sand).



In 1983, Dylan ends his Christian period as abruptly as he had inaugurated, and connects strangely with Infidels, a record considered as a means whose themes revolve around ... of Judaism to which he operates a high return. The 80 have not been known to be the best time for major rock artists of the 1960s and 1970s, it is also the case for Dylan's albums are often marred by its discoid at the time, which especially not right for them, and concerts by the lack of conviction that now is to sing. By his own admission [6], the singer has lost something that was his genius: the songs do not come as easily as before, and his enthusiasm is worn. The end of the decade found associated with the Grateful Dead for a series of concerts, and the energy seems to live again. On the advice of Bono, lead singer of U2, then it records with producer Daniel Lanois, known for his approach to "old", an album, Oh Mercy, which will mark his "comeback." Moreover, in 1988, Dylan founded the Traveling Wilburys, super-group comprising, under pseudonyms, Dylan, George Harrison, Jeff Lynne, Tom Petty and Roy Orbison. The group disbanded in 1990 after two albums of rock and roll a simple but highly sympathetic.



While his record company began to publish its archive boxes comprising the most anticipated in decades, Dylan began the 1990s by returning to the deepest sources of his music, with album Good as I Been to You and World Gone Wrong, composed entirely of covers of very old and often obscure folk and blues tracks. Better than a new turn, a pure return to basics. And criticism, finally, enjoy.



In 1997, Dylan joined again with Daniel Lanois to record Time Out of Mind, the first album of original material in seven years, which will be hailed as his best since Desire. Populated compositions inhabited, animated by a deep typical Lanois, Time Out of Mind is a chronicle of desperate but vibrant old age of a rock star. Dylan takes a look at it without complacency about his age, avoiding passing the rock and roll clichés grown to ridicule by some other "dinosaurs" of rock.

Given the very melancholy tone of this disc, it was feared that this was his last. Fear dissipated in September 2001 by the release of Love and Theft, an album hailed again as a success. Very bluesy and jazzy, stripped and close to the sound of his concerts, this new album is much more enthusiastic than its predecessors, it is even Dylan's first album in years not to be nostalgic!

On the other hand, Dylan goes on since the late 1980s a surprising number of concerts on five continents, more than any other artist of his generation, at a pace that has even accelerated in recent years. This endless tour ("Never Ending Tour" as fans have dubbed in French) is an opportunity for him to revisit its standards, leaving the spotlight for improvisation: the group of pieces changes every night, and will almost never plays a song the same way for a night on the other.

On the other hand, when he spent a Martin Scorsese documentary film No Direction Home, Dylan finalizing the drafting of the first part of his memoirs. Amazing as always, this volume brings a personal vision for periods not well known in his life, like his New York debut, or the recording of Oh Mercy in 1989. The regular publication of the Bootleg Series, previously unavailable recordings pirates, now remastered and officials, and whose source seems inexhaustible delights fans by lifting the veil on legendary recordings available for the first time. The eighth volume of this "series" Tell Tale Signs: Rare and Unreleased 1989-2006, has been announced for October 2008.

August 28, 2006 seems ironically titled his latest album Modern Times, referring to the movie by Charles Chaplin. It is the third in a trilogy begun in 1997 with Time Out of Mind. Produced by Dylan and recorded virtually live in conditions with the band that accompanies him on stage, this new album finds the accents of jazz, ragtime, bluegrass and rockabilly of his previous album Love and Theft, in an atmosphere more subdued and glamorous, which is now clear reference to the golden period of the 1930s: that of crystal sets, Bing Crosby and Louis Armstrong. To accompany the release of this album, Dylan said in Rolling Stone magazine that nothing had been done in the last 20 years was thanks to him. In a biblical prose, sometimes surreal morning of references to the contemporary world through evocations of Hurricane Katrina, the attacks of September 11, 2001 or a declaration of love in disguise for the young R & B star Alicia Keys Dylan revisits through ten titles timeless musical influences of his youth, taking on with ease and joy undisguised the costume of the American tradition of the century that preceded it. In October 2007, Dylan released 07, designed to discover his music and the remix of Most Likely included You Go Your Way And I'll Go Mine by DJ Mark Ronson. In December 2007, Todd Haynes's film, inspired I'm Not There "many lives" and songs of Bob Dylan is played by six actors and an actress.

In April 2008, he won the prestigious Pulitzer Prize, "for his profound impact on popular music and American culture, through lyrical compositions of extraordinary poetic power," according to the jury [67].

Dylan classic or modern? Nearly Half a century after his arrival in New York, the Bard of Duluth endlessly enigmatic still not talking to him.





"Bob Dylan did not give the impression as to stand at a turning point of the space-time to be this cultural crossroads. As if civilization had been able to evolve on its own, or even his fancy [...]. "

Greil Marcus - The Invisible Republic

Rich than forty albums, the work of Bob Dylan meets the traditional music that accompanied the building of the United States and the most modern avant-garde: the Far West and Greenwich Village. It is one of the artists who most revolutionized popular music in the 1960s and 1970s, helping to raise the rank of an art. His influence even extends beyond the scope of music, ranging from literature, cinema and even politics, as he was, more or less accidental, one of the leaders of the counterculture of the time.

From its inception in 1961, Dylan made about him in the American folk community by adopting a very expressive way of singing, which sometimes surprises even today, far from the standards of the "beautiful" song. Often accused of "not knowing" singing, Dylan is actually one of the modern artists to have the most advanced use of voice, using it as a real musical instrument and looking for more expressive than classic beauty. He experienced significantly on the use of dissonances, making himself the direct heir of the bluesmen of the 1930s, as Howlin 'Wolf.

Musically, though his compositions are most often relatively "classic", it has contributed, alongside artists such as Eric Clapton and The Rolling Stones, to bring traditional American music - blues, folk, country ... - In the modern era, as shown by the records of his "first rock era" between 1965 and 1966.

But the area where Dylan has been crucial is that the texts from his second album (the first being composed almost entirely of covers, as is very common practice at the time), it imposed a way of writing songs totally unique in his time. Inspired by literature, surrealist poetry, but also "folksongs" realistic of the great American tradition, his lyrics draw an inner world of exceptional richness. From the beginning, the main theme of Dylan's work is his personal experience of the world, his vision, whether real or imagined. Surrealism that permeates deeply most of his lyrics, even the simplest, will peak in 1965 and 1966 when Dylan forsake folk to rock 'n' roll.

Freed from the constraints of the folk format, creativity exacerbated by drug use, he wrote so many masterpieces that make it a major poet of the twentieth century. Far from being incomprehensible and absurd, as they are sometimes considered, the texts of that time do not try to make sense fixed, but to describe the impressions and feelings beyond words. Like an abstract painting, they can acquire a different meaning depending on the mood of the listener, while maintaining a strong identity. In this, the words of Dylan approach the essence of music, which draws some of its power because it is the only art to be no figure, at a time when most of the songs popular, especially the rock songs, still spoke of (mis) adventures sentimental and cars. They have greatly influenced all the pop artists of the time, beyond the world of rock and roll and even music, and changed drastically the careers of artists as talented as the Beatles.

Finally, through his lyrics, his positions, but also his attitude toward his star and musician, Dylan has played an important role on the evolution of society in the second half of the twentieth century. Adored by the public and media folk revolutionary left of the early 1960s, he refused to take on this role, preferring to encourage his fans, as he expresses in some of his lyrics (Do not follow leaders / Watch the parkin 'meters) [68], to think for themselves and to abandon the masses, whatever side they are.

By refusing to participate in the games of the music industry, constantly changing direction of music, which has regularly led to his being accused of "betrayal" by his former admirers, he changed the image of the musician People, bringing pop music on the same level in the arts "seriously." Even his artistic mistakes, as his records of the 1980s, where he invented the Christian rock, were, it seems, especially an attempt to end the idolatry which he had been since the 1960s. Certainly, the complexity of the work of Dylan prevented him from being a very big record seller, and thus to reach as wide an audience as other pop stars. But, by influencing directly almost all the artists of his time, he weighed significantly on the future of music that changed the world view of millions of people.



On August 3, 2002, the return of Bob Dylan at the Newport Folk Festival was an opportunity to question the alleged breach between him and his audience in 1965. Conspuation noticeable on the high bands is not anecdotal: it indeed punctuate the U.S. and European tour to follow.



Revealed four years ago at this same festival, Joan Baez was the headliner of the 1963 edition and introduces Dylan (khaki military shirt and faded blue jeans), preceded by his growing fame as a singer of protest. After his tower of song, he joined on stage Peter, Paul and Mary, Joan Baez, Pete Seeger and The Freedom Singers, and the party ends in a chorus of We Shall Overcome. On Sunday evening, Baez singing With God on our side invites him to join her on stage and the festival concludes with the triumph of Dylan, then in full communion with the audience [5].



In 1964, Dylan, for his songs, the concerts he gives is a famous folk in the world [69], while the topical song, which make up artists such as Phil Ochs, Tom Paxton and Buffy Sainte-Marie are very popular [5]. Dylan, who made three appearances this year, however, sing the songs more personal Another Side, forthcoming, such as All I really want to do, and It Is not Me To Ramona and Mr Tambourine Man (Bringing It All Back Home). His early fans feel it as a betrayal: Irwin Silber, the editor of the folk magazine Sing Out! wrote in November 1964 as "an open letter to Dylan" in which he expressed his concern about the "detachment", the "potential for self-destruction" of Dylan and his new songs "focused on itself, sentimental and cynical "[70], while Paul Wolfe, an author of Broadside, described Dylan as" a fraud, a hypocrite and a manipulator of his audience "[5].



On July 25, 1965, Dylan is headlining the festival but, like his dress (Wayfarer sunglasses and leather jacket) things have changed. For him first: in March was released Bringing It All Back Home, composed of acoustic songs and some more rock. Mid-July, Dylan has recorded Like a Rolling Stone, he expects to play at the festival. On the air on the other hand: while the Beatles monopolize the top ten, the recovery of pop Mr Tambourine Man Byrds brand of spirits. In the UK, along with the Beatlemania rock reborn, thanks to the rediscovery of the blues.

At the workshop of the blues festival is also present [71] The Paul Butterfield Blues Band, a group of urban blues with electric guitars and amps, who knows success with Born In Chicago, from their first album The Paul Butterfield Blues Band. In addition to the singer Paul Butterfield, the group consists of guitarist Mike Bloomfield, bassist Jerome Arnold and drummer Sam Lay.

Reinforced by the pianist Barry Goldberg and organist Al Kooper, Dylan and the musicians of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band repeat all night a limited number of songs: Maggie's Farm, Like a Rolling Stone and Phantom Engineer [72]. " The next day, they play three songs and their transitions are accompanied by an indescribable hubbub [73]. On the prayers of the presenter Peter Yarrow of Peter, Paul and Mary, Dylan returned with an acoustic guitar and performed two of his success: It's All Over Now Baby Blue and Mr. Tambourine Man.

The event, narrated by Robert Shelton, was born the legend of Dylan abandoning folk to rock, indifferent to the outrage and bitterness of his public [74], while in the wings, the sounds wildest circulating (Rumor has it that the singer Peter Seeger, enraged, sought an ax to cut the cable of the microphone, which he denied).

However, arguments contradict this interpretation, especially those made by Bruce Jackson, one of the organizers of the festival, who studied the records he kept.

Jackson first argues that the first person was not booed Dylan, Peter Yarrow, but, in charge of announcing and whose sentences interspersed with long silences annoyed a public impatient. On the other hand, the applause is fed when Dylan appears, while electric instruments are already installed and visible on the stage. Moreover, when the band plays, Dylan's voice is drowned in the volume of the instrumentation, due to a balance of sounds too early. Jackson further argues that despite the fact that Dylan is headlining the festival, it plays only fifteen minutes, while others remained on stage 45 min. Finally, the public demands the return of "Bobby," the interpreter by Yarrow "with a folk guitar."

In conclusion, Jackson speculates that the public reaction to Newport guided the audience of the upcoming shows, confused by a music that they are not longer recognized.