Bob Dylan Biography

Bob Dylan is a towering figure of late 20th century pop music, known for such songs as “All Along The Watchtower” (made into a hit by Jimi Hendrix), “Like a Rolling Stone,” “Tangled Up in Blue,” “The Times They Are A-Changin'” and “Lay Lady Lay.”

He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2016 “for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition.”

Bob Dylan has been recording and performing since 1962, mixing folk, country, blues and rock, sometimes startling his fans but almost always pleasing the critics. Although Dylan was an influential and frizzy-haired pop figure during the youth movement of the 1960s, his first number one hit, “Knocking on Heaven’s Door,” didn’t come until 1973. At first strictly acoustic, he later embraced electric guitars and production values, though his reedy voice and deep-thinking lyrics remained constant.

During the 1980s he toured extensively, and in the ’90s his songs found a new audience and more acclaim from the music industry: in 1991 he was given a Lifetime Achievement Grammy; his 1997 album Time Out of Mind won three Grammys; and in 2001 Dylan won an Oscar for “Things Have Changed,” from the movie Wonder Boys (2000). His surprising Nobel Prize win in 2016 was another remarkable tribute in his long career.

In 2006 he released his first album in five years, Modern Times. It included the song “When the Deal Goes Down,” which was made into a video directed by Bennett Miller and featuring Scarlett Johannson. Dylan’s other albums include Blonde on Blonde (1966), Nashville Skyline (1969), Blood on the Tracks (1975), Infidels (1983) and Knocked Out Loaded (1986).