Bob Dylan
The grandchild of Jewish-Russian immigrants, Dylan was born Robert Allen Zimmerman, on May 24, 1941, in Duluth, Minnesota where his father, Abe, worked for the Standard Oil Company (Mr. Showbiz 1). Dylan is undoubtedly considered to be one of the most influential figures in the history of popular music. He is the author of many classic songs and is regarded as the man who brought literacy to rock lyrics (Muze 1). He began playing music and writing poems as a teenager, but his unique music stylings began to take shape upon his enrollment at the University of Minnesota in 1959. It was in Minneapolis that he began mixing blues into his own material; which consisted mainly of folk. The greatest influence on Dylan is folk singer Woody Guthrie, it was from Guthrie that Dylan adopted his stage persona and the way he carried himself as a musician. Another important influence on Dylan is blues singer Jesse Fuller. It was from Fuller that Dylan got the idea to use the harp rack. This is a device that goes around your neck and has a harmonica attached to it. It allows you to play harmonica and guitar simultaneously (Muze 2). Bob Dylan went to New York to pursue his music career on January 24, 1961. For being a very new an
Dylan's follow up album, "The Freewheelin Bob Dylan" is most renowned for the hit song 'Blowin in the Wind.' The album also notably contains songs, 'A Hard Rains A-Gonna Fall,' 'Girl From the North Country,' 'Don't Think Twice, It's All Right,' and other originals (Mr. Showbiz 2). Although the first album was promising, this masterpiece was Dylan's first major step to cementing his reputation as the most distinctive and poetic voice of Rock music. This record is also where Bob first earns his reputation as a protest writer with political songs like 'Blowin' and 'Masters of War (Humphries 6).' His first album, called simply "Bob Dylan," was released in March 1961. The most astonishing thing about this album was Dylan's voice. For many people it was hard to imagine the maturity of the voice on the record to be coming out of the fresh faced looking teen on the cover of the album (Humphries 2). The album contained thirteen songs and reflected how extremely influenced Dylan was by Guthrie. It contained only two Dylan originals, 'Song to Woody' and 'Talking New York.' The rest of the album was made up of Dylan songs from his set lists of shows since his arrival in New York. Although this was a good album, Dylan was not completely satisfied with it. "I wasn't even me. I was still learning the language then. I was writing then, but what I was writing I was still scared to sing (Humphries 3)." The eleven songs for Dylan's fourth album, "Another Side of Bob Dylan," were recorded in one extraordinary, wine-fuelled session on June 9, 1964 (Humphries 13). On this record we see Dylan blow off the expectations of the folk crowd in the changing of his writing style and motives. Dylan enhanced his poetic consciousness by reading the poetry of John Keats and French symbolist Arthur Rimbaud (Muze 4). "Me, I don't want to write for people any more. You know - be a spokesman. From now on, I want to write from inside me." More evidence that Bob is ready to shed his solo, folky image can be found on the album's most well known single, 'It Ain't Me Babe.' In this song Bob blatantly say
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Approximate Word count = 1416
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)
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