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Robo2448 · Forum God

Animosity suggested that I do an artist profile on Bob Dylan, so I decided I would. He was born Robert Allen Zimmerman in Duluth Minnesota on May 24, 1941. Robert Zimmerman grew up admiring Elvis and other ‘50s artists, but an artist that stood out to him more than others was Woody Guthrie. It is from Woody that he took his story-teller style of singing and also from Woody that he got the idea of playing the harmonica. Bob Dylan was Jewish, and didn’t feel that he could make it in the musical world being Jewish, so he shortened Robert to Bob and took on Dylan as a last name, from the poet Dylan Thomas, who inspired Dylan to write his brilliant lyrics. He went to New York in 1961, and gained even more popularity. He made the strongest impression on Greenwich Village where he often performed in coffeehouses and visited his dying idol Woody Guthrie in the hospital. He started opening for popular blues and folk musicians such as John Lee Hooker and became very well known and was signed to a contract by Columbia.

I have not heard Dylan’s first album, which only contained 2 Dylan originals, so I can’t comment on it, but Dylan’s 2nd album was a big success. When Dylan released The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, he became famous. The album was filled with brilliant folk-rock protest songs, the most famous being Blowin’ in the Wind. This song was covered by Peter, Paul, and Mary, but more importantly by Joan Baez, as Dylan started a relationship with her and started performing with her in famous concerts. The entire album is folk-protest song and he became a symbol of the protest movement. Aside from Blowin’ in the Wind, my favorites are Hard Rain and Masters of War, both of which have incredibly vicious lyrics, especially Masters of War, where he wrote about the pointlessness of war. I would highly suggest listening to that song while reading the book All Quiet on the Western Front, it really gets your mind thinking about the pointlessness of war.

His 3rd release, The Times They Are A-Changin’ is very similar to Freewheelin’. In my opinion Freewheelin’ is slightly better, but the title track and With God On Our Side are both incredible songs. I believe that it actually has stronger protest songs than Freewheelin' though, as every song is sung with a passionate fire. It also one of the 3 most pessimistic albums that I have ever heard, after Animals and The Wall by Pink Floyd. The title track was a symbol of everything the '60s were about, the human rights movements, the peace and love of the hippy movement, the Vietnam protests... In interesting sidenote is that it was released right after Kennedy was assassinated which may have influenced Dylan's pessimism. The next song is one of the most pessimistic, about a man who kills his family and himself. With God On Our Side is very similar to Masters of War on Freewheelin' but not quite as strong. Hattie Carroll is a song protesting the murder of an innocent kitchen maid. These songs are all about situations that we cannot relate to today, but the general themes of these songs can still relate to today's world, so most of the songs have aged well.

However, as Dylan is a quirky guy who frequently changes his style, he would change it for the 1st time in his next release. Another Side of Bob Dylan was literally, another side. He changed his personality and his protest style for this album, as it is more of a personal album than protest album. It wasn't quite as well received because of the utter abandonment of protest songs, and this greatly shaped Dylan's view of the media IMO. When the media didn't applaud it as much because it wasn't the protest songs he craved, he drew away from both them and his old protest song fans, as they also did not accept it as much. This showed Dylan being uncomfortable in the spotlight, and thus changing his style to avoid it, which became a major theme later in his career. Anyway, the best songs on here are the well-known It Ain’t Me Babe and a personal favorite of mine, Chimes of Freedom. Overall, Dylan’s early albums are very good, but I would recommend buying the Bootleg Series Vol. 6, as it is a live performance with Joan Baez from 1964 with many of these songs. If you like that, then buy the albums. I have also seen the trio, Times, Freewheelin', and Anther Side packaged together and if you see them for a low price, take a chance on them.

Then Dylan turned onto rock and roll with Bringing It All Back Home. I really don’t think this album is one of his best like people say it is, but it is arguably his most influential as it introduced him and his protest songs to the rock and roll world, leading to him being a leader of the hippy movement. I actually favor most of the folkier songs on this album, but it’s all pretty good, just not his best. It's actually growing on me a lot as I'm writing this. It's Alright Ma have the most incredible lyrics that you will ever hear, although I don't actually like the song that much. Actually, I really like the whole album, it's almost perfect, but It's Alright Ma gets a little boring to me and some others are a little overrated, but most of the songs are absolute gems.

Highway 61 Revisited is his first full rock and roll album and is absolutely brilliant. I honestly love every single song on here, and they are all fantastic. It's perfect, there's nothing else I can say. Seriously.

Blonde on Blonde was a double album that was the climax of his rock and roll period. It has a few softer folk-rock songs and is great, kind of a combination of rock and roll and softer more personal songs. I feel that this album features Dylan’s best singing as well as being incredibly fun to listen to, especially the famous pot anthem, Rainy Day Woman #12 and 35. Dylan then joined with his backing band, The Hawks or now known as The Band and went on a world famous tour which is known as when he went electric. This may be the single most influential tour ever with his famous "Judas" concerts. This was probably Dylan’s golden age as he was possibly the most famous artist in rock along with The Beatles. Dylan was a very quirky guy, very funny, and those qualities combined with his protest lyrics and massive pot-smoking made him the perfect leader for the hippy movement of the late 60’s.

Then something happened that detoured Bob from his duty as a rock and roll god. He got seriously injured in a motorcycle accident outside of his home in Woodstock NY. Now mellowed and grateful to be alive he moved into the basement of a big pink house known as “Big Pink” with his backing band. There he recorded the Basement Tapes which were just him and the band having fun, not intended for release. They remind me a little bit of the Traveling Wilbury’s work with Bob. Both of those are just Bob and friends chilling and making fantastic music. The best thing that sticks out to me is that they are both all about the musicians enjoying themselves and having fun, not caring if people liked the music or not. Anyway, Bob was mellowed and turned away from the hippy lifestyle, and abandoned them, just as he had abandoned the folk-rock protest songs a few years earlier. He made a few country rock albums, Nashville Skyline, John Wesley Harding, and New Morning, along with Self Portrait, which I haven’t bought as even Dylan said that he was purposely making a bad album. This album is said to symbolize Dylan giving his fans the middle finger. Other than Self-Portrait, the others take time to get used to, but I have enjoyed what I've heard, they are really mellow and calming. He also did a soundtrack which included the amazing Knockin' on Heavens Door. It's funny that in one of Dylan's "low points" he recorded 2 of his top 3 most famous songs ever, that and All Along the Watchtower on JWH.

Soon though, Dylan began to miss being in the spotlight and a “god” of music and longed to be in the same situation he was before the accident. He got together with The Band and released Planet Waves, which was a precursor to Blood on the Tracks IMO. It was full of personal songs, but opposite of the painful messages we sends in Blood on the Tracks about his marriage, this is full of happiness and hopefulness with brilliant love songs such as Forever Young and Wedding Song. Then he went on a huge tour with The Band hoping to recapture the magic of '66. As he said, "Yeah, I kind got kind of held up on that tour, you know, I mean I wasn't really in control of the situation. Nobody was in control." He then released my personal favorite Dylan album Blood on the Tracks, which contained the most personal lyrics of any album up to that time. This album leaves me speechless, but I'll give 2 highlights, Dylan's painful moaning on You're A Big Girl Now, which I uploaded; and the lyrics of Idiot Wind, which compares favorably to Like A Rolling Stone as one of the greatest put-down songs ever. I particularly like this line,

"You're an idiot babe, it's a wonder that you still know how to breathe."

Keep in mind he was still married to his wife, Sarah when he was singing this.

He then went on the Rolling Thunder Revue tour, which I feel is absolutely incredible, see my review of it. He then released Desire, with Hurricane, see my sig for some incredible lyrics from that song. The rest of the cd was pretty good, but not up to Blood on the Tracks. The other highlight is Sarah, which is a song about his wife, begging her not to leave him, even after what he's done, such as writing Blood on the Tracks which pretty much trashed her. He recorded it in 1 take, with her watching, and reduced her to tears.

After Desire though, Dylan made a lot of bad music, with a gem or 2 interspersed. Dylan was Jewish, but in the early '80s converted to Christianity and released 3 Christian albums, none of which are good or worth buying. He recovered with Infidels which is just a flat-out awesome CD and the accompanying tour was good, with Real Live coming from that. It featured Mick Taylor on guitar and has fantastic blues-rock, probably Dylan's most rocking album ever. Then he had a few absolutely awful albums before releasing Oh Mercy which is an excellent album. I cannot stress enough to stay away from those albums in between Infidels and Oh Mercy! They are a disgrace and sound like he's playing in Vegas. You can throw in Live At Budokan with those, absolutely awful. From what I've heard Oh Mercy is good, the song Most of the Time is absolutely perfect. Since 1988 or so, Dylan has embarked on what he calls the never-ending tour. He has toured with The Dead, see my review, Tom Petty, and is now touring with Willie Nelson. I've heard it's basically a crapshoot, sometimes he sucks, and sometimes he's pretty good. I plan on seeing him this summer, so I'll report back about how he is. Due to all the pot he has smoked, he can barely sing, can’t play the harmonica and can barely play guitar because of arthritis. His stuff in the early '90s is kind of weak, but Time Out of Mind gets excellent reviews, and I've liked what I've heard. I own Love And Theft, and it's pretty good, but I'll be honest here and admit that his voice is completely shot. I wouldn't recommend it unless you can find it cheap. It is highly unlikely that we’ll see any new studio work from Bob, but maybe we’ll see another live album from his prime released and the amount of material he has already released is enough to keep anyone satisfied.

Now I'm going to get into Dylan's influence on the music world a little bit. Bob Dylan truly revolutionized the music world, and he is the single most influential artist ever. As a child, he admired the rock n' roll of Elvis and Little Richard, but just as much, he admired the poetry of Jack Kerouac and Dylan Thomas. Even more than these rock n' rollers and poets, he admired the folk music of Woody Guthrie, Johnny Cash, and Hank Williams. These men proved that great music could be written with just a simple chord progression, and this is how Dylan played. When I first think of Dylan, I imagine him sitting alone strumming his acoustic guitar and wailing on his harmonica. But Dylan took this basic formula from Guthrie, Cash, and Williams, and later added rock and roll elements to it and added brilliant lyrics that those poets inspired him to write. He also took that talking style of singing from those men.

Bob Dylan had a perfect voice IMO. Most people feel he has an awful voice, but I couldn't think of another voice that would have fitted his music better. Many people also complain about the simplicity of his music, which I feel is one of his strengths. Personally, I just love hearing Dylan crooning some brilliant lyrics out over a 3 chord progression followed by his harmonica wailing. I think his simple yet brilliant style should be worshipped, not criticized. As he himself said, "You can play a song with one chord." When told that many people think he doesn't understand music, he said, "Well I don't understand music, you know. I understand Lightning Hopkins, I understand Leadbelly, John Lee Hooker, Woody Guthrie, Kinky Friedman. I never claimed to understand music...I'm an artitst."

Bob Dylan influenced almost all of the premier bands of the '60s. Most important of these relationships was with The Beatles. Bob Dylan introduced The Beatles to the magical substance that is pot. This led to The Beatles writing introspective and meaningful lyrics, and they became the 2nd most famous songwriters of all time. After Dylan of course. In return, The Beatles introduced Bob Dylan to new sounds, inspiring the electric sounds of Bringing It All Back Home, Highway 61 Revisited, and Blonde On Blonde. Dylan had a similar relationship with The Byrds and The Band. He made both of these popular and they both helped him become more popular. He gave The Byrds permission to cover Mr. Tambourine Man which was their first hit and made them popular. By covering Mr. Tambourine Man, The Byrds introduced Mr. Dylan's music to the rock music world and opened the door for him to become the rock emblem that he would become. Dylan had a similar relationship with The Band. The Band became famous as Dylan's backing band and probably wouldn't have made it otherwise. Dylan also cowrote some of The Band's hits such as Tears of Rage and When I Paint My Masterpiece. When Dylan was down after his accident, it was The Band who helped him get back in the game with the Basement Tapes and later Planet Waves and the Down in the Flood Tour. Lastly, I'll mention Neil Young. Livewired, I hate to say it, but there would be no Neil without Bobby. Even though I love Neil's voice, many people didn't like it, and Dylan was the first person with a "bad singing voice" to make it big. Neil's best early work was protest songs at first, which Dylan had mastered 5 years before.

I’ll conclude with a great quote I found on that Traveling Wilbury’s website I mentioned in the review: “Give us some lyrics, you famous lyricist.”

Lunch · Site Admin

Nice job already. I really didn't/don't know much about Dylan, but I learned a lot.

Animosity · Site Admin

Very good job indeed Robo! And thanks for going ahead and doing this. Great start. Hope to see more from you ;)

That was a great read.

Livewired · Moderator

Nice man, I edited this because now I have like 14 of his albums!!

I like Bringin' it on Home best!

Robo2448 · Forum God

I'd get Highway 61 next. That and Blood on the Tracks are probably his best. I personally prefer Blood on the Tracks as a whole, but Highway 61 is still awesome.

Robo2448 · Forum God

I'm thinking of making my profile a little more detailed since I wrote it quickly and it's kind of a broad overview of a 40 year career. I'm also thinking of uploading some songs like Lunch did in his Who thing. If anyone wants to make suggestions for songs, I'll upload them, or I'll just pick like 10-15 songs myself.

VeedBok · Forum God

nice review man Respect!

Robo2448 · Forum God

Robo2448 · Forum God

Edited. I don't know why it posted at the bottom in a quote though Confused

If Animosity or someone could fix that I'd appreciate it.

Lunch · Site Admin

Fixed.

BoBo · Respected Member

Incredibly informative. Keep up the good work!