Blues cruise! LEGEND BOB BACK ON TOP
HE famously sang The Times They Are a-changin’…and now veteran folk singer Bob Dylan has made a comeback.
The 79-year-old’s new album,
Rough and Rowdy Ways, has topped the UK charts and wowed critics.
But what do you know about the legendary American songwriter? Here JAMES
MOORE helps you tune up with 15 fascinating facts…
1 The star was born Robert Allen Zimmerman in Duluth, Minnesota, on May 24, 1941, the son of Jewish parents Abe, a furniture salesman, and housewife Beatty.
2 He didn’t start calling himself Dylan until 1962 - probably inspired by Welsh poet Dylan Thomas. Other monikers he’s used over the years include Elston Gunn, Tedham Porterhouse, Boo Wilbury and Blind Boy Grunt.
A fan of Elvis 3 Presley and Little Richard as a boy, he began playing rock and roll covers with his band, the Golden Chords. Dylan then got into 4 folk music because he thought it was grittier than rock. He began playing in New York clubs – and his first professional job was playing harmonica on a Harry Belafonte album for $50.
A producer spotted 5 his talent and a technically underage Dylan signed for Columbia Records at 20, lying that he was an orphan. Initially the label’s vice president wasn’t that keen, saying Dylan’s voice was the most horrible thing he’d ever heard.
Dylan’s 6 first selftitled album sold poorly, but he would go on to find fame with tracks such as Blowin’ in the Wind, Like a Rolling Stone and Mr Tambourine Man, and become an icon of 1960s protest movements. 7 Dylan created one of the first music videos, for Subterranean Homesick Blues, which involved the singer flipping lyrics on cue cards.
No stranger 8 to controversy, it’s said Dylan first introduced The Beatles to marijuana and has admitted battling his own heroin habit.
He also nearly 9 caused a riot at a 1966 Manchester gig when he swapped an acoustic guitar for an electric one.
10 In the same year Dylan was injured in a motorbike crash and virtually disappeared from public life for eight years. He also refused to speak for a week after Elvis died in 1977.
Potty conspiracy theorists 11 reckon Dylan did a deal with the Devil for fame after he said in an interview that he’d made a bargain with “the chief commander”.
He became a bornagain 12 Christian in 1979 following divorce from first wife Sara Lownds. His marriage to singer Carolyn Dennis remained secret for years. Having also been an 13 actor, Dylan once appeared in a Victoria’s
Secret lingerie TV ad, is a talented painter and recently launched his own Heaven’s Door whiskey. Despite selling 14 120million discs worldwide and recording 39 studio albums – nine of them UK No1s – he’s never topped UK singles chart. His US first came in 2020 with Murder Most Foul. Renowned for his 15 lyrics, the star was awarded the 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature and despite his age has been playing gigs on his Never Ending Tour since 1988.