"I consider myself a poet first and a musician second. I live like a poet and I'll die like a poet. "

A Musical Leviathan!

Bob Dylan (born Robert Allen Zimmerman) is a prolific and highly influential American singer, songwriter, musician and poet who first gained prominence in the 1960s with Highway 61 Revisited, Blonde on Blonde and many other albums. His song "Blowin' in the Wind" became an anthem of the civil rights movement.

Born Robert Allen Zimmerman, Dylan grew up in a northern Minnesota mining town called Hibbing from the age of seven. His parents were part of a small, close knit, Jewish community until his father was stricken with polio. The family then moved to Hibbing, his mother's home town.

As a child, Dylan spent a lot of time listening to the radio. While in high school, he formed several bands. In 1958 he toured as a pianist briefly under the name Elston Gunnn with Bobby Vee. Dylan quit college during his freshman year to pursue his music career. He began playing in small clubs, and gained public recognition after a New York Times review in September, 1961. The review caught the attention of John Hammond at Columbia Records, who signed him to a recording contract in October, 1961. At that time, his voice and songwriting were very raw and unfiltered. His first album, produced by Columbia in 1962, consisted of folk, blues, and gospel material, and a few of his own songs.

His second album, The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, which was released in 1963, marked his emerging talent, and the voice of his generation. His deep and passionate engagement with the civil rights movement was expressed through his words. Listeners identified with his topical protest songs and his nonconformist songs that denounce racism, injustice, and war. In fact, his most well-known song "Blowin' in the Wind," became an anthem for the civil rights struggle. And in 1962, during the Cuban missile crisis, he wrote "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall," which conveyed a sense of terror through heart-wrenching poetic images.

In 1965 Bringing It All Back Home and Highway 61 Revisted were released. It was a time of innovation and excitement in popular music, with The Beatles leading the way. A big fan of The Beatles, Dylan used this energy in the creation of his albums, which attracted an enormous audience. A combination of his unmistakable nasal voice and his wild and poetic lyrics in songs such as "Like a Rolling Stone" resulted in media adulation for Dylan, and he became perceived as the spokesperson for a generation of youth.

Dylan was never comfortable with the hype attributed to him. In his autobiography, Chronicles: Volume 1, he says "I had very little in common with and knew even less about a generation that I was supposed to be the voice of."

In 1966 Dylan broke his neck in a motorcycle accident. He abandoned the element of hard rock for a much softer, emotional, and personal sound. "All along the Watchtower" is an example of this new sound.

It was not until 1975 that he released his first number 1 album, Blood on the Tracks. Shortly after the release of his second, Desire. His lyrics still have an honest and serious tone. However, in 1979 everything in his world all changed. He became a born again Christian and released Slow Train Coming. The album was viewed by critics as self-righteous and not in line with Christain charity. Four years later he returned to his former religion, Judaism. In 1988 he released a five-record set entitled Biograph, which documented his musical career since the sixties.

During the nineties Dylan produced several highly acclaimed albums. Time Out of Mind, with its bitter description of love, was very highly acclaimed and quickly gained popularity among young listeners. The song "Love Sick" appealed to a younger audience. The collection won him his first solo Album of the Year Grammy.

Into a new decade, the release of Love and Theft on September 11, 2001, proved an even greater success. Many believe that the album's lyrical strengths are as great as some of his famous earlier work.

Many musicians, including Lou Reed, Tom Waits, Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty, David Bowie, Ian Hunter, and Neil Young, have found inspiration in Dylan's work.