Bob Dylan's birthday: photo, biography and creative career of the singer

Life path

Robert Allen Zimmerman was born in Duluth, Minnesota, into a family of Jewish descent.
Parents - Abraham Zimmerman and Beatrice Stone - were engaged in trade, and also took an active part in the life of the local Jewish community. Zimmerman's paternal ancestors were Jews from the Russian Empire who immigrated to the United States from Odessa. On the maternal side - Lithuanian Jews who left their homeland in 1902. When the boy was only seven years old, his father was diagnosed with polio, and the whole family quickly had to move to the neighboring town of Hibbing. It was there that his first acquaintance with an amazing instrument took place - the harmonica, which would later become an integral part of his image. In Hibbing, Robert learned to play the guitar, and at the age of ten he first discovered poetry. Little Robert simply loved the radio, especially when they played blues songs. But most of all he loved folk ballads performed by his favorites Hank Williams and Woody Guthrie. It is interesting that the latter played a significant role in Dylan’s work - motifs, guitar playing techniques and even the similarity of lyrics - all this can be heard in the musician’s early work.

Playing music becomes not just a hobby for the boy, he devotes himself entirely to it. So, while studying in high school, Bob happily performs in various cafes and bars, presenting his music to the public in various groups.

Having entered the University of Minnesota at the end of 1959, Zimmerman changed his place of residence, but his preferences remained unchanged - music still occupied a huge part of the young man’s life. Moreover, his interest in music becomes so great that Bob gives up attending university, giving himself up to nightly performances in clubs. He is in search of his own style. It was at this time that his “nasal” voice began to develop, which would later become his calling card. Robert Zimmerman takes the simpler and more consonant pseudonym "Bob Dylan", in honor of the poet Dylan Thomas. It is interesting that later the musician will stubbornly reject this version.

Biography and books by the author Dylan Bob

Bob Dylan (born Robert Allen Zimmerman, born Robert Allen Zimmerman) is an American songwriter, poet, artist, and film actor. A cult figure in rock music for five decades. Many of his songs, such as "Blowin' in the Wind" and "The Times They Are a-Changin'", became anthems of the civil rights and anti-war movements in the United States.

According to a survey by Rolling Stone magazine, he is the second (after The Beatles) most important performer in the history of music.
Childhood and youth
Robert Allen Zimmerman was born on May 24, 1941 in the town of Duluth (Minnesota) in the family of a small merchant. The musician's parents, Abraham Zimmerman and Beatrice Stone, were actively involved in the life of the small local Jewish community. His ancestors are Jews, immigrants from Ukraine: his paternal grandparents, Zigman and Anna Zimmerman, left for the United States from Odessa in connection with the Jewish pogroms of 1905. On the maternal side, the ancestors were Lithuanian Jews (Benyamin and Libba Edelstein), who emigrated in 1902. In his autobiography, Bob Dylan writes that his maternal grandmother’s family comes from Turkey, where she bore the surname Kyrgyz.

In 1947, Robert's father contracted polio and the family moved to the nearby town of Hibbing. As a child, Robert listened to a lot of music programs with blues recordings. He was especially impressed by the folk music of Hank Williams and Woody Guthrie. Woody Guthrie was a big influence on Bob Dylan. At the initial stage of his musical development, most of Dylan's repertoire consisted of Guthrie compositions. Bob also adopted Guthrie's singing style and some guitar techniques, although they met only once in life, when Dylan visited him in a mental hospital. He masters the basics of playing the guitar, and the harmonica becomes his favorite instrument. At the age of ten he wrote his first poems.

While studying in high school, Bob performed as part of various groups that performed folk music in cafes and bars. He continued his musical studies after entering the University of Minnesota (1959). He used several aliases throughout his career. But his main pseudonym, under which the whole world knows him, was Bob Dylan, where, according to some sources, which Dylan himself has been refuted for some time, the surname became the name of his favorite poet Dylan Thomas.

Folk music

After a trip to Denver, Dylan firmly decided to become a professional musician. In January 1961 he arrived in New York. Quite quickly his name became popular in Greenwich Village. Released in February 1962, Bob Dylan's debut album consisted, with the exception of two of his own songs, of re-coverings of classic folk and blues songs. The deliberately conversational manner in which they were performed was surprising. In August 1962, the singer officially changed his name to Bob Dylan.

For his next album, The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, Dylan wrote a significant number of "protest" songs with political overtones throughout the year. The musician and his impresario disagreed about the musical arrangement of these songs. The musician tried to record rock and roll with a group of guitarists and drummers, but under pressure from the impresario, the album was released as an acoustic recording of folk tunes accompanied by a guitar and sometimes a harmonica.

Bob Dylan and Joan Baez, August 1963

Despite its musical conservatism and rather crude manner of performance, “The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan” became a watershed in the history of folk music and a very noticeable and significant phenomenon in culture and society, took 22nd place in the American music charts and eventually reached platinum. status." If on the first album only two songs were written by Dylan, then on the second, on the contrary, only two songs were foreign (the American folk “Corrina, Corrina” and “Honey, Just Allow Me One More Chance” by Henry Thomas, reworked by Dylan). The history of the famous song “Masters of War” is very interesting. Its original lyrics were written by Bob Dylan to the music of the English folk song "Nottamun Town", which he left almost unchanged. Thus, the personal anti-war protest was given a folk, folk depth, which turned the song into a real anti-war anthem. In 2002, the album was one of 50 music recordings selected by the Library of Congress for the National Recording Registry. Rolling Stone magazine placed the album at number 97 on its list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.

The album turned out to be very timely both musically and semantically. The apocalyptic visions of “nuclear winter” in “A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall” turned out to be especially relevant during the months of the Cuban Missile Crisis (at the beginning of the 21st century, the lyrics of this song were included in the English school curriculum for American literature). The black civil rights movement was gaining momentum in the country. Under these conditions, Dylan's song “Blowin' in the Wind” performed by the trio Peter, Paul & Mary received great resonance. Such original musicians as Marlene Dietrich, Elvis Presley, Etta James, Stevie Wonder and Dolly Parton recorded their versions of this song. Inspired by her, R&B star Sam Cooke wrote the centerpiece of 1960s soul music, “A Change Is Gonna Come,” a majestic anthem of the black struggle for equality. However, the main performer of Dylan's songs during these years was his fiancee, Joan Baez, a significant part of whose repertoire at that time belonged to Dylan.

"Freewheelin' Bob Dylan" made a great impression not only on folk music fans and not only in the United States. The idols of the British public, The Beatles, according to George Harrison, listened to him to death. Dylan's album taught the Fab Four that the content of popular music can be not only the romantic feelings of a man and a woman. Following Dylan's example, the Beatles began to experiment with songs and complicate their repertoire. Meanwhile, at the beginning of 1964, Dylan’s new album of protest songs, “The Times They Are A-Changing,” was released, followed a few months later by the disc “Another Side of Bob Dylan,” in the musical fabric of which interspersed blues and rhythm and blues appear . Influenced by reading John Keats and Arthur Rimbaud, the lyrics of Dylan's songs become increasingly literary and suggestive. For the first time in the history of music, the essence is not stated in direct text, but is conveyed through combinations of complex images. Sometimes word follows word, like a “stream of consciousness.”

Transition to folk rock

At the turn of 1964 and 1965, rock cover versions of Dylan songs, for example, “Mr. Tambourine Man" (performed by the Americans The Byrds). The last song contained the grain of psychedelic music: its words are inaccessible to unambiguous interpretation, which led many to conclude that they were written under the influence of drugs (LSD).

The widespread popularity of these arrangements, coupled with listening to new material by The Beatles, prompted Dylan to assemble a team of rock musicians and move from acoustic folk music to folk rock. This change was fully reflected in his album “Bringing It All Back Home” (March 1965), which was received with bewilderment among folk music fans. Dylan's rock performance at the Newport Folk Festival was greeted with boos. The public expected new songs from him with a touch of political protest, while the poet himself was moving in a completely different direction.

The Great Rock Trilogy

In the summer of 1965, Dylan released his first full-length rock album, Highway 61 Revisited. For several years, the world of rock music digested the revolutionary charge of this record. Articles began to appear in serious literary magazines analyzing the lyrics of Dylan's songs. It is estimated that from 1964 to 1966 more than a hundred different artists covered his new songs. The release of “Highway 61 Revisited” was preceded by the single “Like a Rolling Stone” (#2 in the US), which was also revolutionary in many ways. In addition to its poignantly poetic lyrics and powerful rock 'n' roll beat, the six-minute single marked the end of an era when songs longer than three minutes were not released as singles. In 2004, this song topped the Rolling Stone

list of the 500 best songs of all time. (In a similar list of albums, “Highway 61 Revisited” took fourth place).

From the fall of 1965 to the spring of 1966, Dylan had a very busy touring schedule. At the same time, a stormy romance developed with an aspiring actress from Andy Warhol’s film studio, Edie Sedgwick, about whom his outstanding ballad “Just Like a Woman” was apparently written. The singer felt that to carry out a large-scale rock tour he needed a worthy team of musicians. In the fall of 1965, he began touring with the blues group The Hawks, which soon changed their name to The Band and accompanied him with great success for a number of years. The most eventful tour of the UK turned out to be, during which Dylan played his most famous concert, in Manchester, during which someone from the crowd shouted at him “Judas!” (a hint of his departure from the protest anthems of the early sixties), to which The Band responded with a masterly, frenzied performance of “Like a Rolling Stone.” Until 1998, the recording of this historic concert could only be purchased as a bootleg. The same goes for the many great songs that Dylan performed in concert, but which were not destined to appear on his studio albums.

In May 1966, Dylan released his double rock album Blonde on Blonde, which largely developed the themes of the previous two. The musician himself described the sound of the album as “that wild, thin mercury sound.” Soon they began to talk about the presence in his work of a kind of rock trilogy (“Bringing It All Back Home”, “Highway 61 Revisited”, “Blonde on Blonde”), which is considered to be his greatest achievement and one of the largest phenomena in American culture of the 20th century. th century. There has been an ongoing debate among rock critics for a long time as to which of the albums in the trilogy should be considered the pinnacle of Dylan’s work.

Country rock

Bob, Joan and Carlos Santana

On July 29, 1966, Dylan was involved in a motorcycle accident and was forced to curtail his touring activities. It was reported that his condition was critical and that the accident resulted in temporary amnesia, although the actual severity of his injuries remains a matter of speculation. Some biographers believe that the accident was used by Dylan as an excuse to rethink the direction of his musical activities and spend as much time as possible at the country house with his family (by then he was married and had several children).

During this period of seclusion, Dylan was visited by members of The Band. Over the course of several months, they recorded with him both new songs (the lyrics of which became much more transparent) and variations of traditional folk melodies. These recordings indicate Dylan's emerging departure from rock music towards country music. They were not officially released, but circulated as bootlegs, and it was not until 1975 that Columbia Records put an end to the illegal distribution by releasing an official version of the Basement Tapes. Actually, then in the world of rock music for the first time such a concept as a bootleg appeared.

In December 1967, the long-awaited album with fresh Dylan songs went on sale - “John Wesley Harding” (2nd place in the USA, 1st place in the UK), which marked the beginning of a new direction in popular music - country rock. Although most rock musicians were not enthusiastic about the next turn in Dylan's musical development, the chamber sound of this disc and its deliberately simple lyrics (often with biblical overtones) made a great impression on musicians from the southern states of the United States. Let’s say, Jimi Hendrix’s calling card was a heavier version of the song “All Along the Watchtower” included in this album; Dylan himself recognized his treatment as the best of all.

Dylan's passion for American folk music led him to the country capital of Nashville. Here he could record with the leading session musicians of this genre, as well as with the legendary Johnny Cash. Achieving purity of sound, he changed the timbre of his voice during the recording of the new album and even quit smoking. Released in 1969, Nashville Skyline sounded closer to traditional country than country rock. It confused many Dylan fans (who found his new material uneven in quality), but the single released as a single, "Lay Lady Lay," was a hit with the public and entered the top ten of the US pop charts. This song was intended by Dylan for the film drama “Midnight Cowboy”, some of the themes of which are hinted at by the lyrics, which were very risky for those times.

Creative crisis

After the Nashville period, Dylan's musical development came to a standstill. Apparently, the 30-year-old musician was unclear in which direction to move next. His double album Self-Portrait (June 1970) mixed new songs, re-recorded old hits, live recordings and cover versions of songs by other artists. The album made the most depressing impression on the music community. They began to say that with the end of the sixties, their main musical locomotive, Bob Dylan, also fizzled out.

Already in October 1970, Dylan released a new album, New Morning, designed to rehabilitate him in the eyes of the public after the resounding failure of Self-Portrait. It was Dylan's sixth album to top the UK sales charts. At the same time, his experimental novel Tarantula, written under the influence of Jack Kerouac, went on sale. In August 1971, the musician played at a grand concert organized by George Harrison to help the disadvantaged people of Bangladesh. After that, almost nothing was heard about him for a year.

In 1973, Dylan made his film debut, starring in the film "Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid" and writing the anthem "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" for it (#4 in the US). This song entered the golden fund of rock music and was subsequently performed by dozens of artists - from Bob Marley and Roger Waters to U2, Guns N' Roses and Avril Lavigne.

Concert activities and “Blood on the Tracks”

Bob Dylan in Rotterdam 1978

At this time, Dylan's contract with Columbia Records expired, and he hastened to change labels. Following him, Columbia released the “Dylan” compilation, which included, it seems, the worst material recorded by Dylan in previous years and sifted out by him from the final versions of his albums. On the newly created David Giffen label, the musician recorded and released his first studio album in three and a half years - “Planet Waves” (1974). This was his first disc to debut at the top of the Billboard 200. Most of the songs were inspired by the difficult relationship with his wife Sarah (their marriage was nearing collapse).

To promote the new album, Dylan and The Band embarked on a long tour of the United States, which became the most commercially successful in the history of rock and roll. At the concerts, not only old and new Dylan songs were performed, but also the main hits of Robbie Robertson from The Band - such as “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” and “The Weight”. Dylan's enthusiastic reception during his US tour inspired Giffen to release a double live disc, Before the Flood, recorded during that tour.

Meanwhile, after returning from tour, Dylan reconciled with Columbia Records and began recording his fifteenth studio album, Blood on the Tracks. For the first time since the mid-1960s, the songs were poignantly confessional in nature, which was not least due to the turmoil in Dylan's family life. Tracks like “Tangled Up in Blue” showed how much Dylan had grown as a vocalist over the years. In early 1975, the album topped the American albums chart and became one of the most profitable releases of Dylan's entire career. Critics compared Blood on the Tracks to his seminal mid-sixties rock trilogy; some argue that this is his most thoughtful and accomplished album.

In the wake of this triumph, Dylan and Robertson came up with a plan to organize a grandiose concert tour, which was supposed to surpass the previous one in all respects. In addition to The Band, Joan Baez, Joni Mitchell, Mick Ronson and Allen Ginsberg were involved in this project. Along the way, Dylan hastily recorded his sixteenth studio album, Desire, which reigned at the top of the charts for five weeks. The Rolling Thunder Review tour began in the fall of 1975 and ended on November 25, 1976 in San Francisco with The Band's farewell concert, entitled "The Last Waltz." In addition to Dylan, Neil Young, Van Morrison, Joni Mitchell, Eric Clapton and Muddy Waters performed here. Director Martin Scorsese released one of the most famous concert films in music history about this event.

Bob Dylan in 1984

Eighties: Christianity

Although The Band ceased their concert activities, Dylan continued to perform throughout 1978 throughout the country, and the opinions of observers about these concerts were far from mixed. At the end of the year, the 37-year-old musician announced that the truths of Christianity had been rediscovered to him. Starting with the album “Slow Train Coming” recorded in 1979 with guitarist Mark Knopfler, songs with religious themes began to predominate on his albums. In his new works, Dylan angrily attacked prostitution and pornography. Many perceived this as hypocrisy. For example, John Lennon wrote one of his last songs, “Serve Yourself,” as a response to Dylan’s call to “Gotta Serve Somebody.”

Disappointed by the negative feedback about his new works, Dylan found an outlet in continuous concert activities. Thus, in 1985, he was perhaps the first of the Western rockers to perform in the Soviet Union, where he had a great influence on the development of rock music through such fans of his work as Boris Grebenshchikov and Mike Naumenko. On the 1986 American tour he was accompanied by Tom Petty with The Heartbreakers, in 1987 he toured with the Grateful Dead, and in 1988 he performed as part of the supergroup The Traveling Wilburys (Harrison, Orbison, Petty, Lynn). That same year, Dylan announced that he was embarking on a “never-ending

), which initially included 200 concerts a year and actually continues (albeit on a smaller scale) to this day.
The Nineties: Celebrating
Bob Dylan at a 1996 Stockholm concert

After the failure of the ambitious disc “Under the Red Sky” (1990), which was recorded by Elton John and other stars, Dylan did not set foot in a recording studio for seven years. He continued to give concerts and devoted more and more time to his passion for painting. In early 1997, news outlets reported the alarming news that Dylan had been hospitalized with acute pericarditis. According to the musician himself, he was already “prepared to see Elvis” when his condition improved. By early fall, he was in a position to make the trip to Bologna, where Pope John Paul II delivered a sermon to a crowd of 200,000 based on the themes of Dylan's hymn "Blowin' in the Wind." In December, the recovered musician was received by President Bill Clinton, who presented him with a Kennedy Center Award. Clinton O.

At the end of 1997, Dylan released his first album of new songs in a decade, Time Out of Mind. It was produced by Daniel Lanois, known for his many years of work with the rock band U2. On this album, Dylan sounds like a new artist, with virtually no references to his previous works. It is noteworthy that his voice has changed beyond recognition. Critics unanimously proclaimed Dylan's new songs to be the best since the release of "Desire", and Newsweek magazine placed a photograph of the musician on the cover of the next issue. A reviewer for the Chicago Tribune compared his experience of listening to "Time Out of Mind" to that of watching a David Lynch film or reading a Samuel Beckett novel. At the beginning of 1998, the album was awarded three Grammy awards, including the most prestigious category, “album of the year.” Two years later, Dylan won an Oscar and a Golden Globe for his new song “Things Have Changed,” written for the film Geeks.

Two thousandths

Dylan at the Victoria Rock Festival, 2010

September 11, 2001 was marked not only by the terrorist attacks in the United States, but also by the release of Bob Dylan's 31st studio album, Love and Theft, which was very warmly received by the public and critics. Dylan, known for his negative attitude towards modern studio gadgets, self-produced this album under the pseudonym "Jack Frost". Observers were pleased that over the years the musician has expanded his stylistic range: the influence of jazz is especially noticeable on this disc.

Dylan (under the pseudonym "Sergei Petrov") and Larry Charles wrote the screenplay for the film "Show of the Century" (2003), in which, in addition to Dylan himself, actors such as Penelope Cruz, Jessica Lange and Val Kilmer played. This film did not impress film critics. In October 2004, the presentation of the first part of Dylan’s autobiography “Chronicles” took place. In September 2005, the BBC broadcast Martin Scorsese's television documentary No Way Home about the life and work of the young Dylan. In 2006, filming began on the biopic I'm Not There, dedicated to Dylan. This film stars Cate Blanchett, Christian Bale, Richard Gere and Heath Ledger.

On August 29, 2006, the album “Modern Times” was released, which completes the trilogy of albums begun by “Time Out of Mind” and continued by “Love and Theft”. This album made history by debuting at number one on the Billboard 200. Thus, 65-year-old Bob Dylan became the oldest artist to conquer the American sales charts. The musician's vocals became even rougher, but this did not affect the assessment of this recording by music critics. Rolling Stone magazine

named Modern Times the best disc of the year, and the Recording Academy of America awarded Dylan a Grammy Award for Best Rock Solo Performance.

In April 2008, Bob Dylan received the Pulitzer Prize "for his extraordinary influence on popular music and American culture, marked by lyrical compositions of exceptional poetic power." In 2010, Newsweek voted Bob Dylan's Love and Theft second for Best Album of the Decade.

On April 28, 2009, Dylan's new album, Together Through Life, was released. On May 29, 2012, the 44th President of the United States, Barack Obama, awarded the musician the Presidential Medal of Freedom, one of the highest civilian awards in the United States.

Interesting Facts

Hunter Thompson not only dedicated his book “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” to Bob Dylan, but also bequeathed that Dylan’s song “Mr. Tambourine Man."
Many artists have performed cover versions of Dylan songs. The most famous were “Mr. Tambourine Man" performed by The Byrds, "All Along the Watchtower" by Jimi Hendrix. Dylan's songs were also performed by The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, The White Stripes, Guns N' Roses, Link Wray, George Harrison, Patti Smith, Ministry, Green Day, Manfred Mann's Earth Band, My Chemical Romance, Mix Band, Milva.
The German film Knockin' on Heaven's Door is named after the Bob Dylan song of the same name.
Bob Dylan was nominated more than once for the Nobel Prize in Literature.
The authoritative Time magazine, summing up the 20th century, included Dylan among the hundred most influential people of this century.
Jacob Dylan, Bob's son, is the lead singer of the rock band The Wallflowers. Since 2008, after the release of his solo album Seeing Things
, he has been performing with the trio The Gold Mountain Rebels.
For the past 20 years, Dylan has been a follower of the Chabad movement. Jewish news services reported that Dylan visited various Chabad synagogues several times during the Jewish holidays. For example, on September 22, 2007, on Yom Kippur, he visited Congregation Beth Tefillah in Atlantea and was called to the Torah for the sixth aliyah.
Dylan served as the inspiration for one of the characters in the animated film Cowboy Bebop: Knockin' on Heaven's Door. The name of the anime is a reference to the musician's song of the same name.
The idea to name the band “Judas Priest” came from Bob Dylan’s song “The Ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest” (1967).
Dylan is also mentioned in the Outloudz song "I wanna meet Bob Dylan", which participated in the qualifying round for the Eurovision Song Contest in Estonia in 2011 and took second place there.
Bob Dylan was one of Steve Jobs' favorite performers. (from the book "Steve Jobs" by Walter Isaacson)

Early success

January 1961. Young Bob Dylan, whose name is becoming increasingly popular, arrives in New York, where he is happily welcomed into Greenwich Village, enthusiastically listening to his creations. Imbued with the spirit of the “big apple,” Dylan drops out of university, finally moving to New York. Here he first meets Guthrie, his childhood idol, who became a kind of mentor for him and shaped Dylan’s musical preferences. Dreams Come True.

Dylan's life in New York is an endless cycle of meeting new people, sharing experiences and trying to find himself as a musician. During one of the performances, fortune smiles on Dylan - the famous music critic Robert Shelton hears him, and is so impressed by his performance style that he decides to help the young musician. It was he who helped the musician enter the Columbia Record label, with which he recorded his first album, released in February 1962.

August 1962: Robert Allen Zimmerman changes his name forever and officially becomes Bob Dylan.

His next record, “The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan,” appears literally a year later. However, the material comes out rather “raw”. Dylan's desire to create a disc in a rock 'n' roll style was not approved by his director, and therefore all compositions were performed acoustically with a folk presentation, and the musical accompaniment of his songs was a guitar and his favorite harmonica. But, despite all the artist’s experiences, the album became a significant event in the development of music, and later even reached the status of a “platinum album.”

Bob Dylan. He knows how to fit the whole world into one song...

The musician's childhood was unremarkable. The grandson of Jewish immigrants from Russia, he was born on May 24, 1941, in Duluth, Minnesota, where his father, Abe, worked as a small trader for Standard Oil.

By the way, almost all musicologists, trying to create a biography of Bob Dylan, are unanimously mistaken regarding his real name. The most common version - Robert Zimmerman - is only partly true. This is a kind of Americanized version of the name Shabtai-Zisel, which the musician received at birth, inheriting it from his grandfather. (The pseudonym itself was taken by the singer at the very beginning of his career in honor of the late Welsh poet Dylan Thomas).

He began writing poetry when he was about ten years old, and around the same time he began to learn the basics of playing the guitar and piano. Having fallen under the influence of Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis and other stars of early rock and roll, he began to create his first amateur groups. After graduating from school, Robert moved to Minneapolis, where he entered the university. But my studies didn’t go well. There was too much interest in music. Frankly abandoning lectures and boring textbooks, Robert began performing songs in city nightclubs, improving his playing of guitar and harmonica and developing his “nasal” voice, which would eventually become his calling card in the world of modern pop sound.

After balancing a year between university and music, Dylan chose the latter and moved to New York. The musicians with whom he became friends were amazed by his ability to literally grasp and remember melodies on the fly. That same year, the first songs appeared, which Bob composed unusually easily and quickly.

In the early 60s, a new stage in the musician’s life began. Bob Dylan began to be talked about far beyond the narrow circle of folk singers. signed a contract with him, and Bob began preparing material for his first album. The work of Bob Dylan and his unconventional approach to folk, blues and music in general influenced many performers of that time.

As if sensing the approaching “global rock flood,” Bob Dylan quickly mastered the rhythm and style of rock, while remaining unlike others. His star grew brighter and brighter. One after another, two albums “Highway 61 Revisited” were released, one of the songs of which “Like a Rolling Stone” was included in the golden fund of rock music, and a double “Blonde on Blonde”. This record raised rock music to the level of true high art, which no one could even imagine before.

The musician constantly worked, experimented with style, improving his creativity. Life was in full swing. But not everything went smoothly and flawlessly. In 1966, Bob was in an accident, seriously damaging several ribs and his neck, and spent a year in a cast. After recovery, he did not appear in public for a very long time and only in 1968 did he perform at a concert. Some music critics began to talk about the decline of Bob Dylan and his “creative death,” but these “prophecies” were not destined to come true. In January 1974, Bob Dylan unexpectedly announced an upcoming tour. Bill Graham, the ticket manager, later recalled that over 12 million mail-in applications were received, while the organizers had only 658,000 seats at their disposal.

1977 was the most difficult year in the musician’s life. Bob Dylan suffered a very painful divorce from his wife Sarah Shirley Lowndes, whom he almost idolized. The “recovery period” then lasted almost a whole year. Many were sure that the singer would either get drunk or become a complete drug addict. The 1978 world tour and subsequent new album, Street Legal, dispelled all doubts. Bob Dylan again proved that no amount of everyday troubles can unsettle him.

And yet the emotional shock was too great. The means at hand (alcohol, drugs, etc.) helped to detach from the experience, but only temporarily. A powerful spiritual shake-up was needed. And she didn’t have to wait long.

At a concert in Chicago in 1979, Bob Dylan appeared completely unrecognizable to his fans: with short hair, in a black suit, and began the performance... with a prayer. The audience roared with delight, deciding that this was another Dylan “prank.” But it was not there. After the prayer, Bob began to perform his new songs. The contents are the same prayers. Angry fans began to demand the performance of previous hits. Dylan interrupted the concert and said that he no longer sings the old songs. “I have a different mission now,” he told the silent audience. “I came to save you.” In response, lighters and apple cores were thrown at him. The crowd whistled and hooted...

...Metamorphosis occurred with the singer in Los Angeles after visiting a local church, where one of his friends persuaded him to come. Bob felt an attack of remorse almost instantly. According to him, at that moment he realized what he had been missing all this time. Bob became the most diligent parishioner, donated huge amounts of money to the needs of the church, and stopped drinking. Two albums ("Slow Train Coming" and "Saved") were written by Bob Dylan during this very period of "spiritual epiphany".

However, Bob Dylan did not turn out to be a faithful admirer of the church. The singer accidentally learned that the priest, whom he trusted infinitely, the only person to whom he opened his soul in hours-long confessions, spent the parishioners’ money mainly on his own needs. In particular, he built a luxurious villa in the Hawaiian Islands with donations from Bob Dylan.

In 1983, the singer released a new album, “Infedels”. The name itself (infedels translates as “atheists”, “atheists”) indicated that the singer had lost interest in religion. But still, the desire for the spiritual did not disappear without a trace.

In the mid-80s, a rumor spread among fans about another “trick” of the musician, that Bob had returned to religion again. The rumors turned out to be true. But this was no longer a “joke”. Being a Jew, Bob Dylan turned to his heritage and found spiritual refuge among the Chabad Hasidim, whose peak activity occurred in the 80s. The singer was prompted to take this step by a meeting with the Lubavitcher Rebbe. Bob Dylan again became a Jew, moreover, a Jew who kept the Torah and the commandments.

There were more and more facts confirming the musician’s new “hobby”. Someone met Bob Dylan in Minneapolis at a circumcision ceremony, someone heard that he prayed at a Jewish club at UCLA, someone told a story about how the singer participated in a Yom Kippur service at one of the Lubavitchers centers.

Over the years, Bob Dylan flew to New York several times to receive the Rebbe's blessing and also studied Torah and Hasidic philosophy. In 1988 and 1989, the musician performed at telethons that were organized by the Chabad movement.

Instead of an afterword

“It happened in 1995,” says Yaakov Arnold, “during the autumn holidays, which I spent in one of the Lubavitch centers in California. Synagogue Rabbi Zushe Kunin, an old acquaintance of mine, asked me to help him conduct a service on Yom Kippur. I met parishioners, handed them tales, prayer books, and hats. I also kept order during the reading of the Torah scroll and helped newcomers pronounce blessings correctly. In short, there was enough work. We finished praying "Shacharis" and "Musaf".

A thirty-minute break was announced before the Minchah prayer. And just as we started praying, Bob Dylan walked into the synagogue. What can I tell you?.. My shock was quite strong, but I still did not forget about my duties. Having handed Bob Dylan the tales and prayer book, I sat him down in an empty seat and opened the prayer book to the correct page.

Bob Dylan was focused and serious. I was in slight confusion. Seeing the idol of your youth, and even in the synagogue, and even on Yom Kippur, you must admit, is impressive. Bob Dylan raised his head and looked at me intently with his blue eyes. The look was piercingly deep. It seemed that it was not the musician himself who was looking at me, but his Jewish soul. “I would not like to be called to the Torah,” he told me quietly. I conveyed his words to the rabbi. He nodded understandingly and ordered to ask the guest if he would not object to the fact that he would be honored to open the Ark during the prayer “Avinu Malkeinu”. Bob Dylan agreed. When the chazan finished repeating Shemoneh Esreh, I led Bob Dylan to the Ark. He pulled aside the velvet curtain and opened the door. A rumble ran through the hall. The worshipers expressed their feelings about what was happening: some were indignant, others were sincerely amazed. But as soon as people found out who was opening the Ark, complete silence reigned in the synagogue.

Bob Dylan opened both doors, stepped back half a step, and opened his prayer book. Increasingly, a melody began to sound from the lips of the worshipers, preceding “Avinu Malkeinu”. Bob Dylan, covering his head and half of his face with a thales, slowly swayed to the rhythm of his singing. I was standing next to him and suddenly I heard him begin to quietly chant the words of a prayer.

Having closed the Ark, he returned to his place and remained there until the end of Neilah. As the service ended and people began to leave, Bob Dylan lingered and talked with the rabbi for a while. Noticing me, he quickly ended the conversation, came up to me, shook my hand, thanked me for my help and left.

Well, what can I add to this?.. I've heard a lot of Bob Dylan's compositions. His genius cannot be described in words. He really knows how to fit the whole world into one song. But I still remember the prayer “Avinu Malkeinu,” which he sang in a low voice in the synagogue during Yom Kippur, and consider this musician’s most brilliant hit.

Folk rock, transition to rock and the famous rock trilogy

The mid-60s was a time of new trends in music, a time of experiments and new sounds. Dylan's compositions top the music charts, but not in his performance, but in the form of covers created by other musicians.

Dylan decides to move with the times - he gathers his team and moves from folk to folk rock, which bewilders his fans. 1965's Bringing It All Back Home was the first album to mark the singer's move in a completely new direction.

“Highway 61 Revisited” is a rock record by the musician, released in the summer of 1965. The album's release was preceded by the single "Like a Rolling Stone", which later became a member of the "5000 Best Songs of All Time" rating. With this repertoire, the musician traveled to many countries and cities, and his partners were the guys from the band The Hawks. This period of the singer’s life was full of events, and not only musical ones - the world saw the musician’s experimental prose called “Tarantula”, and already in 1966 the double disc “Blonde on Blonde” was released, which became a logical continuation of Dylan’s first two works. Thus, the world was given the opportunity to enjoy the performer’s musical heritage, which would later be called the rock trilogy.

Bob Dylan - rebel turned icon

For the last five years, all his concerts have opened with the same phrase: “Ladies and gentlemen, meet the court poet of rock and roll! The guy who brought folk to bed with rock in the 60s, wore makeup and got lost in a fog of illegal substances in the 70s, and tried to find Jesus in the 80s. It had already been scrapped, but it suddenly stepped on the gas and began producing masterpieces again in the 90s. Ladies and gentlemen, Columbia Records artist Bob Dylan! Usually, provincial newspapers and large encyclopedias compress the life of a genius into such meaningless paragraphs (and yes, this is a fragment from an article in the run-of-the-mill The Buffalo News), but this is exactly what a capacious and biting version of the biography of Robert Allen Zimmerman, 67 years old, the greatest, would sound like. poet and performer of the North American States of the last five years... Sorry, five decades.

For the past five years, Dylan has been poked in the ribs by a demon. It was a serious blow - old Bob, like a maddened naturalist of the 18th century, is again rushing around all five continents with concerts, releasing records and books, acting in films, hosting weekly radio shows with the punctuality of a mendicant clerk, organizing his first painting exhibition... For the last five years, Bob Dylan has been like this He is as vigorous and active as he was during the first five years of his endless career. And that first five-year plan started, it’s scary to think, in 1961 - with a move from frozen Minneapolis to New York’s bohemian neighborhood of Greenwich Village - and ended in 1966, when Dylan flew out of the saddle of his Triumph 500 straight into the snow-white embrace of a hospital bed. It was these first five years of Dylan's career that are rightly considered revolutionary, and they are what made him an icon. When John Lennon said that Dylan was his idol, he meant this particular period. And, by the way, Bob influenced The Beatles not only with creative vibes: according to McCartney, “before meeting Dylan, we drank whiskey and cola. Bob changed our habits." It’s just that during their first tour of the United States, the Beatles tried weed, and the first joint was rolled by the timid Englishmen by none other than Bob Dylan (this happened at the first meeting of the four and Dylan in a hotel room in New York). Many believe that the real breakthrough in the work of The Beatles began precisely from this moment - the guys soon recorded the disc “Help!”

The young Dylan's idol was another great style icon—a Depression-era hobo poet, an Oklahoma Marxist, and a freight train troubadour named Woody Guthrie. From head to toe in jeans, in a cap jauntily tilted to one side, with an eternal guitar behind his back. This machine kills fascists is coarsely scrawled on the guitar. Never one to hide his leftist political views or compromise with the industry, Guthrie was Dylan's spiritual godfather and role model. More relevant sources of inspiration opened up to the young poet already in the Village - and these were the beatniks. The main principle of the beatniks’ life philosophy was, as Kerouac wrote, “to live on the bottom, but look up” - and therefore their radical individualism perfectly coincided with the romantic impudence of the young truth-seeker. Dylan sang so well with Allen Ginsberg that he even accompanied him on tour. The uniqueness of Dylan himself among his fellow poets lies, of course, in the fact that, unlike most of them, he was able to make his words heard by everyone to whom he addressed - and he spoke to an entire generation. Almost all of Dylan’s songs from the time of his “first five-year plan” are, to one degree or another, manifestos and could well have been performed not only on the stage of a concert hall (and Dylan had reached Carnegie Hall by that time), but also on the barricades (which happened a little later , in Paris 1968).

Almost all of Dylan’s songs from the time of his “first five-year plan” are, to one degree or another, manifestos and could well have been performed at the barricades.

In those years, Dylan cultivated a unique image of a socialite homeless - tight jeans, a wrinkled black jacket, eternal dark glasses (outdoors, indoors, the sun in the yard or impenetrable fog - it doesn’t matter!), pointy boots, a curly beehive on his head and a crooked cynical grin on the lips. Actually, this is the only way the prophet of a generation, breaking down from anger and fatigue, a young professor of new human studies, whose department was the Great Stage of All America, could look like (and don’t forget - we are talking about a young man who lived to the fullest and married a Playboy bunny). And this is exactly what a socialite should have looked like when he fell asleep, wrapped in a curtain, at a reception with another billionaire - so that the next morning, bypassing the dressing room, he went to a screen test with Andy Warhol. Or to the studio, to again, alone with a guitar, harmonica, microphone and a bottle of wine, read texts in which hundreds of thousands will, like gold miners in clods of mud, look for shining grains of answers to the main questions.

And this is how a real counterculture poet, a friend of the beatniks, should have looked, ready at any moment for a fight - both ideological and in the form of ordinary assault (and it is unknown which fights happened more often - judging by the famous film Dont Look Back, Dylan came out of yourself incredibly fast). Few of the singers of the generation managed to so clearly rhyme intellectual charm and sense of style - and it was this mix that those who followed tried to reproduce. Look at the shabby Johnny Rotten of the Public Image Ltd. model, wandering around evening London in search of new weapons for the war against the establishment, at the young Bono on dwarf heels, the Protestant verb burning the hearts of millions, or at Pete Doherty choking on his poetic gift. All of them are the children of the great socialite Dylan, for whom being like him in many ways meant dressing like him.

It's funny that it was the New York dudes - Bob and the beatniks - who paved the way for the most fashion-backward subculture of the 60s, namely the hippies, who with the joy of neophytes picked up Dylan's word and carried it to their village communes. However, the hippies did not remain in debt; Dylan and Co. took from the “flower children” what they liked best – psychedelic drugs, long hair and flowered shirts (leaving them with their stupid bell-bottoms and pop Hinduism). Along with psychedelics came electricity: both turned out to be the most accessible means of expanding consciousness - as Ken Kesey and his gang of “merry pranksters” colorfully proved back in the early 60s. Therefore, one day Dylan also decided to pick up an electric guitar and move towards rock. This is how the album Bringing It All Back Home appeared, on one side of which acoustic folk songs traditional for early Dylan were recorded, and on the other - normal rock. Today it’s hard to imagine, but in those stylistically sensitive times, such things could, if not kill, then be hated more than death. And so it happened: in 1966, during a concert in Manchester, Dylan received a cry from the audience, which went down in history as one of the most spectacular episodes in the endless battle between the Artist and the Public. "Judas!" - a shout rang out during the brief moment of silence between the two songs. Dylan responded with dignity - remaining absolutely calm, he threw Stanislav’s “I don’t believe it!” into the audience. and, as if nothing had happened, he struck the first chord of Like a Rolling Stone. As we see, many did not immediately forgive Dylan for his treacherous defection from the camp of the sacred poets of the generation to the noisy camp of electric rock.

It's funny that it was New York dudes - Bob and the beatniks - who paved the way for the most fashion-backward subculture of the 60s, namely the hippies.

With the joy of neophytes they took up Dylan's word and carried it to their village communes. Since then, Dylan has not been forgiven for anything. On the other hand, he did all sorts of things: he demonstratively converted to Christianity (oh, hey, Zimmerman!) and hung a giant cross around his neck in the 70s; wore stupid top hats and embarrassing plaid jackets in the 80s; depressed by the bad Komsomol reception in Ostankino in 1985, he drank bitters at Voznesensky’s in Peredelkino; completely dried out by the beginning of the 90s, only to be grotesquely revived in the 2000s - in a huge hat, long frock coat and trousers with stripes a la General Custer. Yes, yes, this is exactly what the former bohemian idol and intellectual god of Greenwich Village looks like now.

Does this make any difference? Hardly. This, for example, is evident in the film director Todd Haynes, who made a breathtaking masterpiece called “I'm Not There,” which is entirely dedicated to the cultural myth called “Bob Dylan.” Seven people play Dylan in it - among them a young Englishman, an elderly Richard Gere, a little black boy, Christian Bale, who threw off his Batman costume for the occasion, and even actress Cate Blanchett, made up as the iconic Dylan of the Village era. They all play the same person and look convincing at the same time. Apparently, the point is that Dylan's style does not die outside the time and space allotted to it; it penetrates, like X-rays, any change in wardrobe, age or gender. And this always happens when style equals spirit and shines from within.

The material was first published in the November 2008 issue of GQ, and on the website in 2020.

Photo: Getty Images

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Sharp turn

After being involved in a motorcycle accident in July 1966, Dylan understandably stopped touring. Doctors reported that the musician’s condition was critical, and one of the consequences of the injury was amnesia.

For Dylan, a new period in his life began - a period of seclusion. Many biographers to this day believe that this turn of fate was regarded by the musician as a chance to be with his family and radically rethink his creative activity.

During the time spent in solitude, he, together with members of The Band, records new compositions and works on creating new variations of folk melodies.

At the end of 1967, Dylan's fundamentally new album, John Wesley Harding, was released, which became the beginning of a new direction in music - country rock. Inspired by new discoveries, Bob Dylan goes to Nashville, the capital of country music, where he works with outstanding musicians of this genre.

Creation

In 1965, Dylan shocked many of his fans by recording the half-acoustic, half-electric album Bringing It All Home, drawing on a nine-piece band. On July 25, 1965, he was famously booed at the Newport Folk Festival when he performed Electric for the first time. The albums that followed, Return to Route 61 (1965) which included the seminal rock song "Like A Rolling Stone" and the two-set recording Blonde on Blonde (1966) represented Dylan at his most innovative. With his unmistakable voice and unforgettable lyrics, Dylan brought the worlds of music and literature together like no one else.

Over the next three decades, Dylan continued to reinvent himself. After a near-fatal motorcycle accident in July 1966, Dylan spent nearly a year recovering in seclusion.

Crisis in creativity and a new rise

Like any creative person, Bob Dylan experienced the difficulties of creative crisis. He still releases albums, each of which gives rise to gossip that “Dylan has blown away.” However, this period does not last so long - in 1973, Dylan released one of his best songs - “Knockin' on Heaven's Door”, which even became part of the sound for the film “Pat Gerrett and Billy the Kid” (1973). By the way, the musician even tried himself as an actor in this film.

In 1974, Dylan changed labels and released his first album in three and a half years, Planet Waves. Next he is expected to tour America, a new studio work “Blood on the Tracks”, and a large-scale tour with the participation of world stars. Dylan returns to the musical Olympus.

[Steve Jobs. Biography.] Chapter 32. Part two. Bob Dylan.

Bob Dylan.

Only one person could leave Steve Jobs speechless: Bob Dylan. In October 2004, the rock musician gave a concert near Palo Alto. Dylan, unlike Bono and Bowie, could never be called a sociable person, and yet he decided to invite Steve, who was at that time recovering from his first cancer surgery, to his hotel before the concert. Here's what Jobs recalls:

“We sat on the patio for two hours and talked. I was very nervous, which is no wonder - after all, one of my idols was next to me. To be honest, I was afraid that he would not be as witty as before, that he would be only a shadow of himself, as happens to many people as they age. But I was thunderstruck - Bob turned out to be exactly as I had imagined him: witty, open and honest. Bob told me about how he lives and how he writes songs. He said: “Music used to just flow out of me and I didn’t have to make anything up. But now it's gone, I can't create like that anymore. But I can still sing.”

Jobs and Dylan met more than once. The next time they met was on Bob's tour bus, where the musician invited Steve during his next concert near Palo Alto. In the middle of the conversation, Bob asked the head of Apple what his favorite song was. Steve replied that his favorite song was “One Too Many Mornings.” It shouldn't be surprising that Dylan performed it that night.

But that was not all. When Jobs was returning home after a concert, a tour bus stopped next to him, squealing tires. The door opened abruptly and Bob Dylan leaned out:

“Well, did you like the song I performed for you?” - he asked in a hoarse voice.

With these words, the musician slammed the door and the bus drove away.

While Jobs was telling me all this, he did a very good parody of Dylan's voice.

“He is one of my main idols,” recalls the Apple CEO. “My love for him has only grown over the years; one might say, it has matured.” There’s one thing I don’t understand: how did Dylan manage to write such music at a young age?”

A few months after the concert, Steve came up with a big idea. He decided to put on the iTunes Store a set of every Dylan song that had ever been recorded. This selection would include a collection of over 700 songs, with a total price of $199 for all songs. Jobs wanted to be Bob's guide to the world of digital music.

But Andy Lack, the head of Sony's music division, which actually owned the rights to Bob Dylan's music, was in no hurry to conclude such a deal. He was completely unhappy with the financial side of the issue. He believed that the amount Steve offered was too low for a musician like Bob Dylan.

“Bob is a national treasure,” says Lack, “and Jobs’ price put him on par with all other musicians.

This was the main problem in the relationship between Jobs and the record companies - Steve always wanted to set the price himself. So Lack refused him.

“Okay, then I’ll talk to Dylan personally,” Steve said.

But Bob didn't deal with such things, so it fell to his agent, Jeff Rosen, to resolve the issue. He contacted the head of Sony.

“This is far from the best idea,” Andy Lack began to explain to him, talking about his calculations. “But Bob Dylan is Steve’s idol, he’ll do anything to get this deal.”

Lack not only pursued professional gain, but also wanted to settle personal scores with Jobs, put him in his place and pull him by the leash. Therefore, he suggested that Rosen hold off on the deal:

“I’ll write you a check for a million dollars if you agree not to sign a contract with Jobs just yet.”

As Andy later said, this was a move aimed at future profits:

“That’s what all the record companies do.”

45 minutes after the first conversation, Rosen called Lack back and said that he agreed to his proposal.

“Andy and I talked it over and he asked us to disagree with Jobs. So we didn’t,” Jeff recalls. “I think Lack, in a sense, gave us an advance for the future.”

However, in 2006, Lack left his post as chief executive of the company, which at that time was called Sony BMG, and Jobs resumed negotiations. Steve sent Dylan an iPod with the rock musician's full collection of songs, and also showed Rosen what kind of marketing campaign Apple could create. In August the deal was concluded. According to the agreements, a set of absolutely all Dylan’s songs will be sold on the iTunes Store for $199, and his new album “Modern Times” will also be available for pre-order there.

“Bob Dylan is one of the most respected poets and composers of our time, and he is my personal idol,” Jobs said at the presentation.

The 773-song set included 42 rare tracks, such as a 1961 Minnesota hotel recording of “Wade in the water,” and a 1962 Gaslight version of “Handsome Molly,” a truly stunning performance. songs “Mr. Tambourine Man" at the 1964 Newport Folk Festival (Steve absolutely loved it) and an acoustic version of "Outlaw Blues" in 1965.

The deal also included Dylan's appearance in a new commercial promoting both the iPod and Bob's new album. Since then, the state of affairs in the advertising business has been turned upside down. Previously, the participation of a star in a commercial was very expensive. But in 2006 everything changed. Now famous artists themselves wanted to take part in advertising the iPod - this would guarantee their success. James Vincent predicted something similar a few years earlier, when Jobs said he was willing to pay musicians he knew to appear in advertising.

“Everything will change soon,” James answered him then. – Apple is a completely different name, it’s cooler than the names of many artists. We should talk to musicians about the unique opportunity we give them, not about royalties."

As Lee Clow recalls, not all Apple employees thought the decision to hire Dylan to star in the commercial was the right one.

“Those who were younger doubted that Dylan was still as popular,” says Clow. “But Jobs didn’t want to listen to anything.” He was delighted with Bob's participation."

Steve checked every detail of the commercial with manic precision. First, Rosen personally flew to Cupertino so that they could listen to the new album and choose a song. In the end they settled on "Someday Baby". A test video was then shot with a stunt double in Dylan's place, and Jobs approved it. The video with Bob himself was filmed a little later, in Nashville. However, Steve didn't like him at all. Jobs demanded that the entire style of the video be changed because it wasn't original enough. Then Clow hired another director, and Rosen persuaded Dylan to reshoot. In the new video, Bob sat on a chair in a cowboy hat, played the guitar and sang. In the dimly lit room there was also a stylish girl in a cap, dancing with an iPod in her hands. Jobs was simply delighted.

Coupled with the iPod advertising campaign, the video had the desired effect: it helped Dylan win the hearts of a young audience in the same way that the iPod fueled interest in Apple computers. Thanks to advertising, Dylan's new album rose to number one on the Billboard chart in its first week, leaving behind the albums of Christina Aguilera and the duo OutKast. The last time a Dylan album topped the music charts was in 1976. Here's how Ad Age magazine described Apple's role in Dylan's success:

“If anyone thinks that Apple made an ordinary video and paid a star to make it successful, then they are mistaken. Everything happened exactly the opposite: the mighty Apple brand showed Bob Dylan to the younger generation, thereby raising the musician to unprecedented heights.”

Contents : Chapter One. Abandoned and chosen. Chapter 1. Part one. Adoption. Chapter 1. Part two. Silicon Valley. Chapter 1. Part three. School. Chapter two. Odd couple: two Steves. Chapter 2. Part one. WHO. Chapter 2. Part two. Blue box. Chapter Three. Dropped out. Chapter 3. Part one. Chrisann Brennan. Chapter 3. Part two. Reed College. Chapter 3. Part three. Robert Friedland. Chapter 3. Part four. Dropped out. Chapter Four. Atari and India. Chapter 4. Part one. Atari. Chapter 4. Part two. India. Chapter 4. Part three. In search. Chapter 4. Part four. Discord. Chapter Five. Apple I. Chapter 5. Part One. Machines of love and grace. Chapter 5. Part two. Homemade computer club. Chapter 5. Part three. The birth of Apple. Chapter 5. Part four. Garage team. Chapter Six. Apple II. Chapter 6. Part one. All at once. Chapter 6. Part two. Mike Markkula. Chapter 6. Part three. Regis McKenna. Chapter 6. Part four. First presentation. Chapter 6. Part five. Mike Scott. Chapter Seven. Chrisann and Lisa. Chapter 7. Chrisann and Lisa. Chapter Eight. Xerox and Lisa. Chapter 8. Part one. Another child. Chapter 8. Part two. Xerox PARC. Chapter 8. Part three. “Great artists steal.” Chapter Nine. Financial matters. Chapter 9. Part one. Stock. Chapter 9. Part two. “Hey, you're rich!” Chapter Ten. Birth of the Mac: Was the revolution ordered? Chapter 10. Part one. Jeff Raskin's child. Chapter 10. Part two. Texaco Towers. Chapter Eleven. Reality distortion field. Chapter 11. Part one. Play by your own rules. Chapter Twelve. Design. Chapter 12. Part one. Bauhaus aesthetics. Chapter 12. Part two. Like a Porsche. Chapter Thirteen. Making Mac. Chapter 13. Part one. Competition. Chapter 13. Part two. Control from start to finish. Chapter 13. Part three. Cars of the year. Chapter 13. Part four. We will be pirates! Chapter Fourteen. Scully appears. Chapter 14. Part one. Courtship. Chapter 14. Part two. Honeymoon. Chapter Fifteen. Launch. Chapter 15. Part one. Real artists sell. Chapter 15. Part two. Advertising "1984". Chapter 15. Part three. Explosive noise. Chapter 15. Part four. January 24, 1984. Chapter Sixteen. Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. Chapter 16. Part one. Gates and Macintosh. Chapter 16. Part two. Battle for the graphical interface. Chapter Seventeen. Icarus. The higher the takeoff... Chapter 17. Part one. Fly high. Chapter 17. Part two. ...and fall low. Chapter 17. Part three. Thirty anniversary. Chapter 17. Part four. Exodus. Chapter 17. Part five. Spring 1985. Final song. Chapter 17. Part six. Preparation of a coup. Chapter 17. Part seven. Seven days in May. Chapter 17. Part eight. Like a Rolling Stone. Chapter Eighteen. NeXT. Liberation of Prometheus. Chapter 18. Part one. Pirates abandon ship. Chapter 18. Part two. You are your own master. Chapter 18. Part three. The same computer. Chapter 18. Part four. The pen will help you. Chapter 18. Part five. IBM. Chapter 18. Part six. Launch. October 1988. Chapter Nineteen. Pixar. Unity of technology and art. Chapter 19. Part one. Lucasfilm's computer division. Chapter 19. Part two. Animation. Chapter 19. Part three. "Tin Toy" Chapter Twenty. A regular guy. Chapter 20. Part one. Joan Baez. Chapter 20. Part two. Joanna and Mona. Chapter 20. Part three. Lost father. Chapter 20. Part four. Lisa. Chapter 20. Part five. Romantic. Chapter Twenty One. Family matters. Chapter 21. Part one. Lauren Powell. Chapter 21. Part two. Wedding. March 18, 1991. Chapter 21. Part three. Family nest. Chapter 21. Part four. Lisa returns to her family. Chapter 21. Part five. Children. Chapter Twenty Two. "History of toys" . Chapter 22. Part one. Jeffrey Katzenberg. Chapter 22. Part two. Cut! Chapter 22. Part three. To infinity! Chapter Twenty-Three. Second coming. Chapter 23. Part one. Awry. Chapter 23. Part two. Falling Apple. Chapter 23. Part three. Tentative steps towards Cupertino. Chapter Twenty-Four. Revival. Chapter 24. Part one. Waiting backstage. Chapter 24. Part two. Care. Escape from the bear. Chapter 24. Part three. Macworld Boston, August 1997. Chapter 24. Part four. Agreement with Microsoft. Chapter Twenty-Five. Think Different. Chapter 25. Part one. For those who are mad. Chapter 25. Part two. iCEO. Chapter 25. Part three. Exterminating clones. Chapter 25. Part four. Product analysis. Chapter Twenty-Six. Design principles. Chapter 26. Part one. Johnny Ive. Chapter 26. Part two. Inside the studio. Chapter Twenty-Seven. iMac. Chapter 27. Part one. Back to the Future. Chapter 27. Part two. Presentation May 6, 1998. Chapter Twenty-Eight. CEO. Chapter 28. Part one. Tim Cook. Chapter 28. Part two. Teamwork and turtlenecks. Chapter 28. Part three. From iCEO to CEO. Chapter Twenty-Nine. Apple Store. Chapter 29. Part one. Consumer feelings. Chapter 29. Part two. Prototype. Chapter 29. Part three. Wood, stone, steel and glass. Chapter Thirty. Digital hub. Chapter 30. Part one. Step by step. Chapter 30. Part two. FireWire. Chapter 30. Part three. iTunes. Chapter 30. Part four. iPod. Chapter 30. Part five. "Here it is!" Chapter 30. Part six. White whale. Chapter Thirty One. iTunes Store. Chapter 31. Part one. Warner Music. Chapter 31. Part two. Embrace the immensity. Chapter 31. Part three. Microsoft. Chapter 31. Part four. Mr. Tambourine Man. With music through life. Chapter 32. Part one. Steve's iPod. Chapter 32. Part two. Bob Dylan.

The dashing 90s and the beginning of the “zero”

In the early 90s, the musician recorded a new album with the participation of world stars of the music industry (Elton John, George Harrison, Al Kooper), but the idea was a failure. The musician forgets about recording for seven whole years. In 1997, the world saw his new creation - the record “Unger the Red Sky”, but the singer at the same time fell into the hospital with heart disease. Everything works out.

In the new millennium, Dylan released the studio disc “Love and Theft”; its sound has hints of jazz. Released five years later, Modern Times breaks all sales records in the States. Dylan receives a Grammy for "Best Rock Solo Project." In 2009, the album “Together Through Life” was released.

Dylan with Suze Rotolo

Personal life

Bob Dylan is an avid bachelor, whose life has had many love affairs. The first was Suze Rotolo, who charmed the young musician back in 1961. But her intentions were not as serious as Dylan’s, and a year later she left for Italy. The composition “Boots of Spanish Leather” is dedicated to this period in the musician’s life. Rotolo graced the cover of the album "Freeweelin'".

The singer’s next passion turned out to be his colleague, folk singer Joan Baez. Their union gave the world many gorgeous compositions, but already in 1965 the young people separated.

Dylan's first official wife, after a series of short-term affairs, was Playboy model Sarah Lowndes, who gave birth to four children to the musician. Alas, this did not save the family from collapse - in 1970, Bob filed for divorce. Dylan's second wife was Carolyn Dennis. She gave birth to a girl, but the marriage suffered the same fate - in 1992 the couple broke up.

Interesting Facts

As a youth, Dylan was fascinated by Brigitte Bardot and even dedicated the first song he wrote at the age of 12 to her.
Sergei Petrov - this is the pseudonym the singer took to write the script for the film “Show of the Century”. The singer also got a role in the film.
Bob Dylan, who is not distinguished by outstanding vocal abilities, is the founder of two musical styles - country rock and folk rock.
Dylan's songs can be heard not only in his albums, but also in films: “Vanilla Sky”, “Forrest Gump”, “Passion and Loathing in Las Vegas”, “American Beauty”, “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door”. in general, the musician’s songs are heard in more than 400 films.
In 1997, after the death of Elvis Presley, Bob Dylan remained silent for a whole week, without uttering a word. “My childhood passed away with Elvis,” the musician later said. The “Never Ending Tour,” which translates as “Endless Tour,” began in 1988 and continues to this day.

Awards

In 2008, Dylan was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for his enormous influence on pop music and culture, and the high poetry of his lyrics.
In 1999, Dylan was awarded the highest film awards - an Oscar and a Golden Globe - for the song “Things Have Changed,” which became the soundtrack to the film “Geeks.”
In December 1997, the musician met with then-US President Bill Clinton, who nominated Dylan for a Kennedy Center Award for the enormous influence of his songs.
In 2009, the musician released another album, “Together Through Life.” In May of the same year, US President Barack Obama personally awarded Bob Dylan the Medal of Freedom, considered one of America's main state awards.
In October 2020, the Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded “for the creation of new poetic expressions in the great American song tradition.”
The number of Grammy awards for the musician is simply incalculable.

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