Bob Dylan

This article is about the musician. For his debut album, see .

Bob DylanDylan at Azkena Rock Festival in , Spain, in June 2010BornRobert Allen Zimmerman May 24, 1941 , U.S.Other namesShabtai Zisel ben Avraham (Hebrew name)OccupationYears active1961–presentHome town, U.S.Spouse(s) (m.1965; div.1977)

(m.1986; div.1992)Children6, including and Awards (2016) (For others, see )Musical careerGenresInstrumentsLabelsAssociated actsWebsiteBob Dylan (born Robert Allen Zimmerman; May 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter, author, and visual artist who has been a major figure in for more than 50 years. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s, when songs such as "" (1963) and "" (1964) became anthems for the and movements. His lyrics during this period incorporated a range of political, social, philosophical, and literary influences, defied conventions and appealed to the burgeoning .

Following in 1962, which mainly comprised traditional , Dylan made his breakthrough as a songwriter with the release of the following year. The album featured "Blowin' in the Wind" and the thematically complex "". For many of these songs, he adapted the tunes and phraseology of older folk songs. He went on to release the politically charged and the more lyrically abstract and introspective in 1964. In 1965 and 1966, Dylan when he adopted rock instrumentation, and in the space of 15 months recorded three of the most important and influential rock albums of the 1960s: (1965), (1965) and (1966). Commenting on the six-minute single "" (1965), Rolling Stone wrote: "No other pop song has so thoroughly challenged and transformed the commercial laws and artistic conventions of its time, for all time."

In July 1966, Dylan withdrew from touring after a motorcycle accident. During this period, he recorded with members of , who had previously backed him on tour. These recordings were released as the collaborative album in 1975. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Dylan explored and rural themes in (1967), (1969), and (1970). In 1975, he released , which many saw as a return to form. In the late 1970s, he became a and released a series of albums of contemporary gospel music before returning to his more familiar rock-based idiom in the early 1980s. The major works of his later career include (1997), (2001), (2006) and (2012). In the 2010s, he recorded a series of three albums comprising versions of traditional American standards, especially songs recorded by . Dylan has announced the release of a double album in June 2020, , his first album of new material in eight years. Backed by a changing lineup of musicians, he has toured steadily since the late 1980s on what has been dubbed the .

Since 1994, Dylan has published eight books of drawings and paintings, and his work has been exhibited in major art galleries. He has sold more than 100 million records, making him one of the . He has received , including the , ten , a and an . Dylan has been inducted into the , and the . The Board in 2008 awarded him a for "his profound impact on popular music and American culture, marked by lyrical compositions of extraordinary poetic power". In 2016, Dylan was awarded the "for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition".

Contents Life and career[] 1941–1959: Origins and musical beginnings[] The Zimmerman family home in Hibbing, MinnesotaBob Dylan was born Robert Allen Zimmerman (: שבתאי זיסל בן אברהם Shabtai Zisl ben Avraham) in St. Mary's Hospital on May 24, 1941, in , and raised in , on the west of . Dylan's paternal grandparents, Anna Kirghiz and Zigman Zimmerman, emigrated from in the (now ) to the United States following the anti-Semitic of 1905. His maternal grandparents, Florence and Ben Stone, were who arrived in the United States in 1902. In his autobiography, , Dylan wrote that his paternal grandmother's family originated from the district of in northeastern Turkey.

Dylan's father Abram Zimmerman and mother Beatrice "Beatty" Stone were part of a small, close-knit Jewish community. They lived in Duluth until Dylan was six, when his father had and the family returned to his mother's hometown, Hibbing, where they lived for the rest of Dylan's childhood, and his father and paternal uncles ran a furniture and appliances store. In his early years he listened to the radio—first to and from , and later, when he was a teenager, to .

Dylan formed several bands while attending . In the Golden Chords, he performed of songs by and . Their performance of ' "Rock and Roll Is Here to Stay" at their high school talent show was so loud that the principal cut the microphone. In 1959, Dylan's high school yearbook carried the caption "Robert Zimmerman: to join 'Little Richard'." That year, as Elston Gunnn, he performed two dates with , playing piano and clapping. In September 1959, Dylan moved to and enrolled at the . His focus on rock and roll gave way to , as he explained in a 1985 interview:

> The thing about rock'n'roll is that for me anyway it wasn't enough... There were great catch-phrases and driving pulse rhythms... but the songs weren't serious or didn't reflect life in a realistic way. I knew that when I got into folk music, it was more of a serious type of thing. The songs are filled with more despair, more sadness, more triumph, more faith in the supernatural, much deeper feelings.

Living at the Jewish-centric fraternity house, Dylan began to perform at the Ten O'Clock Scholar, a coffeehouse a few blocks from campus, and became involved in the circuit. During this period, he began introducing himself as "Bob Dylan." In his memoir, he said he hit upon using this less common variant for Dillon—a surname he had considered adopting—when he unexpectedly saw poems by . Explaining his change of name in a 2004 interview, he said, "You're born, you know, the wrong names, wrong parents. I mean, that happens. You call yourself what you want to call yourself. This is the land of the free."

1960s[] Relocation to New York and record deal[] In May 1960, Dylan dropped out of college at the end of his first year. In January 1961, he traveled to New York City to perform there and visit his musical idol , who was seriously ill with in . Guthrie had been a revelation to Dylan and influenced his early performances. Describing Guthrie's impact, he wrote: "The songs themselves had the infinite sweep of humanity in them... [He] was the true voice of the American spirit. I said to myself I was going to be Guthrie's greatest disciple." As well as visiting Guthrie in hospital, Dylan befriended Guthrie's protégé . Much of Guthrie's repertoire was channeled through Elliott, and Dylan paid tribute to Elliott in Chronicles: Volume One. Dylan later said he was influenced by African-American poets he heard on the New York streets, especially .

From February 1961, Dylan played at clubs around , befriending and picking up material from folk singers there, including , , , the and Irish musicians . On April 11, Dylan commenced a two-week engagement at , supporting . In September, critic boosted Dylan's career with a very enthusiastic review of his performance at Gerde's Folk City: "Bob Dylan: A Distinctive Folk-Song Stylist". That month, Dylan played harmonica on folk singer 's third album. This brought him to the attention of the album's producer, , who signed Dylan to .

Dylan's first album, , released March 19, 1962, consisted of familiar folk, blues and with two original compositions. The album sold only 5,000 copies in its first year, just enough to break even. Within Columbia Records, some referred to Dylan as "Hammond's Folly" and suggested dropping his contract, but Hammond defended him and was supported by songwriter . In March 1962, Dylan contributed harmonica and backup vocals to the album Three Kings and the Queen, accompanying and on a recording for . While working for Columbia, Dylan recorded under the pseudonym Blind Boy Grunt for , a folk magazine and record label. Dylan used the pseudonym Bob Landy to record as a piano player on The Blues Project, a 1964 anthology album by . As Tedham Porterhouse, Dylan played harmonica on Ramblin' Jack Elliott's 1964 album .

Dylan with during the civil rights "", August 28, 1963Dylan made two important career moves in August 1962: he legally changed his name to Bob Dylan, and signed a management contract with . (In June 1961, Dylan had signed an agreement with Roy Silver. In 1962, Grossman paid Silver $10,000 to become sole manager.) Grossman remained Dylan's manager until 1970, and was known for his sometimes confrontational personality and protective loyalty. Dylan said, "He was kind of like a figure ... you could smell him coming." Tension between Grossman and John Hammond led to the latter suggesting Dylan work with the young African-American jazz producer , who produced several tracks for the second album without formal credit. Wilson produced the next three albums Dylan recorded.

Dylan made his first trip to the United Kingdom from December 1962 to January 1963. He had been invited by television director to appear in a drama, , which Saville was directing for . At the end of the play, Dylan performed "", one of its first public performances. The of Madhouse on Castle Street was by the BBC in 1968. While in London, Dylan performed at London folk clubs, including , , and . He also learned material from UK performers, including .

By the release of Dylan's second album, , in May 1963, he had begun to make his name as a singer-songwriter. Many songs on the album were labeled , inspired partly by Guthrie and influenced by 's passion for topical songs. "Oxford Town", for example, was an account of 's ordeal as the first black student to risk enrollment at the . The first song on the album, "Blowin' in the Wind", partly derived its melody from the traditional , "No More Auction Block", while its lyrics questioned the social and political status quo. The song was widely recorded by other artists and became a hit for . Another song, "", was based on the folk ballad "". With veiled references to an impending apocalypse, it gained resonance when the developed a few weeks after Dylan began performing it. Like "Blowin' in the Wind", "A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall" marked a new direction in songwriting, blending a , lyrical attack with traditional folk form.

Dylan's topical songs led to his being viewed as more than just a songwriter. wrote in 1980 of Freewheelin': "These were the songs that established [Dylan] as the voice of his generation—someone who implicitly understood how concerned young Americans felt about and the growing : his mixture of moral authority and nonconformity was perhaps the most timely of his attributes." Freewheelin' also included love songs and surreal talking blues. Humor was an important part of Dylan's persona, and the range of material on the album impressed listeners, including . said of the album: "We just played it, just wore it out. The content of the song lyrics and just the attitude—it was incredibly original and wonderful."

The rough edge of Dylan's singing was unsettling to some but an attraction to others. Novelist wrote: "When we first heard this raw, very young, and seemingly untrained voice, frankly nasal, as if sandpaper could sing, the effect was dramatic and electrifying." Many early songs reached the public through more palatable versions by other performers, such as , who became Dylan's advocate and lover. Baez was influential in bringing Dylan to prominence by recording several of his early songs and inviting him on stage during her concerts. "It didn't take long before people got it, that he was pretty damned special," says Baez.

Others who had hits with Dylan's songs in the early 1960s included ; ; ; Peter, Paul and Mary; ; and . Most attempted a pop feel and rhythm, while Dylan and Baez performed them mostly as sparse folk songs. The covers became so ubiquitous that promoted him with the slogan "Nobody Sings Dylan Like Dylan".

"", recorded during the Freewheelin' sessions with a backing band, was released as a single but quickly withdrawn. In contrast to the mostly solo acoustic performances on the album, the single showed a willingness to experiment with a sound. described it as "a fascinating look at a folk artist with his mind wandering towards Elvis Presley and ."

Protest and Another Side[] In May 1963, Dylan's political profile rose when he walked out of . During rehearsals, Dylan had been told by CBS television's head of program practices that "" was potentially libelous to the . Rather than comply with censorship, Dylan refused to appear.

By this time, Dylan and Baez were prominent in the civil rights movement, singing together at the on August 28, 1963. Dylan's third album, , reflected a more politicized Dylan. The songs often took as their subject matter contemporary stories, with "" addressing the murder of civil rights worker ; and the "" the death of black hotel barmaid Hattie Carroll, at the hands of young white socialite William Zantzinger. On a more general theme, "" and "" addressed despair engendered by the breakdown of farming and mining communities. This political material was accompanied by two personal love songs, "Boots of Spanish Leather" and "".

By the end of 1963, Dylan felt both manipulated and constrained by the folk and protest movements. Accepting the " Award" from the shortly after the assassination of , an intoxicated Dylan questioned the role of the committee, characterized the members as old and balding, and claimed to see something of himself and of every man in Kennedy's assassin, .

Bobby Dylan, as the college yearbook lists him: , upstate New York, November 1963, recorded in a single evening on June 9, 1964, had a lighter mood. The humorous Dylan reemerged on "I Shall Be Free No. 10" and "Motorpsycho Nightmare". "" and "" are passionate love songs, while "" and "" suggest the rock and roll soon to dominate Dylan's music. "", on the surface a song about spurned love, has been described as a rejection of the role of political spokesman thrust upon him. His newest direction was signaled by two lengthy songs: the "", which sets against a metaphorical landscape in a style characterized by as "chains of flashing images," and "", which attacks the simplistic and arch seriousness of his own earlier topical songs and seems to predict the backlash he was about to encounter from his former champions as he took a new direction.

In the latter half of 1964 and into 1965, Dylan moved from folk songwriter to pop-music star. His jeans and work shirts were replaced by a wardrobe, sunglasses day or night, and pointed "". A London reporter wrote: "Hair that would set the teeth of a comb on edge. A loud shirt that would dim the neon lights of . He looks like an undernourished ." Dylan began to spar with interviewers. Appearing on the television show and asked about a movie he planned, he told Crane it would be a cowboy horror movie. Asked if he played the cowboy, Dylan replied, "No, I play my mother."

Going electric[] Main articles: and The documentary (1967) follows Dylan on his . An early for "" was used as the film's opening segment.Dylan's late March 1965 album was another leap, featuring his first recordings with electric instruments, under producer Tom Wilson's guidance. The first single, "", owed much to 's ""; its free-association lyrics described as harking back to the energy of and as a forerunner of and . The song was provided with an early , which opened 's presentation of Dylan's 1965 tour of Great Britain, . Instead of miming, Dylan illustrated the lyrics by throwing cue cards containing key words from the song on the ground. Pennebaker said the sequence was Dylan's idea, and it has been imitated in music videos and advertisements.

The second side of Bringing It All Back Home contained four long songs on which Dylan accompanied himself on acoustic guitar and harmonica. "" became one of his best-known songs when the Byrds recorded an electric version that reached number one in the US and UK. "" and "" were two of Dylan's most important compositions.

In 1965, headlining the , Dylan performed his first electric set since high school with a featuring on guitar and on organ. Dylan had appeared at Newport in 1963 and 1964, but in 1965 met with cheering and booing and left the stage after three songs. One version has it that the boos were from folk fans whom Dylan had alienated by appearing, unexpectedly, with an electric guitar. , who filmed the performance, said: "I absolutely think that they were booing Dylan going electric." An alternative account claims audience members were upset by poor sound and a short set. This account is supported by Kooper and one of the directors of the festival who claims his recording proves the only boos were in response to MC 's flustered announcement that there was only enough time for a short set.

Nevertheless, Dylan's performance provoked a hostile response from the folk music establishment. In the September issue of , wrote: "Our traditional songs and ballads are the creations of extraordinarily talented artists working inside disciplines formulated over time ...'But what of Bobby Dylan?' scream the outraged teenagers ... Only a completely non-critical audience, nourished on the watery pap of pop music, could have fallen for such tenth-rate drivel." On July 29, four days after Newport, Dylan was back in the studio in New York, recording "". The lyrics contained images of vengeance and paranoia, and have been interpreted as Dylan's put-down of former friends from the folk community he had known in clubs along .

Highway 61 Revisited and Blonde on Blonde[] In July 1965, Dylan's six-minute single "" peaked at number two in the U.S. chart. In 2004 and in 2011, listed it as number one of "". , in his speech for Dylan's inauguration into the , said that on first hearing the single, "that snare shot sounded like somebody'd kicked open the door to your mind." The song opened Dylan's next album, , named after the road that led from Dylan's Minnesota to the musical hotbed of . The songs were in the same vein as the hit single, flavored by Mike Bloomfield's blues guitar and Al Kooper's organ riffs. "", backed by acoustic guitar and understated bass, offers the sole exception, with Dylan alluding to figures in Western culture in a song described by Andy Gill as "an 11-minute epic of entropy, which takes the form of a parade of grotesques and oddities featuring a huge cast of celebrated characters, some historical (, ), some biblical (Noah, Cain and Abel), some fictional (Ophelia, Romeo, Cinderella), some literary ( and ), and some who fit into none of the above categories, notably Dr. Filth and his dubious nurse".

Dylan in 1966In support of the album, Dylan was booked for two U.S. concerts with Al Kooper and from his studio crew and and , former members of 's backing band . On August 28 at Forest Hills Tennis Stadium, the group was heckled by an audience still annoyed by Dylan's electric sound. The band's reception on September 3 at the was more favorable.

From September 24, 1965, in Austin, Texas, Dylan toured the U.S. and Canada for six months, backed by the five musicians from the Hawks who became known as . While Dylan and the Hawks met increasingly receptive audiences, their studio efforts floundered. Producer persuaded Dylan to record in in February 1966, and surrounded him with top-notch session men. At Dylan's insistence, Robertson and Kooper came from New York City to play on the sessions. The Nashville sessions produced the double album (1966), featuring what Dylan called "that thin wild mercury sound". Kooper described it as "taking two cultures and smashing them together with a huge explosion": the musical world of Nashville and the world of the "quintessential New York hipster" Bob Dylan.

On November 22, 1965, Dylan quietly married 25-year-old former model . Robertson has described how he received a phone call that morning to accompany the couple to a courthouse on Long Island, and then to a reception hosted by Albert and at the . Some of Dylan's friends, including Ramblin' Jack Elliott, say that, immediately after the event, Dylan denied he was married. Journalist made the news public in the in February 1966 with the headline "Hush! Bob Dylan is wed."

Dylan toured Australia and Europe in April and May 1966. Each show was split in two. Dylan performed solo during the first half, accompanying himself on and harmonica. In the second, backed by , he played electrically amplified music. This contrast provoked many fans, who jeered and . The tour culminated in a raucous confrontation between Dylan and his audience at the Manchester in England on May 17, 1966. A recording of this concert was released in 1998: . At the climax of the evening, a member of the audience, angered by Dylan's electric backing, shouted: "!" to which Dylan responded, "I don't believe you ... You're a liar!" Dylan turned to his band and said, "Play it fucking loud!" as they launched into the final song of the night—"Like a Rolling Stone".

During his 1966 tour, Dylan was described as exhausted and acting "as if on a death trip". D. A. Pennebaker, the filmmaker accompanying the tour, described Dylan as "taking a lot of amphetamine and who-knows-what-else". In a 1969 interview with , Dylan said, "I was on the road for almost five years. It wore me down. I was on drugs, a lot of things ... just to keep going, you know?" In 2011, reported that, in an interview that Robert Shelton taped in 1966, Dylan said he had kicked heroin in New York City: "I got very, very strung out for a while ... I had about a $25-a-day habit and I kicked it." Some journalists questioned the validity of this confession, pointing out that Dylan had "been telling journalists wild lies about his past since the earliest days of his career".

Motorcycle accident and reclusion[] After his tour, Dylan returned to New York, but the pressures increased. had paid an advance for a TV show. His publisher, , was demanding a manuscript of the poem/novel . Manager Albert Grossman had scheduled a concert tour for the latter part of the year.

On July 29, 1966, Dylan crashed his 500cc motorcycle near his home in , and was thrown to the ground. Though the extent of his injuries was never disclosed, Dylan said that he broke several in his neck. Mystery still surrounds the circumstances of the accident since no ambulance was called to the scene and Dylan was not hospitalized. Dylan's biographers have written that the crash offered Dylan the chance to escape the pressures around him. Dylan confirmed this interpretation in his autobiography: "I had been in a motorcycle accident and I'd been hurt, but I recovered. Truth was that I wanted to get out of the rat race." Dylan withdrew from public and, apart from a few appearances, did not tour again for almost eight years.

Once Dylan was well enough to resume creative work, he began to edit D. A. Pennebaker's film of his 1966 tour. A rough cut was shown to ABC Television, which rejected it as incomprehensible to a mainstream audience. The film was subsequently titled on bootleg copies, and it has been screened at a handful of film festivals. In 1967 he began recording with the Hawks at his home and in the basement of the Hawks' nearby house, "Big Pink". These songs, initially demos for other artists to record, provided hits for and (""), the Byrds ("", "Nothing Was Delivered") and Manfred Mann (""). Columbia released selections in 1975 as . Over the years, many more songs recorded by Dylan and his band in 1967 appeared on , culminating in the 2014 official Columbia release which contained 138 songs and alternate takes. In the coming months, the Hawks recorded the album using songs they worked on in their basement in Woodstock, and renamed themselves the Band, beginning a long recording and performing career of their own.

In October and November 1967, Dylan returned to Nashville. Back in the studio after 19 months, he was accompanied by on bass, on drums, and on steel guitar. The result was , a contemplative record of shorter songs, set in a landscape that drew on the and the Bible. The sparse structure and instrumentation, with lyrics that took the tradition seriously, departed from Dylan's own work and from the psychedelic fervor of the 1960s. It included "", with lyrics derived from the (21:5–9). The song was later recorded by , whose version Dylan acknowledged as definitive. Woody Guthrie died on October 3, 1967, and Dylan made his first live appearance in twenty months at a Guthrie memorial concert held at on January 20, 1968, where he was backed by the Band.

Dylan's next release, (1969), was mainstream country featuring Nashville musicians, a mellow-voiced Dylan, a duet with Johnny Cash, and the hit single "". wrote, "Dylan is definitely doing something that can be called singing. Somehow he has managed to add an octave to his range." During one recording session, Dylan and Cash recorded a series of duets but only their version of Dylan's "" was released on the album.

In May 1969, Dylan appeared on the first episode of Johnny Cash's television show and sang a duet with Cash of "Girl from the North Country", with solos of "Living the Blues" and "." Dylan next traveled to England to top the bill at the on , after rejecting overtures to appear at the closer to his home.

1970s[] In the early 1970s, critics charged that Dylan's output was varied and unpredictable. Rolling Stone writer asked "What is this shit?" on first listening to , released in June 1970. It was a double LP including few original songs, and was poorly received. In October 1970, Dylan released , considered a return to form. This album included "Day of the Locusts", a song in which Dylan gave an account of receiving an honorary degree from on June 9, 1970. In November 1968, Dylan had co-written "" with George Harrison; Harrison recorded "I'd Have You Anytime" and Dylan's "" for his 1970 solo triple album . Dylan's surprise appearance at Harrison's 1971 attracted media coverage, reflecting that Dylan's live appearances had become rare.

Between March 16 and 19, 1971, Dylan reserved three days at Blue Rock, a small studio in Greenwich Village, to record with . These sessions resulted in "" and a new recording of "". On November 4, 1971, Dylan recorded "", which he released a week later. For many, the single was a surprising return to protest material, mourning the killing of in that year. Dylan contributed piano and harmony to 's album, Somebody Else's Troubles, under the pseudonym Robert Milkwood Thomas (referencing by Dylan Thomas and his own previous name) in September 1972.

In 1972, Dylan signed to 's film , providing for the movie, and playing "Alias", a member of Billy's gang with some historical basis. Despite the film's failure at the box office, the song "" became one of Dylan's most covered songs.

Also in 1972, Dylan protested the move to deport and , who had been convicted of possessing cannabis, by sending a letter to the U.S. , in part: "Hurray for John & Yoko. Let them stay and live here and breathe. The country's got plenty of room and space. Let John and Yoko stay!"

Return to touring[] Bob Dylan and commenced their 1974 tour in Chicago on January 3.Dylan began 1973 by signing with a new label, 's when his contract with Columbia Records expired. His next album, , was recorded in the fall of 1973, using the Band as his backing group as they rehearsed for a major tour. The album included two versions of "Forever Young", which became one of his most popular songs. As one critic described it, the song projected "something hymnal and heartfelt that spoke of the father in Dylan", and Dylan himself commented: "I wrote it thinking about one of my boys and not wanting to be too sentimental." Columbia Records simultaneously released , a collection of studio outtakes, widely interpreted as a churlish response to Dylan's signing with a rival record label.

In January 1974, Dylan, backed by the Band, embarked on a of 40 concerts—his first tour for seven years. A live double album, , was released on Asylum Records. Soon, according to , Columbia Records sent word they "will spare nothing to bring Dylan back into the fold." Dylan had second thoughts about Asylum, unhappy that Geffen had sold only 600,000 copies of Planet Waves despite millions of unfulfilled ticket requests for the 1974 tour; he returned to Columbia Records, which reissued his two Asylum albums.

After the tour, Dylan and his wife became estranged. He filled a small red notebook with songs about relationships and ruptures, and recorded an album entitled in September 1974. Dylan delayed the release and re-recorded half of the songs at Studios in Minneapolis with production assistance from his brother, David Zimmerman.

Released in early 1975, Blood on the Tracks received mixed reviews. In the , described "the accompaniments [as] often so trashy they sound like mere practice takes." In Rolling Stone, wrote that "the record has been made with typical shoddiness." Over the years critics came to see it as one of Dylan's greatest achievements. For the website, journalist Bill Wyman wrote: "Blood on the Tracks is his only flawless album and his best produced; the songs, each of them, are constructed in disciplined fashion. It is his kindest album and most dismayed, and seems in hindsight to have achieved a sublime balance between the logorrhea-plagued excesses of his mid-1960s output and the self-consciously simple compositions of his post-accident years." Novelist called it "the truest, most honest account of a love affair from tip to stern ever put down on magnetic tape."

Bob Dylan with on the in 1975. Photo: In the middle of that year, Dylan wrote a ballad championing boxer , imprisoned for a triple murder in , in 1966. After visiting Carter in jail, Dylan wrote "", presenting the case for Carter's innocence. Despite its length—over eight minutes—the song was released as a single, peaking at 33 on the U.S. , and performed at every 1975 date of Dylan's next tour, the . The tour featured about one hundred performers and supporters from the Greenwich Village folk scene, including , Ramblin' Jack Elliott, , , , , Joan Baez and , whom Dylan discovered walking down the street, her violin case on her back.

Running through late 1975 and again through early 1976, the tour encompassed the release of the album , with many of Dylan's new songs featuring a -like narrative style, showing the influence of his new collaborator, playwright . The 1976 half of the tour was documented by a TV concert special, Hard Rain, and the LP ; no concert album from first half of the tour was released until 2002's .

Dylan performing in the Stadium, Rotterdam, June 23, 1978The 1975 tour with the Revue provided the backdrop to Dylan's nearly four-hour film , a sprawling narrative mixed with concert footage and reminiscences. Released in 1978, the movie received poor, sometimes scathing, reviews. Later in that year, a two-hour edit, dominated by the concert performances, was more widely released. More than forty years later, a documentary about the 1975 leg of the Rolling Thunder Revue, was released by Netflix on June 12, 2019.

In November 1976, Dylan appeared at the Band's "farewell" concert, with , , , and . 's 1978 cinematic chronicle of the concert, , included about half of Dylan's set. In 1976, Dylan wrote and duetted on "Sign Language" for Eric Clapton's .

In 1978, Dylan embarked on a , performing 114 shows in Japan, the Far East, Europe and North America, to a total audience of two million. Dylan assembled an eight-piece band and three backing singers. Concerts in Tokyo in February and March were released as the live double album, . Reviews were mixed. awarded the album a C+ rating, giving the album a derisory review, while Janet Maslin defended it in Rolling Stone, writing: "These latest live versions of his old songs have the effect of liberating Bob Dylan from the originals." When Dylan brought the tour to the U.S. in September 1978, the press described the look and sound as a 'Las Vegas Tour'. The 1978 tour grossed more than $20 million, and Dylan told the Los Angeles Times that he had debts because "I had a couple of bad years. I put a lot of money into the movie, built a big house ... and it costs a lot to get divorced in California."

In April and May 1978, Dylan took the same band and vocalists into Rundown Studios in , California, to record an album of new material: . It was described by Michael Gray as, "after Blood On The Tracks, arguably Dylan's best record of the 1970s: a crucial album documenting a crucial period in Dylan's own life." However, it had poor sound and mixing (attributed to Dylan's studio practices), muddying the instrumental detail until a remastered CD release in 1999 restored some of the songs' strengths.

Christian period[] Further information: In the late 1970s, Dylan converted to , undertaking a three-month discipleship course run by the ; and released three albums of contemporary gospel music. (1979) featured the guitar accompaniment of (of ) and was produced by veteran producer . Wexler said that Dylan had tried to evangelize him during the recording. He replied: "Bob, you're dealing with a 62-year-old Jewish atheist. Let's just make an album." Dylan won the for the song "." His second Christian-themed album, (1980), received mixed reviews, described by Michael Gray as "the nearest thing to a follow-up album Dylan has ever made, Slow Train Coming II and inferior". His third overtly Christian album was in 1981. When touring in late 1979 and early 1980, Dylan would not play his older, secular works, and he delivered declarations of his faith from the stage, such as:

> Years ago they ... said I was a prophet. I used to say, "No I'm not a prophet", they say "Yes you are, you're a prophet." I said, "No it's not me." They used to say "You sure are a prophet." They used to convince me I was a prophet. Now I come out and say Jesus Christ is the answer. They say, "Bob Dylan's no prophet." They just can't handle it.

Dylan's Christianity was unpopular with some fans and musicians. Shortly before , John Lennon recorded "Serve Yourself" in response to Dylan's "Gotta Serve Somebody." By 1981, wrote in The New York Times that "neither age (he's now 40) nor his much-publicized conversion to born-again Christianity has altered his essentially iconoclastic temperament."

1980s[] Dylan in Toronto April 18, 1980In late 1980, Dylan briefly played concerts billed as "A Musical Retrospective", restoring popular 1960s songs to the repertoire. , recorded early the next year, featured his first secular compositions in more than two years, mixed with Christian songs. "" reminded some of 's verses.

In the 1980s, reception of Dylan's recordings varied, from the well-regarded in 1983 to the panned in 1988. Michael Gray condemned Dylan's 1980s albums for carelessness in the studio and for failing to release his best songs. As an example of the latter, the Infidels recording sessions, which again employed Knopfler on lead guitar and also as the album's producer, resulted in several notable songs that Dylan left off the album. Best regarded of these were "", a tribute to the and an evocation of , "Foot of Pride" and "." These three songs were released on .

Between July 1984 and March 1985, Dylan recorded . , who had remixed hits for Bruce Springsteen and , was asked to engineer and mix the album. Baker said he felt he was hired to make Dylan's album sound "a little bit more contemporary."

In 1985 Dylan sang on 's famine relief single "". He also joined providing vocals for their single "". On July 13, 1985, he appeared at the climax at the concert at , Philadelphia. Backed by and , he performed a ragged version of "Hollis Brown", his ballad of rural poverty, and then said to the worldwide audience exceeding one billion people: "I hope that some of the money ... maybe they can just take a little bit of it, maybe ... one or two million, maybe ... and use it to pay the mortgages on some of the farms and, the farmers here, owe to the banks." His remarks were widely criticized as inappropriate, but they did inspire to organize a series of events, , to benefit debt-ridden American farmers.

In April 1986, Dylan made a foray into when he added vocals to the opening verse of "Street Rock", featured on 's album Kingdom Blow. Dylan's next studio album, , in July 1986 contained three covers (by Little , and the gospel hymn ""), plus three collaborations (with , Sam Shepard and ), and two solo compositions by Dylan. One reviewer commented that "the record follows too many detours to be consistently compelling, and some of those detours wind down roads that are indisputably dead ends. By 1986, such uneven records weren't entirely unexpected by Dylan, but that didn't make them any less frustrating." It was the first Dylan album since The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan (1963) to fail to make the Top 50. Since then, some critics have called the 11-minute epic that Dylan co-wrote with Sam Shepard, "", a work of genius.

In 1986 and 1987, Dylan toured with , sharing vocals with Petty on several songs each night. Dylan also toured with the in 1987, resulting in a live album . This received negative reviews; said it was "Quite possibly the worst album by either Bob Dylan or the Grateful Dead." Dylan then initiated what came to be called the on June 7, 1988, performing with a back-up band featuring guitarist . Dylan would continue to tour with a small, changing band for the next 30 years.

Dylan in Barcelona, Spain, 1984In 1987, Dylan starred in 's movie , in which he played Billy Parker, a washed-up rock star turned chicken farmer whose teenage lover () leaves him for a jaded English synth-pop sensation played by . Dylan also contributed two original songs to the soundtrack—"Night After Night", and "I Had a Dream About You, Baby", as well as a cover of 's "The Usual". The film was a critical and commercial flop.

Dylan was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in January 1988, with Bruce Springsteen's introduction declaring, "Bob freed your mind the way Elvis freed your body. He showed us that just because music was innately physical did not mean that it was anti-intellectual."

The album Down in the Groove in May 1988 sold even more poorly than his previous studio album. Michael Gray wrote: "The very title undercuts any idea that inspired work may lie within. Here was a further devaluing of the notion of a new Bob Dylan album as something significant." The critical and commercial disappointment of that album was swiftly followed by the success of the . Dylan co-founded the band with George Harrison, , and Tom Petty, and in late 1988 their multi-platinum reached three on the US album chart, featuring songs that were described as Dylan's most accessible compositions in years. Despite Orbison's death in December 1988, the remaining four recorded a second album in May 1990 with the title .

Dylan finished the decade on a critical high note with produced by . Michael Gray wrote that the album was: "Attentively written, vocally distinctive, musically warm, and uncompromisingly professional, this cohesive whole is the nearest thing to a great Bob Dylan album in the 1980s." The track "Most of the Time", a lost love composition, was later prominently featured in the film , while "What Was It You Wanted?" has been interpreted both as a catechism and a wry comment on the expectations of critics and fans. The religious imagery of "Ring Them Bells" struck some critics as a re-affirmation of faith.

1990s[] Dylan's 1990s began with (1990), an about-face from the serious Oh Mercy. It contained several apparently simple songs, including "Under the Red Sky" and "Wiggle Wiggle". The album was dedicated to "Gabby Goo Goo", a nickname for the daughter of Dylan and , Desiree Gabrielle Dennis-Dylan, who was four. Musicians on the album included George Harrison, from , , , , and . The record received bad reviews and sold poorly.

In 1990 and 1991 Dylan was described by his biographers as drinking heavily, impairing his performances on stage. In an interview with Rolling Stone, Dylan dismissed allegations that drinking was interfering with his music: "That's completely inaccurate. I can drink or not drink. I don't know why people would associate drinking with anything I do, really."

Defilement and remorse were themes Dylan addressed when he received a from American actor in February 1991. The event coincided with the start of the against and Dylan performed "". He then made a short speech: "My daddy once said to me, he said, 'Son, it is possible for you to become so defiled in this world that your own mother and father will abandon you. If that happens, God will believe in your ability to mend your own ways.'" The sentiment was subsequently revealed to be a quote from 19th-century German Jewish intellectual Rabbi .

Over the next few years Dylan returned to his roots with two albums covering traditional folk and blues songs: (1992) and (1993), backed solely by his acoustic guitar. Many critics and fans commented on the quiet beauty of the song "Lone Pilgrim", written by a 19th-century teacher. In November 1994 Dylan recorded two live shows for . He said his wish to perform traditional songs was overruled by executives who insisted on hits. The album from it, , included "John Brown", an unreleased 1962 song of how enthusiasm for war ends in mutilation and disillusionment.

Dylan performs during the 1996 Lida Festival in With a collection of songs reportedly written while snowed in on his Minnesota ranch, Dylan booked recording time with Daniel Lanois at Miami's in January 1997. The subsequent recording sessions were, by some accounts, fraught with musical tension. Before the album's release Dylan was hospitalized with a life-threatening heart infection, , brought on by . His scheduled European tour was cancelled, but Dylan made a speedy recovery and left the hospital saying, "I really thought I'd be seeing Elvis soon." He was back on the road by mid-year, and performed before at the World Eucharistic Conference in , Italy. The Pope treated the audience of 200,000 people to a homily based on Dylan's lyric "Blowin' in the Wind".

In September Dylan released the new Lanois-produced album, . With its bitter assessment of love and morbid ruminations, Dylan's first collection of original songs in seven years was highly acclaimed. One critic wrote: "the songs themselves are uniformly powerful, adding up to Dylan's best overall collection in years." This collection of complex songs won him his first solo "Album of the Year" .

In December 1997, U.S. President presented Dylan with a Honor in the East Room of the , paying this tribute: "He probably had more impact on people of my generation than any other creative artist. His voice and lyrics haven't always been easy on the ear, but throughout his career Bob Dylan has never aimed to please. He's disturbed the peace and discomforted the powerful."

2000s[] Dylan commenced the 2000s by winning the in May 2000 and his first ; his song "", written for the film , won an in 2001. The Oscar, by some reports a facsimile, tours with him, presiding over shows atop an amplifier.

was released on September 11, 2001. Recorded with his touring band, Dylan produced the album himself under the pseudonym Jack Frost. The album was critically well received and earned nominations for several Grammy awards. Critics noted that Dylan was widening his musical palette to include rockabilly, Western swing, jazz, and even lounge ballads. "Love and Theft" generated controversy when pointed out similarities between the album's lyrics and Japanese author Junichi Saga's book .

In 2003, Dylan revisited the evangelical songs from his Christian period and participated in the CD project . That year Dylan also released the film , which he co-wrote with director under the alias Sergei Petrov. Dylan played the central character in the film, Jack Fate, alongside a cast that included , and . The film polarised critics: many dismissed it as an "incoherent mess"; a few treated it as a serious work of art.

In October 2004, Dylan published the first part of his autobiography, Chronicles: Volume One. Confounding expectations, Dylan devoted three chapters to his first year in New York City in 1961–1962, virtually ignoring the mid-1960s when his fame was at its height. He also devoted chapters to the albums New Morning (1970) and Oh Mercy (1989). The book reached number two on The New York Times' Hardcover Non-Fiction best seller list in December 2004 and was nominated for a .

, Martin Scorsese's acclaimed film biography of Dylan, was first broadcast on September 26–27, 2005, on in the UK and in the US. The documentary focuses on the period from Dylan's arrival in New York in 1961 to his motorcycle crash in 1966, featuring interviews with , , Joan Baez, Allen Ginsberg, Pete Seeger, and Dylan himself. The film received a in April 2006 and a in January 2007. The featured unreleased songs from Dylan's early career.

Dylan earned another distinction when a 2007 study of US legal opinions found his lyrics were quoted by judges and lawyers more than those of any other songwriter, 186 times versus 74 by the Beatles, who were second. Among those quoting Dylan were and Justice , both conservatives. The most widely cited lines included "you don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows" from "Subterranean Homesick Blues" and "when you ain't got nothing, you got nothing to lose" from "Like a Rolling Stone".

Modern Times[] Dylan's career as a radio presenter commenced on May 3, 2006, with his weekly radio program, for , with song selections on chosen themes. Dylan played classic and obscure records from the 1920s to the present day, including contemporary artists as diverse as , , and . The show was praised by fans and critics, as Dylan told stories and made eclectic references, commenting on his musical choices. In April 2009, Dylan broadcast the 100th show in his radio series; the theme was "Goodbye" and the final record played was Woody Guthrie's "So Long, It's Been Good to Know Yuh".

Dylan, the Spectrum, 2007Dylan released his album in August 2006. Despite some coarsening of Dylan's voice (a critic for characterised his singing on the album as "a catarrhal death rattle") most reviewers praised the album, and many described it as the final installment of a successful trilogy, embracing Time Out of Mind and "Love and Theft". Modern Times entered the U.S. charts at number one, making it Dylan's first album to reach that position since 1976's Desire. The New York Times published an article exploring similarities between some of Dylan's lyrics in Modern Times and the work of the poet .

Nominated for three Grammy Awards, Modern Times won and Bob Dylan also won for "Someday Baby." Modern Times was named Album of the Year, 2006, by Rolling Stone magazine, and by in the UK. On the same day that Modern Times was released the released , a digital box set containing all of his albums (773 tracks in total), along with 42 rare and unreleased tracks.

In August 2007, the award-winning film biography of Dylan , written and directed by , was released—bearing the tagline "inspired by the music and many lives of Bob Dylan." The movie used six different actors to represent different aspects of Dylan's life: , , , , and . Dylan's previously unreleased 1967 recording from which the film takes its name was released for the first time on the film's ; all other tracks are covers of Dylan songs, specially recorded for the movie by a diverse range of artists, including , , , , , , Willie Nelson, , and .

Bob Dylan performs at Air Canada Centre, Toronto, November 7, 2006On October 1, 2007, Columbia Records released the triple CD retrospective album , anthologising his entire career under the Dylan 07 logo. The sophistication of the Dylan 07 marketing campaign was a reminder that Dylan's commercial profile had risen considerably since the 1990s. This became evident in 2004, when Dylan appeared in a TV advertisement for lingerie. Three years later, in October 2007, he participated in a multi-media campaign for the 2008 . Then, in 2009, he gave the highest profile endorsement of his career, appearing with rapper in a ad that debuted during the telecast of . The ad, broadcast to a record audience of 98 million viewers, opened with Dylan singing the first verse of "Forever Young" followed by will.i.am doing a version of the song's third and final verse.

was released in October 2008, as both a two-CD set and a three-CD version with a 150-page hardcover book. The set contains live performances and outtakes from selected studio albums from Oh Mercy to Modern Times, as well as soundtrack contributions and collaborations with and . The pricing of the album—the two-CD set went on sale for $18.99 and the three-CD version for $129.99—led to complaints about "rip-off packaging" from some fans and commentators. The release was widely acclaimed by critics. The abundance of alternative takes and unreleased material suggested to one reviewer that this volume of old outtakes "feels like a new Bob Dylan record, not only for the astonishing freshness of the material, but also for the incredible sound quality and organic feeling of everything here."

Together Through Life and Christmas in the Heart[] Bob Dylan released his album on April 28, 2009. In a conversation with music journalist Bill Flanagan, published on Dylan's website, Dylan explained that the genesis of the record was when French film director asked him to supply a song for his new , ; initially only intending to record a single track, "Life Is Hard," "the record sort of took its own direction." Nine of the ten songs on the album are credited as co-written by Bob Dylan and . The album received largely favorable reviews, although several critics described it as a minor addition to Dylan's canon of work.

In its first week of release, the album reached number one in the chart in the U.S., making Bob Dylan (67 years of age) the oldest artist to ever debut at number one on that chart. It also reached number one on the , 39 years after Dylan's previous UK album chart topper New Morning. This meant that Dylan currently holds the record for the longest gap between solo number one albums in the UK chart.

Dylan's album, , was released in October 2009, comprising such Christmas standards as "", "" and "." Critics pointed out that Dylan was "revisiting yuletide styles popularized by , , and the ." Dylan's royalties from the sale of this album were donated to the charities in the USA, in the UK, and the .

The album received generally favorable reviews. wrote that Dylan had welded a pre-rock musical sound to "some of his croakiest vocals in a while", and speculated that his intentions might be ironic: "Dylan has a long and highly publicized history with Christianity; to claim there's not a wink in the childish optimism of 'Here Comes Santa Claus' or 'Winter Wonderland' is to ignore a half-century of biting satire." In an interview published in , journalist Bill Flanagan asked Dylan why he had performed the songs in a straightforward style, and Dylan responded: "There wasn't any other way to play it. These songs are part of my life, just like folk songs. You have to play them straight too."

2010s[] Tempest[] Volume 9 of Dylan's Bootleg Series, was issued in October 18, 2010. It comprised 47 of songs taped between 1962 and 1964 for Dylan's earliest music publishers: Leeds Music in 1962, and from 1962 to 1964. One reviewer described the set as "a hearty glimpse of young Bob Dylan changing the music business, and the world, one note at a time." The critical aggregator website Metacritic awarded the album a Metascore of 86, indicating "universal acclaim." In the same week, released , a box set that for the first time presented Dylan's eight earliest albums, from Bob Dylan (1962) to John Wesley Harding (1967), in their original mono mix in the CD format. The CDs were housed in miniature facsimiles of the original album covers, replete with original liner notes. The set was accompanied by a booklet featuring an essay by music critic Greil Marcus.

On April 12, 2011, Legacy Recordings released , taped at on May 10, 1963, two weeks prior to the release of The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan. The tape was discovered in the archive of music writer , and the recording carries liner notes by , who says it captures Dylan "from way back when Kennedy] was President and the Beatles hadn't yet reached America. It reveals him not at any Big Moment but giving a performance like his folk club sets of the period... This is the last live performance we have of Bob Dylan before he becomes a star."

The extent to which his work was studied at an academic level was demonstrated on Dylan's 70th birthday on May 24, 2011, when three universities organized symposia on his work. The , the , and the invited literary critics and cultural historians to give papers on aspects of Dylan's work. Other events, including tribute bands, discussions and simple singalongs, took place around the world, as reported in The Guardian: "From Moscow to Madrid, Norway to Northampton and Malaysia to his home state of Minnesota, self-confessed 'Bobcats' will gather today to celebrate the 70th birthday of a giant of popular music."

Dylan and the Obamas at the , after a performance celebrating music from the (February 9, 2010)On May 29, 2012, U.S. President awarded Dylan a in the White House. At the ceremony, Obama praised Dylan's voice for its "unique gravelly power that redefined not just what music sounded like but the message it carried and how it made people feel."

Dylan's 35th studio album, was released on September 11, 2012. The album features a tribute to John Lennon, "Roll On John", and the title track is a 14-minute song about the . Reviewing Tempest for Rolling Stone, Will Hermes gave the album five out of five stars, writing: "Lyrically, Dylan is at the top of his game, joking around, dropping wordplay and allegories that evade pat readings and quoting other folks' words like a freestyle rapper on fire." The critical aggregator website awarded the album a score of 83 out of 100, indicating "universal acclaim."

Volume 10 of Dylan's Bootleg Series, was released in August 2013. The album contained 35 previously unreleased tracks, including alternative takes and demos from Dylan's 1969–1971 recording sessions during the making of the Self Portrait and New Morning albums. The box set also included a live recording of Dylan's performance with the Band at the Isle of Wight Festival in 1969. Another Self Portrait received favorable reviews, earning a score of 81 on the critical aggregator, Metacritic, indicating "universal acclaim." AllMusic critic Thom Jurek wrote, "For fans, this is more than a curiosity, it's an indispensable addition to the catalog."

Columbia Records released a boxed set containing all 35 Dylan studio albums, six albums of live recordings, and a collection, entitled Sidetracks, of non-album material, , in November 2013. To publicize the 35 album box set, an innovative video of the song "Like a Rolling Stone" was released on Dylan's website. The interactive video, created by director , allowed viewers to switch between 16 simulated TV channels, all featuring characters who are lip-synching the lyrics of the 48-year-old song.

Dylan appeared in a commercial for the car which was screened during the American football game played on February 2, 2014. At the end of the commercial, Dylan says: "So let Germany brew your beer, let Switzerland make your watch, let Asia assemble your phone. We will build your car." Dylan's Super Bowl commercial generated controversy and pieces discussing the implications of his words, and whether the singer had "" to corporate interests.

In 2013 and 2014, auction house sales demonstrated the high cultural value attached to Dylan's mid-1960s work and the record prices that collectors were willing to pay for artefacts from this period. In December 2013, the which Dylan had played at the fetched $965,000, the second highest price paid for a guitar. In June 2014, Dylan's hand-written lyrics of "Like a Rolling Stone", his 1965 hit single, fetched $2 million dollars at auction, a record for a popular music manuscript.

A massive 960 page, thirteen and a half pound edition of Dylan's lyrics, The Lyrics: Since 1962 was published by in the fall of 2014. The book was edited by literary critic , Julie Nemrow and Lisa Nemrow, to offer variant versions of Dylan's songs, sourced from out-takes and live performances. A limited edition of 50 books, signed by Dylan, was priced at $5,000. "It's the biggest, most expensive book we've ever published, as far as I know," said Jonathan Karp, Simon & Schuster's president and publisher.

A comprehensive edition of the Basement Tapes song recorded by Dylan and the Band in 1967 was released as The Basement Tapes Complete in November 2014. These 138 tracks in a six-CD box form Volume 11 of Dylan's Bootleg Series. The 1975 album, The Basement Tapes, had contained just 24 tracks from the material which Dylan and the Band had recorded at their homes in Woodstock, New York in 1967. Subsequently, had circulated on bootleg records. The sleeve notes for the new box set are by , author of Million Dollar Bash: Bob Dylan, the Band, and the Basement Tapes.

Shadows in the Night, Fallen Angels and Triplicate[] In February 2015, Dylan released , featuring ten songs written between 1923 and 1963, which have been described as part of the . All the songs on the album were recorded by but both critics and Dylan himself cautioned against seeing the record as a collection of "Sinatra covers." Dylan explained, "I don't see myself as covering these songs in any way. They've been covered enough. Buried, as a matter a fact. What me and my band are basically doing is uncovering them. Lifting them out of the grave and bringing them into the light of day." In an interview, Dylan said he had been thinking about making this record since hearing Willie Nelson's 1978 album . Dylan's first foray into this material was in 2001 when he recorded 's "" for the third season of .

Shadows In the Night received favorable reviews, scoring 82 on the critical aggregator Metacritic, which indicates "universal acclaim". Critics praised the restrained instrumental backings and the quality of Dylan's singing. Bill Prince in commented: "A performer who's had to hear his influence in virtually every white pop recording made since he debuted his own self-titled album back in 1962 imagines himself into the songs of his pre-rock'n'roll early youth." The album debuted at number one in the in its first week of release.

, consisting of previously unreleased material from the three albums Dylan recorded between January 1965 and March 1966: Bringing It All Back Home, Highway 61 Revisited and Blonde on Blonde was released in November 2015. The set was released in three formats: a 2-CD "Best Of" version, a 6-CD "Deluxe edition", and an 18-CD "Collector's Edition" in a limited edition of 5,000 units. On Dylan's website the "Collector's Edition" was described as containing "every single note recorded by Bob Dylan in the studio in 1965/1966." The critical aggregator website Metacritic awarded Cutting Edge a score of 99, indicating universal acclaim. The Best of the Cutting Edge entered the Top Rock Albums chart at number one on November 18, based on its first-week sales.

The sale of Dylan's extensive archive of about 6,000 items of memorabilia to the and the was announced on March 2, 2016. It was reported the sale price was "an estimated $15 million to $20 million". The archive comprises notebooks, drafts of Dylan lyrics, recordings, and correspondence. The archive will be housed at Helmerich Center for American Research, a facility at the .

Dylan released —described as "a direct continuation of the work of 'uncovering' the Great Songbook that he began on last year's Shadows In the Night"—in May. The album contained twelve songs by classic songwriters such as , and , eleven of which had been recorded by Sinatra. Jim Farber wrote in : "Tellingly, [Dylan] delivers these songs of love lost and cherished not with a burning passion but with the wistfulness of experience. They're memory songs now, intoned with a present sense of commitment. Released just four days ahead of his 75th birthday, they couldn't be more age-appropriate." The album received a score of 79 on critical aggregator website Metacritic, denoting "generally favorable reviews".

A massive 36-CD collection, , including every known recording of Bob Dylan's 1966 concert tour was released in November 2016. The recordings commence with the concert in White Plains New York on February 5, 1966, and end with the concert in London on May 27. The New York Times reported most of the concerts had "never been heard in any form", and described the set as "a monumental addition to the corpus".

Dylan released a triple album of a further 30 recordings of classic American songs, , in March 2017. Dylan's 38th studio album was recorded in and features his touring band. Dylan posted a long interview on his website to promote the album, and was asked if this material was an exercise in nostalgia. "Nostalgic? No I wouldn't say that. It's not taking a trip down memory lane or longing and yearning for the good old days or fond memories of what's no more. A song like "" is not a way back when song, it doesn't emulate the past, it's attainable and down to earth, it's in the here and now." The album was awarded a score of 84 on critical aggregator website Metacritic, signifying "universal acclaim". Critics praised the thoroughness of Dylan's exploration of the great American songbook, though, in the opinion of : "For all its easy charms, Triplicate labours its point to the brink of overkill. After five albums' worth of croon toons, this feels like a fat full stop on a fascinating chapter."

The next edition of Dylan's Bootleg Series revisited Dylan's "Born Again" Christian period of 1979 to 1981, which was described by Rolling Stone as "an intense, wildly controversial time that produced three albums and some of the most confrontational concerts of his long career". Reviewing the box set, , comprising 8 CDs and 1 DVD. in The New York Times, wrote, "Decades later, what comes through these recordings above all is Mr. Dylan's unmistakable fervor, his sense of mission. The studio albums are subdued, even tentative, compared with what the songs became on the road. Mr. Dylan's voice is clear, cutting and ever improvisational; working the crowds, he was emphatic, committed, sometimes teasingly combative. And the band tears into the music." Trouble No More includes a DVD of a film directed by Jennifer Lebeau consisting of live footage of Dylan's gospel performances interspersed with sermons delivered by actor . The box set album received an aggregate score of 84 on the critical website Metacritic, indicating "universal acclaim".

Dylan made a contribution to the compilation EP , a collection of reimagined wedding songs for the community in April 2018. The album was funded by and the songs are intended to function as "wedding anthems for same-sex couples". Dylan recorded the 1929 song "", changing the gender pronoun to "He's Funny That Way". The song has previously been recorded by and Frank Sinatra.

Also in April 2018, The New York Times announced that Dylan was launching Heaven's Door, a range of three whiskeys: a straight rye, a straight bourbon and a "double-barreled" whiskey. Dylan has been involved in both the creation and the marketing of the range. The Times described the venture as "Mr. Dylan's entry into the booming celebrity-branded spirits market, the latest career twist for an artist who has spent five decades confounding expectations."

On November 2, 2018, Dylan released as Volume 14 in the Bootleg Series. The set comprises all Dylan's recordings for his 1975 album , and was issued as a single CD and also as a six-CD Deluxe Edition. The box set album received an aggregate score of 93 on the critical website Metacritic, indicating "universal acclaim".

released the movie Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story by Martin Scorsese on June 12, 2019, describing the film as "Part documentary, part concert film, part fever dream". The Scorsese film received an aggregate score of 88 on critical website Metacritic, indicating "universal acclaim". The film sparked controversy because of the way it deliberately mixed documentary footage filmed during the Rolling Thunder Revue in the fall of 1975 with fictitious characters and invented stories.

Coinciding with the film release, a box set of 14 CDs, , was released by Columbia Records. The set comprises five full Dylan performances from the tour and recently discovered tapes from Dylan's tour rehearsals. The box set received an aggregate score of 89 on the critical website Metacritic, indicating "universal acclaim".

The next instalment of Dylan's Bootleg Series, , was released on November 1. The 3-CD set comprises outtakes from Dylan's albums John Wesley Harding and Nashville Skyline, and songs that Dylan recorded with Johnny Cash in Nashville in 1969 and with in 1970. Travelin' Thru received an aggregate score of 88 on the critical website Metacritic, indicating "universal acclaim".

2020s[] On March 26, 2020, Dylan released a seventeen-minute track "" on his YouTube channel, revolving around the . Dylan posted a statement: "This is an unreleased song we recorded a while back that you might find interesting. Stay safe, stay observant and may God be with you." reported on April 8 that "Murder Most Foul" had topped the Billboard Rock Digital Song Sales Chart. This was the first time that Dylan had scored a number one song on a pop chart under his own name.

Three weeks later, on April 17, 2020, Dylan released another new song, "", on his YouTube channel. The title is a quote from Section 51 of poem "". On May 7, Dylan released a third single, "", accompanied by the announcement that "Murder Most Foul", "I Contain Multitudes" and "False Prophet" would all appear on a forthcoming double album, , to be released on June 19. This will be his first album of original material since 2012.

Never Ending Tour[] Main article: Bob Dylan performing at Finsbury Park, London, June 18, 2011The Never Ending Tour commenced on June 7, 1988, and Dylan has played roughly 100 dates a year for the entirety of the 1990s and 2000s—a heavier schedule than most performers who started out in the 1960s. By April 2019, Dylan and his band had played more than 3,000 shows, anchored by long-time bassist , multi-instrumentalist Donnie Herron and guitarist . In October 2019, drummer joined the band. To the dismay of some of his audience, Dylan's performances remain unpredictable as he alters his arrangements and changes his vocal approach night after night. Critical opinion about Dylan's shows remains divided. Critics such as and Andy Gill have argued that Dylan has found a successful way to present his rich legacy of material. Others have criticized his live performances for mangling and spitting out "the greatest lyrics ever written so that they are effectively unrecognisable", and giving so little to the audience that "it is difficult to understand what he is doing on stage at all."

Dylan's performances in China in April 2011 generated controversy. Some criticised him for not making any explicit comment on the political situation in China, and for, allegedly, allowing the Chinese authorities to censor his set list. Others defended Dylan's performances, arguing that such criticism represented a misunderstanding of Dylan's art, and that no evidence for the censorship of Dylan's set list existed. In response to these allegations, Dylan posted a statement on his website: "As far as censorship goes, the Chinese government had asked for the names of the songs that I would be playing. There's no logical answer to that, so we sent them the set lists from the previous 3 months. If there were any songs, verses or lines censored, nobody ever told me about it and we played all the songs that we intended to play."

In 2019, Dylan undertook two tours in Europe. The first commenced in Düsseldorf, Germany, on March 31, and ended in Valencia, Spain, on May 7. He played his 3000th show of the Never Ending Tour on April 19, 2019, in . Dylan's second tour began in Bergen, Norway, on June 21, and ended in Kilkenny, Ireland, on July 14. In the fall of 2019 Dylan toured the USA, commencing in Irvine, California on October 11 and ending in Washington D.C. on December 8.

In October 2019, Dylan's touring company indicated that he would play 14 concerts in Japan in April 2020. However, on March 12, 2020, it was announced that these scheduled shows had been canceled due to the .

Visual art[] The cover of Dylan's album Self Portrait (1970) is a reproduction of a painting of a face by Dylan. Another of his paintings is reproduced on the cover of the 1974 album Planet Waves. In 1994 published Drawn Blank, a book of Dylan's drawings. In 2007, the first public exhibition of Dylan's paintings, The Drawn Blank Series, opened at the Kunstsammlungen in , Germany; it showcased more than 200 watercolors and made from the original drawings. The exhibition coincided with the publication of Bob Dylan: The Drawn Blank Series, which includes 170 reproductions from the series. From September 2010 until April 2011, the exhibited 40 large-scale acrylic paintings by Dylan, The Brazil Series.

In July 2011, a leading contemporary art gallery, , announced their representation of Dylan's paintings. An exhibition of Dylan's art, The Asia Series, opened at the Gagosian Madison Avenue Gallery on September 20, displaying Dylan's paintings of scenes in China and the Far East. The New York Times reported that "some fans and Dylanologists have raised questions about whether some of these paintings are based on the singer's own experiences and observations, or on photographs that are widely available and were not taken by Mr. Dylan." The Times pointed to close resemblances between Dylan's paintings and historic photos of Japan and China, and photos taken by and . Art critic has defended Dylan's artistic practice, arguing: "Ever since the birth of photography, painters have used it as the basis for their works: and and other favorite artists—even —all took or used photos as sources for their art, sometimes barely altering them." The confirmed that Dylan had licensed the reproduction rights of these photographs.

Dylan's second show at the Gagosian Gallery, Revisionist Art, opened in November 2012. The show consisted of thirty paintings, transforming and satirizing popular magazines, including and . In February 2013, Dylan exhibited the New Orleans Series of paintings at the in Milan. In August 2013, Britain's in London hosted Dylan's first major UK exhibition, Face Value, featuring twelve pastel portraits.

In November 2013, the in London mounted Mood Swings, an exhibition in which Dylan displayed seven wrought iron gates he had made. In a statement released by the gallery, Dylan said, "I've been around iron all my life ever since I was a kid. I was born and raised in iron ore country, where you could breathe it and smell it every day. Gates appeal to me because of the negative space they allow. They can be closed but at the same time they allow the seasons and breezes to enter and flow. They can shut you out or shut you in. And in some ways there is no difference."

In November 2016, the Halcyon Gallery featured a collection of drawings, watercolors and acrylic works by Dylan. The exhibition, The Beaten Path, depicted American landscapes and urban scenes, inspired by Dylan's travels across the USA. The show was reviewed by and . In October 2018, the Halcyon Gallery mounted an exhibition of Dylan's drawings, Mondo Scripto. The works consisted of Dylan hand-written lyrics of his songs, with each song illustrated by a drawing.

Since 1994, Dylan has published .

Discography[] Main articles: and Bibliography[] Main article: Dylan has published Tarantula, a work of ; Chronicles: Volume One, the first part of his memoirs; several books of the lyrics of his songs, and eight books of his art. He has also been the subject of numerous biographies and critical studies.

Personal life[] Romantic relationships[] Suze Rotolo[] Dylan's first serious relationship was with artist Suze Rotolo, a daughter of radicals. According to Dylan, "She was the most erotic thing I'd ever seen... The air was suddenly filled with banana leaves. We started talking and my head started to spin." Rotolo was photographed arm-in-arm with Dylan on the cover of his album The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan. Critics have connected Rotolo to some of Dylan's early love songs, including "." The relationship ended in 1964. In 2008, Rotolo published a memoir about her life in Greenwich Village and relationship with Dylan in the 1960s, A Freewheelin' Time.

Joan Baez[] When Joan Baez first met Dylan in April 1961, she had already released her and was acclaimed as the "Queen of Folk". On hearing Dylan perform his song "", Baez later said, "I never thought anything so powerful could come out of that little toad." In July 1963, Baez invited Dylan to join her on stage at the Newport Folk Festival, setting the scene for similar duets over the next two years. By the time of Dylan's 1965 tour of the U.K, their romantic relationship had begun to fizzle out, as captured in D. A. Pennebaker's documentary film Don't Look Back. Baez later toured with Dylan as a performer on his Rolling Thunder Revue in 1975–76, and sang four songs with him on the live album of the tour, Bob Dylan Live 1975, The Rolling Thunder Revue. Baez appeared with Dylan in the one-hour TV special Hard Rain, filmed at , , in May 1976. Baez also starred as "The Woman In White" in the film Renaldo and Clara (1978), directed by Dylan and filmed during the Rolling Thunder Revue. They performed together at the Peace Sunday anti-nuclear concert in 1982. Dylan and Baez toured together again in 1984 with .

Baez recalled her relationship with Dylan in Martin Scorsese's documentary film No Direction Home (2005). Baez wrote about Dylan in two autobiographies—admiringly in Daybreak (1968), and less admiringly in And A Voice to Sing With (1987). Baez's relationship with Dylan is the subject of her song "", which has been described as "an acute portrait" of Dylan.

Sara Dylan[] Dylan married Sara Lownds, who had worked as a model and a secretary at , on November 22, 1965. Their first child, , was born on January 6, 1966, and they had three more children: Anna Lea (born July 11, 1967), Samuel Isaac Abram (born July 30, 1968), and (born December 9, 1969). Dylan also adopted Sara's daughter from a prior marriage, Maria Lownds (later Dylan, born October 21, 1961). Sara Dylan played the role of Clara in Dylan's film Renaldo and Clara (1978). Bob and Sara Dylan were divorced on June 29, 1977.

Maria married musician in 1988. Jakob became well known as the lead singer of the band in the 1990s. Jesse is a film director and business executive.

Carolyn Dennis[] Dylan married his backup singer Carolyn Dennis (often professionally known as Carol Dennis) on June 4, 1986. Desiree Gabrielle Dennis-Dylan, their daughter, was born on January 31, 1986. The couple divorced in October 1992. Their marriage and child remained a closely guarded secret until the publication of ' biography Down the Highway: The Life of Bob Dylan, in 2001.

Home[] When not touring, Dylan is believed to live primarily in , a promontory on the coast of , though he also owns property around the world.

Religious beliefs[] Growing up in Hibbing, Minnesota, Dylan and his family were part of the area's small, close-knit Jewish community and in May 1954 Dylan had his . Around the time of his 30th birthday, in 1971, Dylan visited , and also met Rabbi , founder of the New York-based .

During the late 1970s, Dylan converted to Christianity. In November 1978, guided by his friend Mary Alice Artes, Dylan made contact with the . Vineyard Pastor Kenn Gulliksen has recalled: "Larry Myers and Paul Emond went over to Bob's house and ministered to him. He responded by saying, 'Yes he did in fact want Christ in his life.' And he prayed that day and received the Lord." From January to March 1979, Dylan attended the Vineyard Bible study classes in .

By 1984, Dylan was distancing himself from the "" label. He told of Rolling Stone magazine: "I've never said I'm born again. That's just a media term. I don't think I've been an agnostic. I've always thought there's a superior power, that this is not the real world and that there's a world to come."

In 1997, he told of :

> Here's the thing with me and the religious thing. This is the flat-out truth: I find the religiosity and philosophy in the music. I don't find it anywhere else. Songs like "Let Me Rest on a Peaceful Mountain" or ""—that's my religion. I don't adhere to rabbis, preachers, evangelists, all of that. I've learned more from the songs than I've learned from any of this kind of entity. The songs are my lexicon. I believe the songs.

In an interview published in The New York Times on September 28, 1997, journalist Jon Pareles reported that "Dylan says he now subscribes to no organized religion."

Dylan has supported the movement, and has privately participated in Jewish religious events, including the Bar Mitzvahs of his sons and attending , a . In September 1989 and September 1991, he appeared on the Chabad . On in 2007 he attended Congregation Beth Tefillah, in , Georgia, where he was called to the for the sixth .

Dylan has continued to perform songs from his gospel albums in concert, occasionally covering traditional religious songs. He has also made passing references to his religious faith—such as in a 2004 interview with , when he told that "the only person you have to think twice about lying to is either yourself or to God." He also explained his constant touring schedule as part of a bargain he made a long time ago with the "chief commander—in this earth and in the world we can't see."

In a 2009 interview with promoting Dylan's Christmas LP, Christmas in the Heart, Flanagan commented on the "heroic performance" Dylan gave of "" and that he "delivered the song like a true believer". Dylan replied: "Well, I am a true believer."

Accolades[] Main article: President Obama presents Dylan with a Medal of Freedom, May 2012 announces the Nobel Prize in Literature 2016.Dylan has won many awards throughout his career including the 2016 , ten Grammy Awards, one Academy Award and one . He has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, , and . In May 2000, Dylan received the Polar Music Prize from Sweden's .

In June 2007, Dylan received the in the Arts category. Dylan received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in May 2012. In February 2015, Dylan accepted the award from the , in recognition of his philanthropic and artistic contributions to society. In November 2013, Dylan received the accolade of from the French education minister .

Nobel Prize in Literature[] The Nobel Prize committee announced on October 13, 2016, that it would be awarding Dylan the Nobel Prize in Literature "for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition." The New York Times reported: "Mr. Dylan, 75, is the first musician to win the award, and his selection on Thursday is perhaps the most radical choice in a history stretching back to 1901." Dylan remained silent for two weeks after receiving the award, and then told journalist that getting the award was "amazing, incredible. Whoever dreams about something like that?"

The Swedish Academy announced in November that Dylan would not travel to Stockholm for the Nobel Prize Ceremony due to "pre-existing commitments." At the in Stockholm on December 10, 2016, Dylan's speech was given by , U.S. Ambassador to Sweden. accepted Dylan's Nobel and performed his song "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall" to orchestral accompaniment.

On April 2, 2017, Academy secretary reported: "Earlier today the Swedish Academy met with Bob Dylan for a private ceremony [with no media present] in Stockholm, during which Dylan received his gold medal and diploma. Twelve members of the Academy were present. Spirits were high. Champagne was had. Quite a bit of time was spent looking closely at the gold medal, in particular the beautifully crafted back, an image of a young man sitting under a laurel tree who listens to the Muse. Taken from Virgil's Aeneid, the inscription reads: Inventas vitam iuvat excoluisse per artes, loosely translated as "And they who bettered life on earth by their newly found mastery."

Dylan's Nobel Lecture was posted on the Nobel prize website on June 5, 2017. The New York Times pointed out that, in order to collect the prize's eight million Swedish krona ($900,000), the Swedish Academy's rules stipulate the laureate "must deliver a lecture within six months of the official ceremony, which would have made Mr. Dylan's deadline June 10." Academy secretary Danius commented: "The speech is extraordinary and, as one might expect, eloquent. Now that the lecture has been delivered, the Dylan adventure is coming to a close." In his essay, Dylan writes about the impact that three important books made on him: 's , 's and 's . He concludes: "Our songs are alive in the land of the living. But songs are unlike literature. They're meant to be sung, not read. The words in Shakespeare's plays were meant to be acted on the stage. Just as lyrics in songs are meant to be sung, not read on a page. And I hope some of you get the chance to listen to these lyrics the way they were intended to be heard: in concert or on record or however people are listening to songs these days. I return once again to Homer, who says, 'Sing in me, oh Muse, and through me tell the story'."

Legacy[] Dylan has been described as one of the most influential figures of the 20th century, musically and culturally. He was included in the , where he was called "master poet, caustic social critic and intrepid, guiding spirit of the counterculture generation." In 2008, the Pulitzer Prize jury awarded him a special citation for "his profound impact on popular music and American culture, marked by lyrical compositions of extraordinary poetic power."President Barack Obama said of Dylan in 2012, "There is not a bigger giant in the history of American music." For 20 years, academics lobbied the Swedish Academy to give Dylan the Nobel Prize in Literature. He received the award in 2016, making Dylan the first musician to be awarded the Literature Prize. , a member of the Nobel Committee, described Dylan's place in literary history:

> ...a singer worthy of a place beside the Greek bards, beside , beside the Romantic visionaries, beside the kings and queens of the blues, beside the forgotten masters of brilliant .

Rolling Stone has ranked Dylan at number one in its 2015 list of the , and listed "Like A Rolling Stone" as the "Greatest Song of all Time" in their 2011 list. In 2008, it was estimated that Dylan had sold about 120 million albums worldwide.

Initially modeling his writing style on the songs of Woody Guthrie, the blues of , and what he termed the "architectural forms" of songs, Dylan added increasingly sophisticated lyrical techniques to the folk music of the early 1960s, infusing it "with the intellectualism of classic literature and poetry." suggested that Dylan's early compositions virtually took over the folk genre: "[Dylan's] early songs were very rich ... with strong melodies. 'Blowin' in the Wind' has a really strong melody. He so enlarged himself through the folk background that he incorporated it for a while. He defined the genre for a while."

When Dylan made his move from acoustic folk and blues music to a rock backing, the mix became more complex. For many critics, his greatest achievement was the cultural synthesis exemplified by his mid-1960s trilogy of albums—Bringing It All Back Home, Highway 61 Revisited and Blonde on Blonde. In 's words:

> Between late 1964 and the middle of 1966, Dylan created a body of work that remains unique. Drawing on folk, blues, country, R&B, rock'n'roll, gospel, British beat, , and Beat poetry, and , advertising jargon and social commentary, Fellini and , he forged a coherent and original artistic voice and vision. The beauty of these albums retains the power to shock and console.

Dylan's lyrics began to receive detailed scrutiny from academics and poets as early as 1998, when Stanford University sponsored the first international academic conference on Bob Dylan to be held in the United States. In 2004, , Classics professor at , created a freshman seminar titled "Dylan" "to put the artist in context of not just popular culture of the last half-century, but the tradition of classical poets like and ."

Literary critic published , a 500-page analysis of Dylan's work, and has said: "I'd not have written a book about Dylan, to stand alongside my books on and , and , if I didn't think Dylan a genius of and with language. Former British suggested his lyrics should be studied in schools. The critical consensus that Dylan's song writing was his outstanding creative achievement was articulated by where his entry stated: "Hailed as the of his generation, Dylan... set the standard for lyric writing."

Dylan's voice also received critical attention. Robert Shelton described his early vocal style as "a rusty voice suggesting Guthrie's old performances, etched in gravel like Dave Van Ronk's." , in his tribute, "", described Dylan's singing as "a voice like sand and glue." His voice continued to develop as he began to work with rock'n'roll backing bands; critic Michael Gray described the sound of Dylan's vocal work on "Like a Rolling Stone" as "at once young and jeeringly cynical." As Dylan's voice aged during the 1980s, for some critics, it became more expressive. Christophe Lebold writes in the journal , "Dylan's more recent broken voice enables him to present a world view at the sonic surface of the songs—this voice carries us across the landscape of a broken, fallen world. The anatomy of a broken world in "Everything is Broken" (on the album Oh Mercy) is but an example of how the thematic concern with all things broken is grounded in a concrete sonic reality."

Dylan is considered a seminal influence on many musical genres. As Edna Gundersen stated in USA Today: "Dylan's musical DNA has informed nearly every simple twist of pop since 1962." Punk musician praised Dylan for having "laid down the template for lyric, tune, seriousness, spirituality, depth of rock music." Other major musicians who acknowledged Dylan's importance include Johnny Cash, , John Lennon, , , Neil Young, Bruce Springsteen, , , , Patti Smith, , Joni Mitchell, and . Dylan significantly contributed to the initial success of both the Byrds and the Band: the Byrds achieved chart success with their version of "" and the , while the Band were Dylan's backing band , recorded The Basement Tapes with him in 1967 and featured three previously unreleased Dylan songs on their .

Some critics have dissented from the view of Dylan as a visionary figure in popular music. In his book Awopbopaloobop Alopbamboom, objected: "I can't take the vision of Dylan as seer, as teenage messiah, as everything else he's been worshipped as. The way I see him, he's a minor talent with a major gift for self-hype." Australian critic credited Dylan with changing the persona of the rock star: "What cannot be disputed is that Dylan invented the arrogant, faux-cerebral posturing that has been the dominant style in rock since, with everyone from to educating themselves from the Dylan handbook."

Fellow musicians have also presented dissenting views. Joni Mitchell described Dylan as a "plagiarist" and his voice as "fake" in a 2010 interview in the , despite the fact that Mitchell had toured with Dylan in the past, and both artists have covered each others songs. Mitchell's comment led to discussions of Dylan's use of other people's material, both supporting and criticizing him. Talking to in Rolling Stone in 2012, Dylan responded to the allegation of plagiarism, including his use of Henry Timrod's verse in his album Modern Times, by saying that it was "part of the tradition."

If Dylan's work in the 1960s was seen as bringing intellectual ambition to popular music, critics in the 21st century described him as a figure who had greatly expanded the folk culture from which he initially emerged. Following the release of Todd Haynes' Dylan biopic I'm Not There, wrote in his 2007 review:

> Elvis might never have been born, but someone else would surely have brought the world rock 'n' roll. No such logic accounts for Bob Dylan. No iron law of history demanded that a would-be Elvis from Hibbing, Minnesota, would swerve through the Greenwich Village folk revival to become the world's first and greatest rock 'n' roll beatnik bard and then—having achieved fame and adoration beyond reckoning—vanish into a folk tradition of his own making.

When Dylan was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, The New York Times commented: "In choosing a popular musician for the literary world's highest honor, the Swedish Academy, which awards the prize, dramatically redefined the boundaries of literature, setting off a debate about whether song lyrics have the same artistic value as poetry or novels." Responses varied from the sarcasm of , who described it as "an ill conceived nostalgia award wrenched from the rancid prostates of senile, gibbering hippies", to the enthusiasm of who tweeted: "From to , song & poetry have been closely linked. Dylan is the brilliant inheritor of the bardic tradition. Great choice."

Archives and tributes[] Dylan's archive, comprising notebooks, song drafts, business contracts, recordings and movie out-takes, is held at the Gilcrease Museum's Helmerich Center for American Research in , which is also the home of the papers of Woody Guthrie. In 2017, the announced a design competition for a major Bob Dylan Center in Tulsa's Arts District. In 2018, the foundation announced that it had selected to design the building. The center is expected to open in 2021, and be located next to the facility dedicated to Guthrie.

In 2005, 7th Avenue East in Hibbing, Minnesota, the street on which Dylan lived from ages 6 to 18, received the honorary name Bob Dylan Drive. In the town of Hibbing, a -styled "star" is embedded in a sidewalk with the words Bob Dylan as well as a cursive-Z for Dylan's nickname Zimmy in youth. In 2006 a cultural pathway, Bob Dylan Way, was inaugurated in Duluth, Minnesota, the city where Dylan was born. The 1.8 mile path links "cultural and historically significant areas of downtown for the tourists."

In 2015, a massive Bob Dylan mural was unveiled in downtown Minneapolis, the city where Dylan attended university for a year. The mural was designed by Brazilian street artist .

Tribute albums[] The large number of tribute albums devoted to Dylan’s work demonstrates the significance of his song writing. Early in Dylan’s career, veteran folk singer recorded (1965). Joan Baez, who had mentored and promoted Dylan’s work, recorded the double album (1968) with Nashville backing musicians. English devoted an album to idiosyncratic interpretations of Dylan’s work, .

The released three albums of compilations of various artists covering Dylan songs: May Your Song Always Be Sung: The Songs of Bob Dylan, Volume 1 (1997), Volume 2 (2001) and Volume 3 (2003).

(2003) featured performances of Dylan songs by artists from a gospel background, including , and . The connection between Dylan’s career and was embodied in the four-CD album (2012), featuring contributions from 80 artists, including , , Patti Smith and .

Notes[] References[] Citations[] Sources[] External links[] Wikiquote has quotations related to: Listen to this article ()

This audio file was created from a revision of the article "Bob Dylan" dated November 6, 2008, and does not reflect subsequent edits to the article. ()Studio albumsLive albumsCompilationsRelatedFamily singles 196219631965196619671968196919701971197319741975 19761978197919801981198319841985198619881989199019911993199519982000200620072008200920102012201320201934–19401941–19501951–1960 1961–19701971–19801981–19901991–20002001–20102011–present1960s1970s1980s1990s2000s2010s1959–19791980–20002001–present1963–1990 1991–20002001–20102011–2020 (1990s)1990199119921993199419951996199719981999 (2000s)2000200120022003200420052006200720082009 Laureates of the for the Arts1980s1990s2000s2010s2016 laureates (United States) () (Colombia) (Japan) of the 1901–19251926–1950 1951–19751976–20002001–presentLaureates of the 1990s2000s2010s (Arts) – PerformersEarly influencesNon-performers (Ahmet Ertegun Award)Studio albumswith Bob DylanLive albumsCompilationsFilmsSinglesOther songsRelatedStudio albumsCompilations Songs and singlesRelated's SeasonsReleases [//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:CentralAutoLogin/start?type=1x1]Retrieved from "": Hidden categories: Bob Dylan discography - Wikipedia

Bob Dylan: 10 Greatest Songs - Rolling Stone

Sign in Welcome!Log into your accountyour usernameyour password Password recovery Recover your passwordyour email Sign inWelcome! Log into your accountyour usernameyour password Password recoveryRecover your passwordyour emailA password will be e-mailed to you. Bob Dylan Net Worth 2020: Age, Height, Weight, Wife, Kids, Bio-WikiBob Dylan [https://www.wealthypersons.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Bob-Dylan.jpg] Bob DylanCelebrated Name:Real Name/Full Name:Bob DylanGender:MaleAge:79 years oldBirth Date:24 May 1941Birth Place:Duluth, Minnesota, United StatesNationality:AmericanHeight:1.70 mWeight:63 kgSexual Orientation:StraightMarital Status:DivorcedWife/Spouse (Name):Carolyn Dennis (m. 1986–1992), Sara Dylan (m. 1965–1977)Children:Yes (Jakob Dylan, Jesse Dylan, Maria Dylan, Desiree Gabrielle Dennis-Dylan, Sam Dylan, Anna Dylan)Dating/Girlfriend (Name):N/AProfession:American singer-songwriter, author, and visual artistNet Worth in 2020:$200 millionLast Updated:May 2020Bob Dylan is a popular singer-songwriter from America, who is one of the most influential figures in music across the world. He is also a painter and author who have been awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. He has been active in his career for over five decades and has released a number of albums. Dylan is also a multi-instrumentalist and plays harmonica, guitar, and keyboards.

Maybe you know about Bob Dylan very well But do you know how old and tall is he, and what is his net worth in 2020? If you do not know, We have prepared this article about details of Bob Dylan’s short biography-wiki, career, professional life, personal life, today’s net worth, age, height, weight, and more facts. Well, if you’re ready, let’s start.

Table of Contents

Early Life Bob Dylan was born as “Robert Allen Zimmerman” in Duluth, Minnesota, on May 24, 1941. He is the son of Abram Zimmerman and Beatrice “Beatty” Stone.

He went to Hibbing High School and formed several bands when he was in school. He was interested in music when he was very young. He used to perform in various clubs during his teens.

Personal Life In 1965, Bob Dylan got married to Sarah Dylan. The couple had four children named Jesse Byron, Jakob Luke, Samuel Isaac Abram, and Anna Lea. They divorced in 1977. From 1986 to 1992, he was married to Carolyn Dennis. They have a daughter together. He has one more child.

Dylan was also in a romantic relationship with Suze Rotolo and Joan Baez. He converted to Christianity in the 1970s.

Age, Height, and Weight Being born on 24 May 1941, Bob Dylan is 79 years old as of today’s date 25th May 2020. His height is 1.70 m tall, and his weight is 63 kg.

Career In 1962, Bob Dylan released his self-titled debut album. He then released ‘The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, ’ which became a platinum album. In the 1960s, he released the albums ‘The Times They Are a-Changin’’, Another Side of Bob Dylan’, ‘Bringing It All Back Home,’ ‘Highway 61 Revisited’, ‘Blonde on Blonde,’ ‘John Wesley Harding’ and ‘Nashville Skyline.’

Dylan’s album ‘Self Portrait’ was released in 1970. In the same year, he released ‘New Morning.’ This was followed by the albums ‘Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid’, ‘Dylan,’ ‘Planet Waves,’ ‘Blood on the Tracks,’ ‘The Basement Tapes,’ ‘Desire,’ ‘Street-Legal,’ and ‘Slow Train Coming.’

In 1980, Dylan released ‘Saved.’ Other albums from the 1980s include ‘Shot of Love,’ ‘Infidels,’ ‘Empire Burlesque,’ ‘Knocked Out Loaded,’ ‘Down in the Groove,’ and ‘Oh Mercy.’ In the 1990s, he released ‘Under the Red Sky,’ ‘World Gone Wrong,’ and ‘Time Out of Mind.’

He has also released many albums in the 2000s and 2010s like ‘Modern Times,’ ‘Together Through Life,’ ‘Tempest,’ ‘Shadows in the Night,’ and ‘Fallen Angels.’ His most recent album, ‘Triplicate,’ was released in 2017. Dylan has also released 85 singles, 14 compilation albums, and 13 live albums.

Awards & Achievements In 2000, Bob Dylan won the Academy Award in the category of ‘Best Original Song.’ He is also the winner of the 2000 Golden Globe Awards and has won the GMA Dove Award in 1980. He is the winner of 11 Grammy Awards. In 1988, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He has won several honors, including Polar Music Prize, Presidential Medal of Freedom, Tom Paine Award, Prince of Asturias Award, and National Medal of Arts.

Net Worth & Salary of Bob Dylan in 2020 Bob Dylan Net Worth [https://www.wealthypersons.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Bob-Dylan-Net-Worth.jpg]Bob Dylan Net WorthAs of May 2020, Bob Dylan’s estimated net worth is more than $200 million. He inherited this wealth from the sale of his albums. He has released 38 studio albums, 29 tribute albums, 22 box sets, and 26 EPs. Additionally, his wealth also comes from writing songs. He is also an author and has written several books like ‘Tarantula,’ ‘The Nobel Lecture,’ ‘The Lyrics: Since 1962’, and ‘Lyrics.’ He has also written art books like ‘Drawn Blank,’ ‘The Brazil Series,’ ‘Bob Dylan: Face Value,’ and ‘The Beaten Path.’

Bob Dylan is one of the most renowned singers in the world. He is known as one of the most influential figures in the 20th century. He is also a visual artist and has released books on drawings. His lyrics include the influences of literary, social, and philosophical. In June 1988, he commenced the Never-Ending Tour.

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