Bob Dylan

Overview

Born
May 24, 1941 · Duluth, Minnesota, USA
Birth name
Robert Allen Zimmerman
Nicknames
- Bobby
- Zimmy
- Zimbo
- The Voice of Protest
- The Voice of a Generation
- The Bard
- Blind Boy Grunt
Height
5′ 6½″ (1.69 m)

Biography

Family

Spouses
Children

Trademarks

Distinctive voice
Depressing yet witty lyrics
Lyrics about important social issues
Harmonica
Curly hair

Trivia

Although he had several stalkers over the years, perhaps the most dogged was the self-titled Dylanologist, A.J. Weberman. This obsessed fan started the "Dylan Liberation Front," protesting that Dylan had sold out and has abandoned his political causes (in reality, Dylan was never very political). Weberman staged several "protests" in front of Dylan's home, rooted through Dylan's garbage repeatedly, and accused Dylan of heroin use. After Weberman pushed aside Dylan's wife, Sara, and broke into Dylan's home, Dylan lost his patience and defeated his considerably beefier stalker in a fight.
Despite rumors that he hates rap music, Dylan cites several rappers as having "brilliant minds" and, in his "Chronicles" states that he is a big fan of several Old School rappers, particularly Public Enemy, who were one of his favorite artists of that era. Many see an early connection to rap in Dylan's music, particularly the song "Subterranean Homesick Blues". However, Dylan apparently dislikes the commercialism of much modern hip-hop and warned popular rappers that "sometimes less is more". When he hosted "Bob Dylan's Radio Theme Time Hour", during his "Mother's Day" hour in 2008, Dylan played "Momma Said Knock You Out" by LL Cool J and was heard to rap along with the first verse. LL Cool J himself was thrilled when he heard this.
Dylan once visited artist and filmmaker Andy Warhol when he came to pick up actress/model Edie Sedgwick, whom he was dating at the time, and found himself the subject of Warhol's movie camera. Dylan responded by picking up an original Warhol painting and taking it with him "for payment" for being filmed, which he used first as a dartboard, then traded for a sofa (he apologized to Warhol in a press interview years later for his attitude).
For the recording of the famous, rambling song "Rainy Day Women # 12 & 35" (with its chorus of "everybody must get stoned!"), Dylan took the group of mostly straight-laced, professional session musicians he was recording with, got them very drunk and had them smoke pot. When they returned, he had each man play a different instrument to what they usually played. After this went on, somebody asked Dylan when they were actually going to record the song, Dylan countered, "That was it."
1964: Introduced The Beatles to pot-smoking, during their first meeting in New York; each told the press later, "We just laughed all night.".

Quotes

I think of a hero as someone who understands the degree of responsibility that comes with his freedom.
What's money? A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night and in between does what he wants to do.
When you feel in your gut what you are and then dynamically pursue it
- don't back down and don't give up - then you're going to mystify a
lot of folks.
The radio makes hideous sounds.
What good are fans? You can't eat applause for breakfast. You can't sleep with it.