May 15, 2001. Copyright, 2001, Graphic News. All rights reserved

Bob Dylan -- The Times They Are a Changin'
By Mark Samms

LONDON, May 15, Graphic News:  IS Bob Dylan destined to be remembered as a sixties poet and visionary who peaked too soon and ended his career as a jobbing performer with a hankering for country and blues?

That question would receive a resounding "yes" from thousands (perhaps millions) of disaffected fans who hung on Dylan's every tortured word during his genesis as a folk singer at the start of the sixties, when he made an entire generation forget about the music and listen to the words.

Enigmatic, provocative and uncomfortable, his early songs seemed to evoke the cares and concerns of everyone living in the shadow of nuclear war. But the quality of his thinking and composing were such that he set a pace that was impossible to maintain.

In the late sixties, his writing became flabby and undistinguished, and though he has occasionally provided flashes of his earlier brilliance, most admirers feel that as he approaches his 60th birthday, his best days are behind him.

Dylan was born Robert Allen Zimmerman on May 24, 1941, in Duluth, Minnesota, the grandchild of Jewish-Russian immigrants. Early influences included Elvis Presley and Jerry Lee Lewis and his schoolboy ambition was to join Little Richard, but he was soon listening to the work of country and folk pioneers like Hank Williams and Woody Guthrie.

In 1961, he dropped out of university and headed for New York with two ambitions -- to join the blossoming Greenwich Village folk music scene and to meet Guthrie, who was in hospital with a rare disease of the nervous system. He succeeded on both counts, becoming well-known in Greenwich coffee bars and clubs, and visiting Guthrie at his bedside where he performed the singer's own songs for him. He began writing his own songs at a furious pace -- including a tribute to his hero entitled Song to Woody -- and adopted the stage name Bob Dylan.

The following year he was signed by Columbia Records and released his first album. His second, The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, contained three of the best-known songs of the sixties -- Blowin' in the Wind, A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall, and Don't Think Twice It's All Right -- and catapulted him to worldwide fame.

His 1964  album, The Times They Are a Changin' was also hugely successful. Then came Another Side of Bob Dylan, in which he indicated, via one track in particular, It Ain't Me Babe, that he was tiring of the protest movement. He split with long-time girlfriend Suze Rotolo and began a relationship with folk singer Joan Baez.

Gradually he moved away from the constraints imposed by acoustic production and recorded an album with a nine-piece band. One of the tracks, Mr Tambourine Man, became a hit by The Byrds and the "folk-rock" genre was born. Fans disliked his new approach and he was booed off stage at the Newport Folk Festival. His relationship with Baez crumbled and he eventually married Sara Lowndes.

In 1966 he toured England for the first time, but the demands and expectations placed upon his 25-year-old shoulders were beginning to show. A near-fatal motorcycle accident in July proved a blessing in disguise and he retreated to his home at Woodstock with his wife and their baby son Jesse.

When Nashville Skyline was released in 1969 its pure country tracks were reviled by former fans and admirers who felt Dylan had betrayed the poetic, apocalyptic style that made him unique. The following year Self Portrait merely compounded his slide in popularity.

Switching to movies, he starred in Sam Peckinpah's Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, but it was not a happy experience and his efforts met with mixed reviews. Artistic achievement did return, but at a price -- he and Sara were heading for divorce and the pain of his turbulent personal life was reflected in the album Blood on the Tracks, hailed as a return to the old Dylan.

In 1997 Dylan was one of five recipients of his country's most prestigious artistic awards, the Kennedy Center Honours. And the honours continue -- earlier this year he was awarded an Oscar for Best Song, Things Have Changed, from Wonderboys.

So, despite the misgivings of many of his former fans, it would be foolish to dismiss Bob Dylan as a has-been.
/ENDS

Sources: www.bobdylanbiography.com, www.rollingstone.com