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{dil'-in}
Bob Dylan, born Robert Allen Zimmerman in Duluth, Minn., May
24, 1941, is a singer, songwriter, and guitarist. Dylan was
perhaps the most influential voice of the protest era of the
early 1960s and is today one of the leading musicians in the
field of folk rock. The son of a small-town storekeeper, Dylan
taught himself to play the piano, guitar, and harmonica. Influenced
by Woody Guthrie and the blues genre, he began his career
as a folksinger in 1960. His appearances in New York City's
Greenwich Village coffeehouses soon earned him a recording
contract. His song "Blowin' in the Wind" became
the anthem of the civil rights movement, and the folk protest
songs he wrote from 1961 to 1964 seemed to express the hopes
and angers of his generation. In 1965, Dylan turned to rock
music, and concert tours with his new rock band made him an
international celebrity.
Dylan's 5-record set, Biograph (1985)--which contains over
50 of his songs written from 1961 to 1981--chronicles the
changes in Dylan's musical attitudes: fiery and impassioned
in the early years; more personal, withdrawn, and apolitical
as the years wear on. Dylan has published a prose and poetry
assemblage, Tarantula (1971), has acted in and directed films,
and continues to tour and record.
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